Tomorrow (Good Friday) is the beginning of the Divine Mercy 9-Day Novena which ends on Divine Mercy Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter. It's one of the greatest and easiest ways to gain a full plenary indulgence--a true testement to Jesus' unfathomable Mercy. If you don't have a Divine Mercy booklet, the words and a more complete explanation can be found here.
My booklet states 7 ways we should observe the Feast of Divine Mercy:
1. Celebrate the Feast on the Sunday after Easter (which is widespread now)
2. Sinerely repent of all of our sins (becoming detached)
3. Place our complete trust in Jesus
4. Go to Confession
5. Receive Holy Communion on the day of the Feast
6. Venerate the Image of The Divine Mercy (Jesus coming forward with a red and white ray piercing forth from his Merciful and Sorrowful Heart)
7. Be merciful to others, through our actions, words, and prayers on their behalf
To make a plenary indulgence you also have to pray for the Holy Father and his intentions. Generally a Hail Mary and Our Father are accepted as fufilling this requirement. Confession should be within 8 days before or after, but on the EWTN website it states within 20 days. And, something I just found out on the EWTN website, is that you can apply the plenary indulgence to yourself (obviously) or a deceased loved one! That would be a very merciful deed to say it for someone who has died. 3pm is the Hour of Mercy, but the novena may be said at any time throughout the day. It really doesn't take much time. The daily readings are short and the Divine Mercy Chaplet only takes about 6 minutes. Best of all, it's a great way to Console Jesus' Merciful and Sorrowful Heart.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
SDS Butterflies - Dill
If you recall my butterfly album from facebook last year, you'll remember the beautiful butterflies we hatched out from caterpillars we attracted to our garden. About a week and a half ago we planted our dill again this year to attract the swallow-tailed caterpillars. It has now sprouted, and seeing it this morning reminded me to blog about it.
It's a really easy process, and it's so fun and educational to watch the life cycle of a butterfly. If you want to attract the caterpillars to catch and watch morph into butterflies, now is the time to buy dill seed and plant it. The variety I buy is "Mammoth Dill." Since you're most likely not going to be eating it, there's no harm in buying the potentially genetically modified stuff from Walmart or any other store. If you have a spot to permanently dedicate to dill, plant an entire packet or two, and in the late spring or early fall it will "go to seed" and come back up every year.
I'll post more about it as we go along...
It's a really easy process, and it's so fun and educational to watch the life cycle of a butterfly. If you want to attract the caterpillars to catch and watch morph into butterflies, now is the time to buy dill seed and plant it. The variety I buy is "Mammoth Dill." Since you're most likely not going to be eating it, there's no harm in buying the potentially genetically modified stuff from Walmart or any other store. If you have a spot to permanently dedicate to dill, plant an entire packet or two, and in the late spring or early fall it will "go to seed" and come back up every year.
I'll post more about it as we go along...
SDS Resurrection Rolls!
We've made Resurrection Rolls every Easter since Alli and I were little. They're a tasty way to teach the Easter story. There's really no way to make these low fat, and believe me if you have more than one you will feel sick, but don't let that stop you! Pick up these ingredients today, and start a tradition your family will look forward to for years to come.
Items Needed:
Regular sized marshmallows
A bowl of melted butter
A bowl of cinnamon and sugar (I do a ratio of 1:4)
Crescent rolls (we buy Pillsbury, if you're super adventurous, make your own!)
Preheat the oven according to your crescent roll can. The rest of the directions are included in the story, which of course can be adjusted by age.
First, pick up a large marshmallow. The marshmallow represents Jesus after He was taken down from the cross. Dip the marshmallow first into the butter and then into the cinnamon. The butter represents the oil and the cinnamon-sugar mixture represents the spices used to prepare Jesus' body for burial. Place the marshmallow on the crecsent roll. The crescent roll represents the burial cloths that Jesus was wrapped in. Be sure to enclose the marshmallow as well as you can, or it will ooze out during the baking process. Once everyone has done their own Jesus, place the pan in the oven. The oven represents the tomb Jesus was laid in. Bake according to label directions. Open the oven, remove the pan, and cut open a roll. The tomb and burial cloths are now empty, and Jesus has
Resurrected!! Alleluia and Happy Easter!!!
Items Needed:
Regular sized marshmallows
A bowl of melted butter
A bowl of cinnamon and sugar (I do a ratio of 1:4)
Crescent rolls (we buy Pillsbury, if you're super adventurous, make your own!)
Preheat the oven according to your crescent roll can. The rest of the directions are included in the story, which of course can be adjusted by age.
First, pick up a large marshmallow. The marshmallow represents Jesus after He was taken down from the cross. Dip the marshmallow first into the butter and then into the cinnamon. The butter represents the oil and the cinnamon-sugar mixture represents the spices used to prepare Jesus' body for burial. Place the marshmallow on the crecsent roll. The crescent roll represents the burial cloths that Jesus was wrapped in. Be sure to enclose the marshmallow as well as you can, or it will ooze out during the baking process. Once everyone has done their own Jesus, place the pan in the oven. The oven represents the tomb Jesus was laid in. Bake according to label directions. Open the oven, remove the pan, and cut open a roll. The tomb and burial cloths are now empty, and Jesus has
Resurrected!! Alleluia and Happy Easter!!!
