Custodians of Beauty

Hello blog! It's been awhile since my last post.  I took a break from blogging in November-January to get through the whirlwind of holidays. But I'm back now, and wanted to post about the day we celebrated the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. As with every feast day, I found a coloring page for the kids to embellish while I read a short story of St. Francis from our Book of Saints. After coloring, I read them "St. Francis and the Wolf". In the story, St. Francis comes to the aid of the villagers who are terrorized by a terrible wolf. St. Francis teaches the valuable lesson of friendship and to love all God's creatures that walk on the earth, fly in the sky and swim in the sea. Our snack in honor of St. Francis was "wolf paw" cookies. They were delicious and turned out more wolf-like then I imagined. We used package Iced Almonette cookies for the base. Then added sliced almonds and white baking chips for claws using melted chocolate for glue. I ga...

On November 1, we celebrate the host of saints in heaven. We ask them to intercede for us so that one day we too may join the holy soul for all Eternity. My four year old has told me many times that she wants to go to heaven to be with Mary and Jesus. This afternoon, while praying my rosary, she climbed onto my lap. She asked if she would see the apostles up there (heaven). I said yes, of course! And St. Francis, St. Maximillian, St. Nicholas, and St. Agnes!  Isn't it amazing to think about who you could rub elbows with in heaven? I mean how cool would it be to dine with St. Lawrence and St. Martha, share a hearty laugh with St. Bernard of Clairvaux or hike the mountains with St. John Paul and Blessed Pier Giorgio? Heaven will be GREAT! My husband and I desire our children to know and love the saints. To help them get to know their patrons, we read stories and celebrate their feast days with tasty foods and fun activities. Our children look forward to the All Saints Day...

"We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching, we are the dinosaurs what do ya think of that?" These are the words heard on repeat over the past few weeks from little voices. I've been taking the girls to Movers and Makers at the library on Fridays and they always end the program by singing the dinosaur song . That being said, it was an easy theme to work into the birthday celebrations this month. My three-going-on-four year old was beside herself with joy when she heard I was planning a DOUBLE DINO party for her and her little brother.  The three layered DINO cake was covered in milk chocolate frosting, drizzled with chocolate ganache and topped with crushed cookies. Picked up the big plastic dinos from Family Dollar and the mismatched smaller ones were found at garage sales this summer.  Decorations were put up a few days before the party (and they are still up! Kids are lovin' it.) I cut out construction paper for the dinosaurs shapes and used m...

Spotted the first leaf to turn on our maple tree. I was in a baking mood last week and decided to make cut-outs using my new leaf cookie cutter (10 ¢  garage sale find, score!) I wanted to try using several different colored doughs, roll them together to end up with a multicolored cookie. I didn't have time to make an entire batch, so I made half and chilled the rest of the dough for later. Using my aunt's "Peanuts Cookie Cut-outs" recipe, I divided the dough into 4 parts and dyed them red, orange, green and yellow. Then made smaller dough balls of all the colors and started rolling. As I rolled out the dough, the colors started to merge. My leaf designs were changing from bright and bold, to swirly marble-like patterns. So cool. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for more leaf cookie cutters--different shapes and sizes. Let's make some cookies! See how the colors are looking more marbly? Neato. Ready for the oven. ...

The floral rolling pin makes an appearance again! After testing it out on a rhubarb pie  I baked in the spring, I was eager to try it out a second time. I made shortbread cookies to bring to my family's thanksgiving dinner. To make the floral pattern stand out and be recognizable, I used basic circle and diamond shaped cutters... and I cut out a few turkeys, gobble gobble.  When rolling out the dough, I found it was tricky to keep it from tearing. I chilled the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes before rolling it out. Maybe it tore because it was too cold? I dunno. The cookies were eaten none the less.  Buttery and delicate, these cookies were delicious! No frosting or sprinkles needed. Tea and cookies, anyone? If there are any food safe paints out there for decorating, I would love to try them out on these cookies.  A spot of color here and there, maybe painting a flower or two on each cookie.  I found this charming tea...