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Welcome to the LittleWays – finding ways to celebrate our love of Jesus and our faith in all the little ways daily as inspired by St. Therese!

I love being Catholic –there are so many reasons to rejoice and celebrate all the time. Now that my children are getting a bit older feast days have become a time of great joy and celebration for us in a whole new way. You can find a reason to celebrate almost every day as a Catholic from liturgical seasons, to feast days – life is such a blessing! I thought it would be fun to start sharing some of the ways we are rejoicing and celebrating in our faith.

I always love finding new ideas to do with my kids. My son loves to eat and my daughter loves crafts so it’s always easy to generate excitement in our house hold! Welcome to my new blog The LittleWays – finding ways to celebrate our love of Jesus and our faith in all the little ways daily as inspired by St. Therese!

Recipe

Thanksgiving GF Vegan Pumpkin Cookies

My daughter created a delicious GF Vegan Pumpkin Cookie Recipe this weekend. The cookies are soft and chewy and didn’t dry-out even though they were left out over night on the counter. I thought I would share this delicious recipe for those of you whom might suffer with numerous food allergies like we do in our home.

GF Vegan Pumpkin Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/1 cups Chick Pea Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Vegan Butter (softened)
1 cup Pumpkin Puree (we used a can from the store)
1 tbs Psyllium husk + 3 tbs water (mixed together prior to adding to recipe)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract or Maple Syrup

Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Then in a larger bowl beat or mix the brown sugar and vegan butter in a bowl until well blended. Next add in the pumpkin, psyllium husk/water and vanilla extract until smooth. Finally add the flour mix in slowly to the mixture and beat until combined well. Then spoon on the mixture to the baking sheets.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease the baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Then cool on a baking sheet if possible.

Blog, Prayer

Happy to Announce our New Life Beads

We are happy to announce the launch today of our New Life Beads on the feast of the Holy Rosary and in the month of October when we remember those who have experienced a miscarriage or still born. These special beads are in honour of the gift of life. A portion of each sale will go towards supporting Pro-Life work.

These beads are especially close to our hearts as we lost of beautiful baby Joy Faustina before birth and know it was the prayers and support of our community and family that helped us get through that very difficult time with joy, hope and peace.

Life is the most precious gift and we recognize the importance of celebrating it from the moment of conception till death.

We hope these Life Beads will inspire and encourage others to do good works, acts of love, sacrifice and extra prayers in the name of our Lord.

Order you Life Beads here: Pre-Made Life Beads and Life Bead Kits

Blog, Great Books!

Before I Was Me – Book Review

I was given a copy of the book Before I Was Me to review by author Frank Fraser. I was excited to receive another book by this author as my kids and I have enjoyed reading some of his previous books The Bible Amigos. I have to be honest and tell you that this book exceeded any expectation that I had.

Once in a while a beautiful book comes into your life, one that you know you will treasure in your heart for all your life and one that you just have to give others too. This is one of those books, it is my new go to for baptism and birthday gifts.

I can’t say enough about this book the illustrations are incredible, they grab your attention and are just beautiful. The overall message and writing is very well articulated. Frank captures the wonderment of childhood, the love and gentleness of our heavenly father and packages it all in this wonderful children’s book.

There is a reason this book has a five star rating on Amazon – do you think it deserves five stars too? You can view this entire book for free at Sophia Press Before I Was Me and decide for yourself. But I am confident you will agree!

Blog, Crafts, Faith Building Resources, Lent & Easter

Colour in Kids Lent 2018 Calendar!

This is a little bit late, but after a discussion with a friend asking for Lenten suggestions for her kids to do; I realize that its never to late to start things in Lent. The important thing is that we try! So I thought I would share this beautiful free printable that kids can use this Lent from Ponder in my Heart. Each year they have a new colour in calendar so here is the one for 2018, my boys are enjoying it and I hope your kids will too .

Crafts, Feasts, Saints

Beautiful Rose Craft for Feast of St. Therese

We are always looking for new ways to celebrate our faith and feast days. With October fast approaching the feast of St. Therese is on my mind. I wanted to share this easy and beautiful paper rose craft to make for the feast of St Therese, Marisn feast or a get well gift for a loved one! It’s pretty simple, turns out beautifully and you can make it in a rainbow of colours. It can be done at almost any age with just some additional assistance from a parent. Add a tea party and you can have a lovely celebration!

