Debbie's Crafts and a Craft Show Weekend

Set of 2 Black Wine Glasses painted by Debbie

My mother-in-law Debbie is an amazing artist.

She will be selling her glassware and other crocheted crafts at a craft sale in Weirton, WV this Saturday, August 3rd from 9am-4pm.  The craft show is at the Voice of Pentecost Church, 106 Mendenhall St, Weirton, WV, 26062.

Set of 4 Blue Wine Glasses painted by Debbie

This is another set of wine glasses that she will have for sale.

Crocheted Cast Iron Pot Holders

Debbie came up with crocheted cast iron pot holders since I was always burning myself when cooking.  She's even made some "double potholders" for the cast iron dutch oven pans that have a small handle on each side of the pot.  We usually have these items at our coffee stand at the farmer's market, but Debbie is taking these to sell this weekend.

Ouchie hot/cold bags

One of the first things that Debbie made for the kids and I were "ouchie" bags for all their scrapes and bruises.  She even makes really large ones that are amazing to heat up!  I used them all the time for that certain time of the month.  I still use them when I have extra back pain/bladder issues.  She has ouchie bags made in both fun kid prints and more feminine colors.  You could even order some in manly colors for those men in your life!  (If she doesn't have any large ones with her, you could place an order for those as well!)

A Wine Basket

Debbie has been working on some baskets for those looking ahead to the holidays or fall weddings.  Here are some green wine glasses already wrapped in a basket.  She even found cute cordial wine glasses.  The following set is my favorite:

Cordial Wine Glass Basket Set


Though I might have to fight some of you for the following green tinted glasses with purple flowers! (Afterall purple is my favorite color):

Light Green glasses with Purple Flowers

 Though these pink tinted ones are gorgeous as well!

Pink Tinted Wine Glasses with Pink Rose Buds

Debbie whips up crocheted items whenever she "relaxes" in front of the television.  Each of the little girls have different versions of the following bear:

Crocheted Brown Stuff Bear by Debbie


We sell a lot of Debbie's finger puppets at the farmer's market as well:

Crocheted Finger Puppets by Debbie


One of her other creative items are "Beanless Buddies"-these are former beanie babies stuffed with catnip for your cats' enjoyment.  I could smell the catnip in them when I took them out of the storage bags she has them stored in.  Your cats will LOVE these things!:

Beanless Buddie Cat Toys by Debbie

I will post more of Debbie's crafts in another blog post this fall.  Feel free to contact me if you would like to place an order for presents-either for a loved one or treat yourself!  If you go shopping this weekend, let Debbie know you found her via this blogpost.  As long as you are in Weirton, you should also check out the amazing TCA Consignment Sale that I blogged about earlier this week!

At some point we will probably try to get an etsy shop set up for Debbie.  It's just hard right now because she doesn't have internet in her house and she is working full time at the nursing home that we were blessed to find for her mother, Grandma Mercy.

Wishing you the sweetness of warm August Days and a blessed summer month,

Stephanie

TCA Consignment Sale

Red Dress Coat from Consignment Sale

So, as our recession digs deeper and taxes grow higher I rarely buy brand new items anymore.

I "accidentally" missed my turn three years ago and while turning around I saw a sign advertising the TCA Consignment Sale.

It has helped make being frugal so much easier!

Twice a year I can shop for name brand clothes, shoes, books, toys, furniture, etc, all in one location!  (For those needing baby items, like strollers, cribs, etc, this is the place for you as well.)

In fact for the previous two years I have actually had all my Christmas shopping for the five kids completed after the Pre-Sale for Consignors.  It has made Christmas time with our busy retail store so much easier!!!  I didn't have that luck this year, but we did manage to find some more Scooby Doo items for Katie's birthday theme and Dora the Explorer/Diego for Anna's September birthday.  (Now we just have to make the cakes-and remember to wrap items earlier than five minutes prior to the time I want them to open them!)

Polka Dot Church dress for Libby

I meant to get pictures of all the things I was consigning plus the actual gymnasium, but forgot to do so.  I also forgot to get pictures before the big kids put all their new clothes away.
Here's a few of the items that I got for the younger kids though.  (Because every girl needs a few dresses that aren't hand me downs from her big sisters, of course.)

3 more dresses for Libby

I am having trouble with my other pictures downloading tonight, but they have more than just clothes.  We bought three video games tonight.  In the past we have bought dvds and a video game system.

We also invested in new backpacks.  Jessie is excited about her latest backpack-both Katie and Anna commented about how pretty it is when they saw it as well!

