My Costume

I thought you guys might be interested in seeing the costume I made for myself this year....

Yes, I am trying to tell you something with this picture.

Think about it...

Think about it...

Do you get it? I thought it was very obvious, but some of my friends were having trouble.

I followed the directions for making this shirt here. I did make a few changes, like mine actually glows in the dark. :-)

So for those of you who didn't get it, this is number 4 for us, and I'm due May 10! I used this picture to announce my pregnancy on facebook to my friends and family today, and thought you guys might get a kick out of it, too. Anywho, happy All Saints' Day, everyone!


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Catholic Vacation Bible School Ideas

Earlier in the year, I reviewed several Catholic Vacation Bible School packages (and I mean real Catholic packages, meaning they were developed by actual Catholics). Our parish, however, wrote their own program this year, and it was fabulous! They have used packaged kits in the past, but ultimately ended up tweaking them so much they thought they may as well go ahead and start from scratch.

(This is a picture of the last day of VBS-

we ended with a First Friday mass!)

I do have a bone to pick with popular VBS packages- what's with the weird "themes"? I mean, if we're learning about the bible, why did we decorate our whole church like the old west, or like the arctic with polar bears everywhere? I think that choosing a random additional theme seems over the top, and like a far stretch. For our VBS this year, our theme was "Jesus' Family Summer Vacation", and each day we learned about a different prophet from the Old Testament. Know what our them was on the day we learned about Jonah? Whales. Not panda bears, but whales. Know what our theme was the day we learned about Daniel? Lions. Not surfing, but lions. Novel idea- I know! ;-)

Anywho, our parish doesn't have a school, so we don't have a great big facility to host Vacation Bible School. What do you do when you want to have VBS but you don't have a good location? You just work with what you do have! We rented a tent, made use of our picnic pavilion, had one station meet inside the church- we even made use of our Mary garden! It all worked out beautifully.

Obviously a Catholic church is different than most because we have Jesus present in the tabernacle. We made sure to catch the kids outside of the church each day to make them practice genuflecting and making the sign of the cross. We also discussed reverence each day (especially on Thursday when our church time was adoration). 

The kids were actually a lot better during church time

than I had expected- especially on adoration day!

It's pretty standard for everyone to get shirts at Vacation Bible School, but at our church each grade got a different color shirt. I thought this was a really cool idea! It was so easy to see where all the kids belonged. Also, you see our priest in the picture below? It was amazing how helpful and involved he was! :-)

I loved that during snack they watched the coordinating Veggie Tales video to go with the day's bible story. Cute!

I also helped teach all week. They already had a craft volunteer, so I became the "Music Lady". Until last week I had never played the guitar in front of more than about 10 people at a time, but I'm really glad I did it! It doesn't take much to impress the kids, so the 6 guitar chords I know worked just fine. By Wednesday I wasn't even nervous anymore. ;-)

I love dressing for VBS because for me it's a chance to wear outrageous accessories that don't fly on "normal" days.

For instance, I hardly ever get to wear this necklace I made!

I also wore several skirts with my t-shirt since I was mostly

in the church all day. (And yes, the bandana tied on my head

is from World Youth Day Toronto. Whoo hoo!) :-)

On Friday I paired my VBS t-shirt with a crazy tie dyed skirt

and I also wore outrageous jewelry, flip flops, and pigtails! :-)

(Also, this is a picture of me standing with a whale our drama team

made from a trailer and a tent. Isn't it awesome?!)

Even the little nursery kids got t-shirts.

Violet wore hers all week, too! :-)

For my kids who were too small for their shirts, 

I just tied up the extra with a rubber band and rolled the sleeves.

This really was a great program, and I'm hoping to be able to post it for free for everyone to be able to use next year. In order to get that to happen, I'm going to need to get the permission of everyone who was involved (because I only developed the music and helped with the church time) so say a prayer that it works out! I know there are a lot of parishes that could benefit from having access to a program like this.

We had such a fun (and really exhausting week) for VBS. I was actually surprised at how much I learned and grew spiritually during the week as well! Vacation Bible School is a great way to get involved with your church and teach your children about the bible in a really fun way! If you don't have a program like this available, you could just do VBS with your own kids or perhaps a few friends. Holy Heroes provides a free Catholic Vacation Bible School program that can be used at home, so be sure to look into that. 