The full instructions can be viewed at craft project ideas

Happy crafting!

For another lovely rose craft idea you can print visit my older post: St. Therese 3D Rose Craft

For more great ideas on ways to celebrate the feast o St. Therese please see my previous post: Happy Feast of St Therese

saint-therese-printable-craft

Crafts, Faith Building Resources, Home-School Ideas, Saints, Scripture Memorization

Inspiring Quote Canvas Craft!

Art and beautiful both sooth and inspire the soul. As we love crafts I wanted to share this Inspiring Quote Canvas we made. With the start of the new school year and it being the first year I would be homeschooling my daughter; I wanted to come up with a nice way to start the school year. A way that would both help inspire her and create a nice work space and that could also be easily changed as the year progresses. Thus the Inspiring Quote Canvas Project was born. Being an artist and a child whom loves to create this was a great project to start the year.

We began by visiting a few websites. After a quick google search I selected three different pages to share with here on quotes: inspiring quotes for kids, inspiring christian quotes and lovely scriptural quotes. After visiting the sites my daughter picked the quote that she felt most drawn to – that inspired her. She then typed the quote out in word, adjusted the font and size to something she liked and printed it. She painted her canvas, once it was dry she glued on her quote and then finished the project by decorating with stickers.

This project is both inexpensive and versatile: all the supplies were already in our home or came from the dollar store (including the canvas and stand). The best part is that as the liturgical year changes, feast days come up or she needs new inspiration – the canvas is removable. We can just use a new 5×7 canvas and create a brand new beautiful masterpiece – which we can display on her work area to inspire her daily or move to our dinner table to inspire us all at a tea party or family meal together!

Inspiring Quote Sites:

For some printable Mother Teresa Quotes to help get you start you can view my previous free printable Mother Teresa Quote Posting or you could visit my previous Inspiring Quotes and Scripture Post to help you find some inspiration to make your own Inspiring Canvas!

Other Ways to use this Project:

This great project could also be used to help learn some new scripture (Hide it in their hearts is a posting all about teaching kids more scripture and contains great free resources and sites for inspiring scripture for kids)
As a gift (maybe classroom exchange prayer partner or gift exchange, or a sick loved one)
Any feast day to help celebrate a favourite saint. As you create more you can create a collection to reuse each year again and again and your feast day celebrations:)
First Communion Craft – I am the bread of Life or some similar quote

The ideas are endless. Please feel free to comment with any creative ideas you come up with. Have fun and get inspired!

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Feasts, Recipe

BEST Vegan/Wheat Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

My BEST Vegan/Wheat Free Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe – Delicious for a feast day tea party

Recipe type: Dessert/Vegan/Wheat Free

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 15-18 cookies

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Ingredients

½ cup coconut oil
1 cup brown sugar
¾ cup coconut milk
2 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees
Cream together the coconut oil & brown sugar, then add the coconut milk, maple syrup & vanilla.
Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
Mix together – might start crumbly add a little more coconut milk if need. Next add the chocolate chips & any other mix-ins of your choosing (chia seeds, nuts, etc).
Roll into Tbsp sized balls & place them on a sheet of parchment paper on the baking sheet, then flatten them out a bit with your palm or a fork.
Bake for 8-10 minutes.

Another great recipe is OUr Favorite Vegan Gluten Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie which can be found at this website Beaming Baker:

Blog, Faith Building Resources, Saints

Printable Mother Teresa Inspiring Quotes!

I will be attending a Advent Ladies Potluck this week, besides bringing a dish to share, we were each asked to bring a gift with an inspiring quote to exchange. At first I thought I would make a nice tea mug with quote but after not being able to find the right markers to make the mug, I came up with a new idea. Instead I created a sheet of quotes by Mother Teresa. The sheet has 10 inspiring quotes by Mother Teresa and prints out on either business card paper or regular paper. I have included this Mother Teresa quotes page here for you to print as you like. I placed these quotes in the mug as well as a picture of Mother Teresa with one of my favorite quotes. I hope you can enjoy these quotes too!