Friday, April 8, 2011
ANOTHER New Addition?
This morning I am finally starting to feel better! The kids wanted blueberry muffins for breakfast, and it was so beautiful outside we decided to eat out here. The kids are now playing in the 70% finished chicken coop, and Gabi--as always--is carrying Gizmo around like a baby. It's so gorgeous this morning! We've got jackets on, but we probably won't need them much longer.
Earlier in the week Addy and Rafe spiked fevers. They slept a lot, but seemed to have fought it off. Gabi followed suit. Wednesday I ended up with a 103.5 fever and was pretty delirious and lethargic. I'm still unable to eat because my throat is so sore I can't swallow, but my fever has been down since Thursday evening. I'm drinking as much as I can, but even that is painful. My dad is headed over with popsicles.. :-)
Addy was completely potty trained a few days after our inital success. She was sooo easy to potty train. Makes me wish I had done it sooner! The first few weeks every time she'd go potty everyone would run into the hall with us and sit around when she needed to go. With three small kids at home, they pretty much move as a pack. We've got a "potty station" set up right next to the bathroom door. Rafe and Addy's potty seats are side by side. Because our house is older it has a built in telephone stand (we don't even have a "home phone"), and I've got clorox wipes and Addy's dry diaper from the previous night up there. Then Addy dumps her potty in the big toilet and washes her hands while I clean the little potty. It's been soooo wonderful just having one in diapers...
But if I want to keep it that way I'll have to potty train Rafe before November. Yep! Baby S. #5 is due around Nov 29th. We've known for almost 2 weeks now, and the shock is slowly starting to wear off. We sold the Envoy two days ago and have test driven a Yukon Denali that I'm basically in love with. Rafe is on day 3 of being 100% weaned. I've been sleeping on the couch while Mitch had the "joy" of teaching Rafe to fall back asleep without nursing! Oh what bad habits I instilled. I resovle to not do that with this next one!!
We're excited despite it putting a kink in some of our goals for 2011..not to add any more members to the family! And we will no longer be able to complete another goal of a family vacation to San Antonio in early Novemeber for STAFDA. And we probably won't be able to pay the house off 25k more this year because we have to buy a bigger car and because Mitch will need to take 2 months off FMLA to help with the kids while I'm on bed rest (aka no pay). But I know we're so blessed that it won't cause any big strains and that we can welcome another baby with open arms. This is the longest time I've had between pregnancies--Rafe will be 2 in July!! Hopefully my cervix has healed and is ready for another cerclage. Thankfully this time the kids can get themselves into their car seats and high chairs and beds and clothes and even Rafe can drink from a regular glass--a far cry from where we were when I found out I was pg with Rafe. We'd just brought Addy home from NICU and she needed 100% care... probably more than 100%!! I see Jensen the 19th, I can't wait to hear what he has to say.
Earlier in the week Addy and Rafe spiked fevers. They slept a lot, but seemed to have fought it off. Gabi followed suit. Wednesday I ended up with a 103.5 fever and was pretty delirious and lethargic. I'm still unable to eat because my throat is so sore I can't swallow, but my fever has been down since Thursday evening. I'm drinking as much as I can, but even that is painful. My dad is headed over with popsicles.. :-)
Addy was completely potty trained a few days after our inital success. She was sooo easy to potty train. Makes me wish I had done it sooner! The first few weeks every time she'd go potty everyone would run into the hall with us and sit around when she needed to go. With three small kids at home, they pretty much move as a pack. We've got a "potty station" set up right next to the bathroom door. Rafe and Addy's potty seats are side by side. Because our house is older it has a built in telephone stand (we don't even have a "home phone"), and I've got clorox wipes and Addy's dry diaper from the previous night up there. Then Addy dumps her potty in the big toilet and washes her hands while I clean the little potty. It's been soooo wonderful just having one in diapers...
But if I want to keep it that way I'll have to potty train Rafe before November. Yep! Baby S. #5 is due around Nov 29th. We've known for almost 2 weeks now, and the shock is slowly starting to wear off. We sold the Envoy two days ago and have test driven a Yukon Denali that I'm basically in love with. Rafe is on day 3 of being 100% weaned. I've been sleeping on the couch while Mitch had the "joy" of teaching Rafe to fall back asleep without nursing! Oh what bad habits I instilled. I resovle to not do that with this next one!!
We're excited despite it putting a kink in some of our goals for 2011..not to add any more members to the family! And we will no longer be able to complete another goal of a family vacation to San Antonio in early Novemeber for STAFDA. And we probably won't be able to pay the house off 25k more this year because we have to buy a bigger car and because Mitch will need to take 2 months off FMLA to help with the kids while I'm on bed rest (aka no pay). But I know we're so blessed that it won't cause any big strains and that we can welcome another baby with open arms. This is the longest time I've had between pregnancies--Rafe will be 2 in July!! Hopefully my cervix has healed and is ready for another cerclage. Thankfully this time the kids can get themselves into their car seats and high chairs and beds and clothes and even Rafe can drink from a regular glass--a far cry from where we were when I found out I was pg with Rafe. We'd just brought Addy home from NICU and she needed 100% care... probably more than 100%!! I see Jensen the 19th, I can't wait to hear what he has to say.
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