Happy Summertime, everyone! :-)

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Faith & Family's Mom's Day Away

Even though this Catholic mom's day retreat was quite a trip for me, I'm really glad I got to go! I live in the DC area, and the conference was held in Boston, but I have an aunt that lives up there, and I was able to travel with my grandma! So fun road trip with Nana + weekend visit with Aunt Deede + Catholic Mother's Retreat = one fun and exciting weekend for me! :-)

Here's a picture of Pat Gohn, me, and Danielle Bean!

It was so much fun to meet them in real life! :-)

If you remember, Pat Gohn is the one who interviewed me for the podcast on Among Women, which was so much fun! She is a joy to talk to, and I kept her on the phone waaay too long- lol! Danielle Bean is the author of multiple books, and the editorial director of Faith & Family magazine (a Catholic magazine that I have been subscribed to for years). I read her book "My Cup of Tea" back when Lydia was a baby, and I have been a fan ever since, so it really was a treat to meet her!

There were beautiful saint statues on every table!

For me, Danielle Bean's talk was the highlight of the day. She talked about saying "One yes at a time" to God's plan. None of us know what the future holds, and sometimes we have to stop worrying about the big picture long enough to just take life one yes at a time. We need to follow Mary's "yes". We will miss our own call to holiness if we're following someone else's. Danielle also talked about how sometimes mothers feel like they're representatives to a certain style of living, but we need to remember that we don't have to pretend that it's easy or that it comes naturally!

Danielle also talked about the "comparison monster" inside of all of us. Why do we torture ourselves by comparing ourselves to every other mother we come in contact with? None of us can do it all, have it all, or be it all. When we compare ourselves to others, we will come up short. Rachel Balducci actually said something that stuck with me- that when you compare yourself to someone else, someone wins and someone looses, and that neither is good. We choose to show people our best side, and others do the same. It's not fair to your husband, kids, or yourself to compare all the time- there are so many different callings to the same vocation. 

After each talk there were small discussions, and then group sharing. When Pat Gohn handed the microphone to me, I bravely confessed, "Hi. I'm Lacy, and I'm a terrible housekeeper!". And you know what happened after I said that? They didn't throw tomatoes at me. No one called me a bad mother or wife... they applauded. :-)  I loved the discussion sessions of the day. It was really uplisting to hear the "ah, ha!" moments that other mothers had to share! 

Another talk I really enjoyed was from Jennifer Fulwiler. (She blogs at Conversion Diary and hosts "7 Quick Takes" every week). Her talk was about letting go of fear, and I found this talk to be life changing. Basically what I took away from this talk is that fear comes from Satan. I don't want to make any more decisions in my life based on fear, and why should I?

Jennifer said to let go of fear, because fear prevents you from seeking God's plan for your life. Fear prevents us from living in the moment, and it throws our lives out of balance. Don't make commitments out of fear that others will judge you. She had some tips for rejecting fear, including putting prayer first! Reject the voices that tell you that you don't have time to pray! Also, let go of fear-based false humility. God is calling you to use the talents that He has given you- don't be afraid to do so! I loved this quote from Jennifer "What if I trust that God's plan is better than my plan?". Wow. What if? She urged us to take things one day at a time, and to make today a day without fear. God has a plan for us, and He will give us the grace we need. 

She also touched on angels from the bible instructing us to "Fear not!". I've always read that and thought, "Wow, angels must look scary", but it never occurred to me that they might be asking us to look at a bigger picture of living without fear. Mary was amazingly brave! She said "yes" to God, and she must have been afraid to do so! To me, this talk wove in beautifully with Danielle's talk on saying yes to God, and has given me a lot to think about. Not only was Jennifer's talk impressive, but she appeared very pregnant, wore extremely high heels, and admitted to only getting 2 hours of sleep the night before her talk, yet she looked stunning! You go, girl! 

Here's a picture of me with Rachel Balducci from Testosterhome, although I couldn't prove it- lol! It's just so hard to tell what's in focus on tiny camera screens!