Some of the quotes included are:
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. Mother Teresa

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. – Mother Teresa

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. – Mother Teresa

Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary. – Mother Teresa

A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. She gives most who gives with joy. – Mother Teresa

I selected Mother Teresa as I was working on a different project the same day. Last Christmas Day we found out that we lost our baby, I was 10 weeks pregnant and it was very sad news. I was hosting Christmas that day. On that day my mother presented me with a beautiful gift, it was a hand drawn picture of Mother Teresa that my mother had commissioned an artist to draw for me. As soon as I saw the image two quotes came to mind:

I slept and dreamt that Life was Joy. I awoke and saw that
Life was Service. I acted and behold, Service was Joy! – R. Tagore

Give, but give until it hurts. -Mother Teresa

I decided in that moment that I would choose to live my life in service to others during these dark days in my life. I would look for each blessing I had and I would find my Joy in the Lord. It was very fitting as we named our baby Joy Faustina and in the very difficult days that followed (I miscarried for over two months with many emergency room trips). I learnt that true Joy comes from the Lord – no matter what is happening you can always find Joy if you pray, trust, and rest in the Lord.

The second important thing I learnt was that I had never given enough of myself to my community – to my friends in need – sure I might have offered help or brought a meal, but was that really all I could offer someone in a time of need. I learnt that to really love our neighbours you need to give, give till it hurts. Every small act of love or kindness some one did for my family during this time was such a blessing and it helped me carry on. But now that I know better when a friend is in need I will do all that I can – even if I am busy, tired, short on money or stressed – it matters not because their needs exceed my needs in that moment. As the body of Christ we are many parts and if we all work together in service to others and we help carry each others burdens with love – even the darkest times can be made lighter. Love in contagious, service shows our love, service truly brings joy and since God is love!

Here is the image that now hangs on my wall as a reminder of our beautiful Joy and that is we really want to love we must give, give our ourselves, our resources, our time, our prayer – but GIVE and keep giving till it hurts in service and love on a daily basis!

Crafts, Feasts, Home-School Ideas

Cute Free Annunication Mary Writing Paper

Today my daughter wanted to send her grandma a letter in the mail. She knows grandma has a deep love of our Lady and the rosary so she wanted to send a little picture of Mary with the letter. After a quick search we found this lovely free writing paper with a cute image of Mary and the Holy Spirit. It was just so sweet I felt I had to share it.

Hope you can enjoy using it too:) Such a great sheet to use for the feast of the Annunciation, writing prayers, letters or poems! I would love to hear how you use it.

Crafts, Feasts

Guardian/ Archangel Angel Feast Day Craft!

For special feast days in our house the kids love to have a tea party (they love treats, whom doesn’t), make a craft, say a prayer and learn a little about the feast we are celebrating. October is just full of so many wonderful feasts – St. Therese, Guardian Angel, Archangels, St. Francis of Assisi, and many more! One feast we always have a lot of fun with is the Archangel Feast – my kids just love making paper craft angels. This year we decided to try something new here is a wonderful and easy idea my daughter came up with. You just need scissors, coloured paper and glue or tape.

Step 1: Get a coloured piece of paper, pencil, scissors and glue or tape.

Step 2: Decide on the size angel you want – then draw a circle for the head, 1 wing and draw two half circles, the bottom one longer, then connect these two with lines at an angel.

Step 3: Cut out your first wing, then trace the wing on he paper so that the wings are the same size. Cut out your second wing.

Step 4: Cut the circle and the angels body.

Optional – If you are planning to make more angels trace the cut outs on to paper now. Then you only have to cut and glue and can save time for future angels.

Step 5: Glue or tape the Angels body by connecting the two outside edges.

Step 6: Glue the Angels head to the front of the body.

Step 7: Glue the Wins

Step 8: Repeat as much as you like to create a rainbow of beautiful Angels!

Other ideas – glue the angel prayer to the angels body, glue a sword on the angel to represent St. Michael, etc.