Jessie's "new" backpack-in excellent condition

Unfortunately, unless we end up finding the box of size 11 and 12 shoes packed away in storage, I may have to end up buying new shoes for Katie.  No one was selling that size of shoes this week at the TCA Consignment Sale, but we did score a pair of black cow girl boots for Jessie for $4.00.  (If I do have to buy new shoes because I can't find used ones at any of our local resale stores, I will shop at the Payless Shoe Store first: best deals in town plus they give a military discount of 10% on top of their sales.)

So, grab your rubbermade containers, laundry baskets, thirty-one totes and reusuable shopping bags and/or empty boxes and head over to the TCA Consignment Sale for some back to school/winter clothing deals.  (They do have some laundry baskets you can shop with, but there is a limited number so the baskets may not be available if there are a lot of people shopping.)

If you go and like what you see, remember that consignors get to shop first so sign up to sell stuff at their April  spring sale!  Remember that all that hard work of tagging stuff goes to help give financial scholarships for students in need to get a Christian education and to support the Tri-State Christian Academy.

The TCA Consignment Sale is located at: Mercy Baptist Church, 3474 Pennsylvania Ave, Weirton, WV 26062.  The 2013 Back to School Sale hours are: 9am-3pm both July 31st and August 1st, 9am-7pm August 2nd, and from 9am-3-pm on August 3rd-when many items will sell for half price.

Nothing to disclaim: This is not a paid endorsement.  Nor do I get an extra percentage of my sales-same 60/40 split on all items I sell.  I am simply a happy consignor and shopper!  I greatly apologize that I didn't have better pictures-hopefully next time!

Wishing you the sweet joy and excitement associated with the beginning of a new school year,

Always,

Stephanie

Frugal Kitchen Remodel-Post #1

Frugal Kitchen Remodel

So, Jason has been a busy, busy man!

I went away with the kids to visit family for the past few weeks.  He decided to "flip our kitchen and living room" while I was away.

I will go into all the details at a later time, but he painted the above cabinets that he got free from a friend who is also remodeling their kitchen.  My dream is to eventually to paint all the wood panelling in the hopes of it one day looking like a Tuscany farm kitchen.  We still have to add back splashes.  (Not to mention me reorganizing items as I cook/use this new space.)

The sink and counter are from Ikea, then he found a similar faucet to what I liked via the web.

  The white dishwasher came with the house when we bought it.

Frugal kitchen-looking towards our fireplace

 The table in the left hand corner (by the door) was free from a local church.  The pine cabinets sitting on it for storage are being reused from our old kitchen.  The bench I got for $10 from The Urban Mission Thrift Store.  The table (which has leaves that extend/tuck underneath it) and chair we bought at a local antiques store a couple of years ago.  The top needs to have new veneer added, but that's a project for another day (or year).

Frugal kitchen remodel-looking towards the "new living room"

The white cupboard is actually a very light blue.  We bought this piece (along with the phone table you can see just past it in the door way to our now living room) at a garage sale six years ago when moved into the house.  We scored them along with a matching third piece for around $75 or so.  Right now he still has the kids small toy cubby in front of some more of our old pine cabinets.  He decided not to paint anymore cabinets until I came home and we decided what to do with them.  I will probably paint the walls before I decide whether I want to leave the cabinets as is or paint them either blue or white to match the sink cabinets.

So, while I haven't been able to post any Hopedale Market updates, it's just because we've been busy....Jason said that the only reason he has survived our extended time away from him (without getting the blues) is because he's had this massive project to focus on.

It will be nice to have a bigger space for entertaining when we have company over.  It will also be nice to have a "cosier" space as our "new" living room.  (Not to mention that in the long run this should help with our heating bills.)  Jason still has to hook the cook stove/heat stoves back up, but technically he has until October barring anymore massive power outtages.

For those heading out to the Hopedale Market, Jason should be there with homemade biscotti and coffee.  (Due to all the rain, we still have nothing coming out of our garden to sell.)

Wishing you the sweetness of home (there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed with you own pillow!), 

Stephanie

Linking to:

My Romantic Home

Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop

How Does Your Flower Garden Grow?

 2013 Frugal Flower Gardening

My largest flower bed: approximately 3 feet wide by 25 feet long

So, I am having my annual battle with my front garden beds.

