How’s your Advent going? Ours is still pretty tame, much tamer than it has been in years past. There is something to be said about getting oneself organized enough BEFORE the holiday rush. I’ll have to make a resolution list about the holidays soon, but first on that list would be to get all grocery shopping done BEFORE Thanksgiving so that we don’t even have to bother with groceries in December. Next time, I’ll have a list of all Christmas baking ingredients we’ll need so that I shop for all of them during the pre-Thanksgiving sales, instead of the pre-Christmas sales.

Last week I had the crazy idea, on December 4 no less, that the kids and I would make Christmas stockings out of some felt I bought months ago. They took to the project like you wouldn’t believe, and spent all day Tuesday cutting and sewing. I daresay they did a wonderful job:

And Saturday was beautiful. We attended the Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception at a church 15 minutes from here, not the regular one we attend. A few days before a fellow homeschooling mom e-mailed about Consecration that day. I was going to ask our parish priest if he could do it for me, and I was glad something was already organized at Holy Name. After Mass, we had the service (?), wrote out our consecration promises, and received the Miraculous Medal. Afterwards we prayed the rosary together. There must have been 40-50 of us making our consecration that day.

That afternoon, Aisa helped me frost the allergy-free cupcakes (I’ll write about those soon), to make a cupcake rosary (an idea gleaned from the ladies at 4Real). We had our fraternal household the same day and Aisa had her ladies’ household so the cupcakes were shared with our friends.

– the “Our Father”‘s should have been frosted with blue frosting, but we ran out of frosting so they were kept plain.

This is the 5th day we are saying the Rosary together as a family. Wow, the graces just keep pouring in. I’ve been trying to say daily Rosaries since July (and was still skipping and having to start over), and we always say the Rosary as a family on Sundays, but before now we’ve only managed to say 3 daily rosaries in a row.

Praying the Rosary is so different now. The more you pray and meditate on it, the more grace you are given to keep praying. And our home has been soooo noticeably peaceful lately — it’s like every single member of the family has been happier, quieter, more in tune with God. What a beautiful way to go through the Advent season.

Tomorrow is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! Another day to honor Mary and celebrate her great love for us!