I loved her quote of the day which was "Love inspires more than the law requires". Isn't that profound? I think of Mother Teresa a lot when I think of trying to do everything I do with love. How can you go wrong with love? She also talked about how St. Theresa of Avila hated her incessant chattiness, and it made me think that she needs to be my new patron saint! Maybe there's hope for me, yet! :-)

Not only were the talks incredible, but the day included time for prayer, adoration, a group scripture rosary (which was really cool!), and confession. What else could a mother looking for rejuvenation ask for?

St. Patrick's parish was absolutely breathtaking!

Babies were welcomed at the conference with open arms! Pat Gohn assured everyone that if they had to miss part of a talk to step out with a fussy baby, that she would personally mail them a CD of the conference to listen to! Everyone applauded the mothers that came bearing little ones, which was such a beautiful moment it brought tears to my eyes. We all know how stressful it can be to bring baby along, and no one wants to feel like a burden. They even had a special lounge set up for the little ones to crawl around! However, I was very blessed to be able to leave Violet with my Nana and Aunt Deede for the day, and she had a great time!

We got some great Catholic swag, including biblical toys and beautiful chaplets from Trendy Traditions! I just love Melanie's rosaries, and it was super exciting to see them there! Everyone was taken with how striking they were, and spent time searching through the basket to find just the perfect one to bring home with them!

Angie from Catholic Mothers Online had also donated a giveaway from her etsy shop, Just a Tiny Owl. I've been talking to her on email for a long time now, and it was so much fun to see her and Melanie in the program!

One really fun part of the day for me was meeting some of my readers! That's right- real life Catholic Icing readers in the flesh! It was such an encouraging day for me as women were telling me how much they love this blog and how it has been helpful to them. It made me feel like I am following God's plan to share what I have to offer online! Connecting to other Catholic mothers in real life was a real blessing! 

Here I am with Adrianne, who has inspired me to pull

my ergo carrier out of the closet! :-)

Mom's Day Away was uplifting, fun, and I would totally do it again if they hold another one next year. I would personally like to see it either travel to different parts of the country, giving other mothers an opportunity to go, or become a conference spanning an entire weekend, making it more worthwhile to travel for. 

Because the conference was only on Saturday, I got to spend Sunday hanging out with my family in Boston and visiting the art museum, which is one of my favorite things to do when I travel! :-) I spent a lot of time in the impressionism room, because I'm a total impressionism junkie!

Aunt Deede and Me

My husband was a real trooper at home with our other 2 kids, but as you can imagine I have a lot of stuff to catch up on this week. Thanks to everyone who made Mom's Day Away possible! You can read more about this day at Faith & Family Live. :-)

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My Podcast Interview on Among Women

I was recently interviewed by Pat Gohn for her "Among Women" podcast. For anyone who might not know (and I promise you're not alone) a podcast is an online audio show- in this case an interview. So it's kinda like listening to talk radio. I'd like to get into more Catholic podcast listening since I could listen while cleaning my house and changing diapers. :-)

If you'd like to hear my interview, click here. I talk a lot about my Catholic background, why I started Catholic Icing, and what's important to me. I also talk about my family, and of course... CRAFTS! ;-) My interview starts about 1/3 of the way into the podcast.

Here's a picture of me while I was on the phone with Pat:

(Ok, not really. That's a picture of me when I was babysitting for my friend. I totally abandoned Mark downstairs with my kids during my interview. He's a real trooper.) :-) My interviewer, Pat Gohn, runs the Among Women Podcast, and you can find her blog here. Pat is actually a big organizational part of the Faith & Family Mom's Day Away that I'm going to April. I sure hope some of you will be there, too! I look forward to meeting Pat in real life- she was so nice and easy to talk to! I think I kept her on the phone about 3 times as long as the interview actually lasted. When she asked me if I would do the interview, I should have warned her that getting me to talk is the easy part, and getting me to shut-up is nearly impossible! Lol!

Also, PLEASE go vote for Catholic Icing- Best Catholic blog 2011! It only takes a few seconds, and you can vote once daily. Voting ends on Mardi Gras. Thanks so much!!!

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