When we bought our house six years this past May we left the flower beds as they were.  The previous owners had some invasive green vine ground covering plant that grew in all four beds. (In hindsight they weren't gardeners and the vine thing kept out all other weeds-therefore the flower beds looked "good" from the road.  Plus there was little gardening maintenance that had to be done.) Since we spent the rest of the summer travelling/frantically moving stuff out of our old house we left the beds alone.  The next summer we were busy opening our business and I was 7-9 months pregnant with Katie-thus nothing happened with the flower beds.  Then for the past 3 summers I have been fighting the vine thing, weeds, poison ivy, thick shade from our giant maple trees, dogs and chickens to get some real flowers/plants in our flower beds all while being pregnant/nursing babies and my previous health issues.  Needless to say, the sad state of my flower beds is always a personal thorn in my side since I LOVE  flower gardening.

Of course this year our budget is even more limited than normal since we now have two kids with monthly orthodontist brace appointments/payments to be made.  I lucked out when I saw a friend post on facebook that she had FREE landscaping rock for anyone who was willing to haul it off.  (She had changed the rock over to mulch in her garden.)  Jason, the one man calvary unit, made two trips with his truck to bring it all home.

So, last August before my surgery I had managed to lay down leftover black plastic that was used when Jason's mom's double wide house had been moved in across the road.  While I know that black plastic can trap the water and lead to more mosquitoes the idea is to use what I already have as much as possible.  Thus we are leaving the plastic down to help keep the weeds out.  Then we will cover it with the landscaping rock.  Finally, we will try to poke holes in the plastic to help the water drain through.

I started putting the rocks down where I still had existing plants-in the case of this flower bed-only the center plants have survived.  I managed to buy 2 blue hydrangeas flower bushes at our local Aldi's for just $8.99 a plant to replace the two plants that I had planted last year that didn't survive.  (They were end of the year clearance plants that I planted just before my surgery.  They didn't have any follow-up care by the extended family-understandably....Jason and the kiddos were busy taking care of me and the babies while trying to homeschool.)  The two plants in front are both types of daffodils that voluntarily grew there by themselves.  At this point in the landscaping I had already used two bags of rocks for this 3 feet by 3 feet space.

 So, my goal is to slowly keep plugging away at just this flower bed.  The long green strip you see in front is one of those "roll out the mat and water the wild flower seeds" kits.  My sister had some of these last summer and I saw these two boxes on clearance last August.  Since I am trying to use what I had I thought I would try these out-of course the chickens have already attacked the mat. We'll see if any of these flowers actually germinate.  Unfortunately the seeds have been treated to be just annuals, but hopefully these will work until next year when I can plant some perennials.  The perspective of the above picture isn't the best, but we used two of those boxes so we have 20 feet of flower mat laid down in the front right and center of the flower bed.

In other farm news we are happy to be selling at our first farmer's market tomorrow!  The new market is located in Hopedale, Ohio in the local fire station's parking lot from 9am-12pm.  Unfortunately, we won't have any produce tomorrow since our kiddos are in a home school adaptation play of "The Taming of the Shrew"tonight, but we will have home made biscotti plus some crocheted cast iron handle pot holders by Jason's mom Debbie.

We do have the following growing in our garden for sale later this summer:

Peas growing up through plastic fencing to help hold them off the ground.

Jason's attempt at "survival gardening" using tree branches to tie his tomoto plants to instead of wire cages or sticks.

I know that Jason has way more planted than that, but you'll have to wait for weekly market updates.  My goal is to post every Friday what we will be bringing to Saturday's market.

Here's a picture of the volunteer daffodil growing off our back deck-doesn't that first bloom and the promise of more just bring a smile to your face?

These are my bright spot....I need to put more mulch over the plastic I laid down last summer, but I love my barrels.  Jason got them as an anniversary present three years ago.  This year we have a perennial ground cover plant (name unknown)-it's the bright yellow you see in the right barrel and extending over the side of the left barrel.  I just picked up some geraniums and begonias to add some color.  The two hostas plants in front have managed to survive all the "flower garden death" for the past six years.  I divided these plants from our the hostas plants at our old house and they make me so happy.  They help remind me to keep "plugging along" when I start to get down about the state of my garden.  Slow and steady will eventually win the gardening race:)

Wishing you a blessed summer solstice:)!

From the Sweetness of our flower garden to yours: Happy Gardening!

Always,

Stephanie

 Linking to:

My Romantic Home
The Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop

My Memorial Day and Cross Country

Somehow a year has flown by again.  They have a way of doing that the older you get.  So much has happened and yet nothing has changed.  I'm sitting here at the same kitchen table, looking through the same memorial book letters, praying that I am the woman I need to be.....praying that I raise my kids so they hold true to the ideals of the red, white and blue: God, family and country, especially in these times when the whole world seems tolerant of everything except for their Catholic Christian faith.

