Merry Christmas 2010

"Him whom the heavens cannot contain, the womb of one woman bore." ~ St. Augustine.
Thank you, Mother Mary for your YES!

From our family to yours:
Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

The Nine Days BEFORE Christmas

Today marks Nine Days BEFORE Christmas and this means it's time to start our Christmas Novenas!

A perfect way to continue to prepare for the Birth of our Savior! I found one on the lovely EWTN website that I wanted to share with our readers: Christmas Novena.


To accompany this lovely Novena, on this gloomy and yucky icy day, we will be working on our kid friendly Nativity at our Domestic Church. I got it from the lovely Lacy over at Catholic Icing...I love it when she draws things and shares with us! So here is her DYI Printable Nativity....all you need is TP tubes, her print outs and the basics: glue sticks, scissors, and crayons...and voila! Okay kiddies waiting for me, gotta run!

Here's a peek as to what this lovely printable looks like:

THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY

Our family is so technologically savvy that we just LOVED this video...it's adorable!

Pardon our dust...

Catholics Come Home

Catholics Come Home: "Coming home has never been easier. We are family. Welcome home."

Movies for Catholic Kids

You might have seen my previous post of my quest for great Catholic movies that our family could watch on Family Movie Nights, if you hadn't here it is. There is a fantastic list on there and thanks so much to all the readers who added to it! We have yet to finish watching all of the movies on that wonderful list. Some are hard to find others, just haven't gotten my hands on them yet.

Most recently, I've been looking for great cartoons that the kids could watch. Not sure if I've ever expressed how much I police what my kids watch, and maybe you share this zeal with me? I do this because there is so much junk out there to watch...labeled "for children" and they are just utterly gar-bage (insert the French accent here)!

In my quest for great cartoons, I remembered videos I had seen when working at Church as a teenager and googled, "Catholic Children's cartoons" (or something like that) to see if I could find those very same videos and I did! The company is CCC of America and they have added to their list of movies since I first showed them to my students at Faith Formation (formerly known as CCD). They now have 11 in their Saints & Heroes Series.

I then contacted CCC and ask them if they would like me to review their videos, and they said YES! I'm so excited because my little ones get to watch these GREAT movies about the saints and I get to share with you, my readers, how wonderful these movies are. In addition, the wonderful ladies at CCC of America have also offered some FREE goodies for you all! It's a win-win situation - don't you think? ;)

So in the next couple of weeks, I will be reviewing the three wonderful movies we got in the mail this morning (I was so excited!). The three we are starting off with are Nicholas-the Boy Who Became Santa (it was on EWTN on Monday - did you catch it?), Juan Diego Messenger of Guadalupe, and The Day the Sun Danced the True Story of Fatima. I will be doing three different reviews (and maybe ideas to go along with them since I'll be doing the research already for my little blessings - why not share some more with you all?)....so stay tuned!
















I spoke with the wonderful ladies at CCC today and they have sent us a FREEBIE (I love freebies - thanks!). While you wait for my reviews of these excellent DVDs, you can take advantage of this great offer extended especially to Raising Little Saints readers, place an order for any of the DVDs on their website and get FREE SHIPPING by using this RLS exclusive promo code: CCC121210. This promo code is good from the moment this post goes live until this Sunday, December 12th (the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe)! So don't delay, start ordering these great videos for your little saints today!

The movies can be ordered online at www.cccofamerica.com or by phone Monday - Friday, 9AM to 5PM Central at 800-935-2222. You can also follow them on Facebook by clicking here.

Oh and don't forget to come back to check out my lovely reviews AND we will also be giving away one of the movies! Stay tuned Catholic homeschooling Mamas....

Catholic Mom Book Club Columnist

I'm super excited to share that I was asked by Lisa Hendey (the author of The Handbook for Catholic Moms) to join the Catholic Mom team and become a book club columnist for them! Also, I've also written my first book review and I wanted to share it with you:

Could I Paint the Sky?
By Julie Hoy
Oregon Catholic Press, 2010

Could I Paint the Sky? by Catholic author Julie Hoy is a book about a small child’s inquisitive nature as well as her amazing love for God and her willingness to serve Him!

The main character, Madeline Judith, wants to help God do something really big and asks Him if she could help Him paint the sky? As big a task as it is, she asks and asks again (I love her persistence) but then one day God says “no” and the child is puzzled. Many of us (adults) have experienced when God in His infinite wisdom says “no” to us… in the end there is always a reason and usually a good one at that!

With some parental guidance, Madeline is reminded that we can serve the Lord in the small things we do everyday by picking up after ourselves in our homes to helping our neighbors, the elderly, etc. I love how this small child goes to her mother for help and advice. In addition, this book just overflows with the message of being merciful in a world that contradicts that! What kept coming to mind as I read this book were the words of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Do small things with BIG love!”

To read the rest of my review, visit CatholicMom.com by just clicking here.

Name Change...

I've been contemplating doing this for a long while so just wanted to make it official and public, Catholic Blogging Homeschooling Mamas, AKA Catholic Mamas, is now Raising (& Teaching) Little Saints. The purpose of this blog will still remain the same...no worries ;)

With this said, if there is a blog that you just simply L-O-V-E and would like featured here, please send me an e-mail (or leave a comment with this post). My e-mail is raisinglittlesaints {at} gmail {dot} com.

God bless you all and Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!