Feast of St Brigid of Ireland

Today, 1st February, is St Brigid's day. At the weekend the kids and I made these crosses out of pipe cleaners as shown on the Catholic Icing site. (Please see sidebar for the link).
As Henry and his First Communion group have been learning about the Saints, we brought them along on Sunday to show the rest of his group. Some of the other parents who were brought up in Ireland were familiar with the tradition of cross weaving on this feast day.
Here is Henry's cross made out of the Irish flag colours.

I looked up the story of St Brigid on the good ol' internet to tell the children and picked out these snippets about her that I thought the kids would appeal to them most:

-her parents were baptised by St Patrick.

-she was a very beautiful girl who wanted to become a nun. But she attracted a lot of attention from men so she prayed to God to have her beauty taken away. Her prayer was granted so Brigid's father agreed to let her become a nun. As soon as she had taken her final vows, her beauty returned!

- While sitting beside the bed of a dying pagan chieftain, Brigid bent down and picked up some reeds that were lying on the floor and began weaving them into a cross and told the chieftain all about the life of Jesus. The chieftain converted to Christianity.

- Because she was so lovely and gentle, she reminded people of Jesus' mother Mary and is sometimes known as Mary of the Irish

-her parents were not married when she was born and she is therefore a patron saint of children of unmarried parents; also children with abusive parents and students.

- Her flower is the madonna lily.

The littlest hobos!

Today is the feast day of St Elizabeth of Hungary, the patron saint of Hobos who sold all her riches to help the sick, starving and homeless. As we were up a bit earlier than usual today, we had time before school to reflect on being thankful for having such a lovely home and everything we need. We've put her picture up on the sideboard, as a reminder, where it will stay until the beginning of Advent... which isn't long now!!!

At school today, the big kids were invited to audition for tomorrows' Children in Need talent show. Henry took in his guitar and Honor took a couple of hula hoops. But they both came home saying they'd bottled out of it!

I had tea with my friend Lee this morning. She has leant me a spotty dressing gown for Henry to wear. I also popped into town to pick up some photos - mainly of Hope. They're a bit disappointing. On my way back to the car I popped into the clothes shop for a browse and got chatting to an old lady who came up to see the baby. She used to be a nurse at the baby clinic years and years ago and loved working with the babies. She told me quite a bit about her own family, too. That's what is nice about carrying the baby around - it's a conversation starter!

One of the pictures shows Honor playing with Molly Moo Cow - the first thing I ever bought for her just after I found out I was expecting.