So, May 8th is my personal Memorial Day.  It didn't "weigh on my mind" as much as last year's 10th Anniversary did-I was dreading that months and months before it ever came.  This year the thought that "it's almost May" began the last week of March-then it came up a few more times in April, before becoming a pressing thought over the weekend....this year it was because I came down with a serious case of food poisoning.....and while moving from bed to bathroom floor to toilet and back again, I began comparing it to all the flu cases/food poisoning illnesses I've had in my entire adult life.  Does anyone else do that?  Well, I do.  This past weekend's case rated as the number two worse case I've had.  I was out of commission for several days and for the first two days I wasn't sure if it was food poisoning or a return of the nasty norovirus that the whole family caught in March for nine days.  So, I know you are all just dying to know: the number one worse case was when Jason, Jessie and I, along with forty some other family members, all caught the flu from some grieving person that attended my paternal grandmother Marie's funeral.  We got sick somewhere in the middle of Illinois or Indiana at a rather dumpy motel, sharing one bathroom for three days.  Poor six year old Joey patiently watched cartoon network and occasionally asked us to get food from the gas station across the street and/or to order pizza.  I still remember the first morning how it literally took me three hours in between getting sick to buy the poor boy breakfast.  This happened about four months or so before Jason and I were married.  As we were finishing the drive home to Ohio, Jason joked, "Since we survived this, our marriage can survive anything."

So, that brings me to the number three and four episodes of the worse flu.  Number four was the last Christmas I got to spend with Chris.  We caught the flu from someone while flying home to Wisconsin, coming down sick in just minutes of each other, and unfortunately spread it to the rest of the extended family.  We had to delay Jessie's baptism from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve and I had to get an iv for fluids since I was nursing six week old Jessie.  But I remember discovering that Chris' parents had installed the heating of their newly built house in their floors-and every time I am sick now I wish for that type of heating....so much nicer to lie on warm tiles than cold.  And the number three time?  Well, that was the following Christmas trip-when once again the flu came to the Starkweathers house over Christmas and we all got it again.  Everyone kept saying that they wished they had the kind Joey and Jessie did-they would feel sick, head to mommy and throw up on my feet/legs and then be off running and playing again.  I missed Chris so much-I felt so overwhelmed at the thought of having to survive every flu/kid illness/holiday without him....how was I ever going to survive?  And yet, somehow I have.  God's grace.....how He gives it just when you need it....you can't go borrowing it by worrying ahead of time.  I catch myself still doing that at times....wondering how would I ever be able to survive this or that....and then I have to remember I would do it the way I have survived these past thirty-six years....when that moment comes, God will supply the grace and strength I need for that moment...not one moment sooner, not one moment later.

A few months ago I needed to finally box up all of Chris' file folders that had been taking up the entire bottom drawer of my large filing cabinet.  Most of the records are military things and/or the filing system that he had for all our bills over eleven years ago.  Yes, most of them could probably be shredded at this point, but it was all I could do to box these up still eleven years later.  One file caught my eye that I never noticed the past two times I had packed them up to move houses:

Unfortunately, it didn't have his high school keepsakes in it like I was hoping.  Instead it contained:

Bellevue West Track and Cross Country Team info....from when we were stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, NE and Chris volunteered as an assistant coach for their cross country team.

But amazingly, it also contained this:

Chris had kept the calendar that the Belleview Cross Country team had given him....and that we had used for the year 2000.  (This was obviously before I realized the importance of keeping calendars to help with scrapbooks/life history, etc.)  The tears began to fall as I saw his handwriting on every page....because there was a reason he was promoted all the time-he was detailed oriented....but in September I found this:

Can you see what is written in his handwriting?

Here it is up close:

Yep, that's right...."Date night" in his handwriting, not mine, well the words "go out", aka, date night.  I've been racking my brain for months now....trying to remember where we went for that birthday date.  Both of us have September birthdays and I remember that it was our first date night since Joey had been born.  But I can't remember where we ate or what we did.  I can remember other countless dates and facts, but not this date....but here I find it thirteen years later to remind me how loved I was.  How touching that my hubby wrote our date night on the calendar.....how I miss deciphering his quickly written notes to tell me he had gone for a run.  (This was before the age of cell phones people-and don't we all love finding love notes even today?)

The kids are well-Joey will turn 13 next month and will probably be taller than me within the next year or so.  I can already wear his shoes.  Jessie is eleven and a half and becoming more beautiful each day.

Here they are playing with their lovely and lively sisters in the one short lived snow storm we got this year:

That's Jessie with three year old Anna in back and almost two year old Libby on the sled.

Here's Joey with four year old Katie on their boogie boards.

(You can see the grass peaking through-we didn't get much snow, but they made the most of it.)

We are working on a very special project for our family nicknamed: The St Nicholas Project.  So, in case I don't get a chance to blog more this month I just want to encourage you to take time this coming Memorial Day to take your kids to a service, whether it is at a cemetery or a church.  Take time to pray for our military-both active and deceased.  Memorial Day is for the living.  It is for us to pray and resolve to be better people-to be worthy of the sacrifice so many of our military are making on our behalf.

I take part in both our local Memorial Day and Veteran's Day services as a member at large of the Gold Star Wives group.  I usually present a memorial wreath.  This past March I was blessed to be a part of the first annual Vietnam Veteran's Day.  I was asked to sing God Bless America and even though I have to sing with my eyes closed so that I don't cry, I must do okay, because they've asked me to sing again this Memorial Day.  Jessie will be reading a poem and Joey will either be my escort and/or standing with the other boy scouts in uniform.

 Here's Anna in front of military jeep that was there in March.

  We teach our children to honor the military when we personally take the time to honor the military.

Last Father's Day 2012 I was able to visit Chris' memorial stone in Arlington Cemetary.  These words struck me from General Lee's widow:

"God knows the best time for us to leave this world & we must never question either his love or wisdom.  This is my comfort in my great sorrow, to know that had my husband lived a thousand years he could not have died more honoured & lamented even had he accomplished all we desired and hoped."

Chris' memorial stone is on a beautiful hillside since there isn't a body to be buried.  It is near the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Here are Anna and Katie by the tree-you can see our flowers around Chris' stone in the background.

Above is Anna and Libby playing in the rocks outside of Arlington House.  I can't believe how much hair Libby grew in this past year until I saw her bald head in these pictures!!!

Below is my best friend (other than my hubby Jason), Mike Cleary, while Joey plays with the rocks and acorns with the little ones under the shade of the tree-just as he did when we were there and he was three.

And, just so I don't get accused of never posting any pictures of myself.  Here I am at the National Basilica with the kids earlier that morning:

And here we are with Jason this past Easter (yep, still look the same-some things just don't change:)

Jessie and Joey:

Check out my tenth anniversary tribute here and why Memorial Day Matters here

May you feel the sweetness of your loved ones always with you this spring,

Stephanie

St Joseph Altar 2013

So, even though Jason made a public pledge at our wedding to take care of the children as St. Joseph took care of Mary and the baby Jesus.....and our son is named "Joseph*" we have never completed a St. Joseph altar.  This year was our first annual one-we will definitely complete another one!  (*I will note that when we were picking out baby names I was looking for Biblical names and there are several Joseph's that he could pick out as a role model.  After my first husband, Chris, and I decided on Joseph we finally realized how much of a "family" name it was: we both had a great grandfather Joseph; Chris' grandfather Pappap, Uncle Bob and Chris' brother James also have "Joseph" as a middle name.  It was just meant to be!  For those new to my blog, my first husband died almost eleven years ago.)

Instead of doing a small one on the 19th, we postponed our altar until Palm Sunday so we could have a large dinner and feed our "starving" friends.  We did start our novena prayers on March 10th though, but we kept praying them through Sunday the 24th.  It worked well, since we got palms and cattails at church that we could put on the altar.

This is my favorite statue of St. Joseph-I just love the tenderness that he holds Mama Mary and sweet baby Jesus.

Here's a close up.  I managed to buy this statue on ebay for a very reasonable price that included shipping.  It's a "small" version of the statue at just about 8 inches high:

So, here is our St. Joseph Altar all loaded up with food and the candles actually lit.  (The spaghetti is under the red towel and the baked salmon is under the tin foil.)

 (Don't you just love the kneeler?  I managed to "score it" at sidewalk days in my hometown of Fort Atkinson, WI this past summer for just $30.  I haven't had time to add padding to it, so we used a kneeler pillow that Jason's mom made for us several years ago.)

 Here is the altar with the food uncovered, before we were about to bless the food/altar.  We took the picture, covered the food back up for saying prayers and then Jason realized we hadn't lit the candles-oops!

So, a traditional St. Joseph Altar Meal has the following items: spaghetti, baked fish, minestrone soup (that's what is in the white soup tureen on the left hand side), fava beans (that is what is in the green and white bowl on the left hand side in front of the cake and pasta), and fried bread crumbs instead of cheese to put on the spaghetti and sauce to remind us of St. Joseph's wood shavings from his carpentry. The fried bread crumbs are in the blue dish on the right next to the tulips that one of our friends brought to put on the altar and/or hostess gift.  We have our spaghetti sauce in the pink covered bowl since I have several children that prefer their pasta without red sauce.

We have two different types of bread: the first one that is oval shaped is a traditional Italian Easter bread.  The one behind it was "Sicilian bread."  It is a tradition to also make the bread into the shapes of Joseph's tools or a staff from when he fled with the holy family into Egypt.  We ran out of time due to work and illnesses so ours is just store bought.  We also have several bottles of Italian wine and next to the bread is a St Joseph candle and oregano in a vase.  (It seemed fitting for the day plus it smelled heavenly.)  We had fruit next to that (just oranges and apples) and a red velvet cake that we added decorations to.  The two vases in front hold white lilies (a St. Joseph symbol) and cattails since as Byzantines we receive cattails with our palms on Palm Sunday.  (Since the church we go to is a Slovakian Byzantine Church they used cattails on Palm Sunday when they were unable to get fresh Palms.  Now that we can usually get both from a florist they tie them together with a white bow.)

We have a wonderful local Italian grocery store that I managed to buy pizzelles, macaroons, biscotti and other traditional Italian cookies at.  (Sorry-once again, nothing was handmade that way this year.)  Instead of having cream puffs, I went with Easter peeps for the kids.  They were a huge hit.  I also managed to buy two hyacinth pots for fresh flowers that I will be able to plant besides the tulips!  They are my favorite color-purple of course!  (And actually the tulips are my second favorite color of "coral orange!"  I'm not sure if my friend knew that or not, but it totally works for me!)

We used our piano to the left of the altar to hold our napkins, plates and silverware.  I also put out the two books that helped me learn about how to host a St. Joseph Altar.  The one on the far right is

St. Joseph Altars by Kerri McCaffety.  Amazing book!!!!  The pictures are so beautiful!!!  I was so inspired by this book about the St. Joseph Altars in New Orleans, LA that I now want to make a pilgrimage to New Orleans to see them someday!  The second book is the white one on the left.  It is Viva San Giuseppe.  This book was sited in the book by Kerri McCaffety.  It is now out of print, but you can receive a digital format of it when you make a donation to this St. Joseph Altar website.  The book was nice because it has several easy to make recipes and short prayers in it.  That above website also gives some history if you want to know more about this tradition.  The website helped inspire me to just "go big" for our first altar.  We ended up only having two families that were able to come, but that still meant that we fed fifteen people plus our seven and Jason's mom...so feeding 23 people isn't bad for our first altar meal.

I did print off the 3-D St. Joseph Altar coloring sheets from the above website and we handed them out to our Tuesday co-op on March 19th-the feast of St. Joseph!  They were a big hit with the kids.  My children also acted out the Holy Family play that is traditionally done where the Holy Family searches for a place to stay and then I used the worksheets to explain to the co-op kids what types of food normally go on a St. Joseph altar.

We had some serious prayer intentions for St. Joseph's intercession this year and I do have to admit that we received a phone call regarding one of them just three short days after we held our St. Joseph Altar meal!  Wow-that was fast work!:)

Since I am posting this blog post (finally) on Easter Sunday I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Easter!!!

May we all feel the love of Jesus who loved us so much that he conquered death for us!

Jason was blessed to be a confirmation sponsor for a friend's son this year, so we went to a Roman Catholic Vigil Easter Mass and will head to our Byzantine Divine Liturgy in just a few short hours.

Here's an updated picture of our cute kids!

From left to right: Jessie, Libby, Katie, Joey and Anna

These were our "blue and white themed" flower dresses this year.

Debbie crocheted that teal hat and sweater for Jessie this past Christmas.

Pink themed dresses will be donned in just a few short hours.  Hee Hee.

I actually love this picture more because Joey is looking away in the picture at a friend.  My first husband Chris was famous for always having his eyes shut in pictures....Joey is reminding me of Chris here, especially the way he is holding his mouth.

May you know the sweetness of Jesus' love this Easter Season and hold him in your heart the sweet way that Joseph held both Mary and Jesus in his,

Stephanie

I will be linking to the following blogs:

4th Annual St. Joseph Altar Blog Fest

My Romantic Home