My Sunday Best: Parish Faith Night Edition

It is so amazing to be back! Our computer gave out a couple weeks ago and my cousin came to the rescue. Now to catch up with some great posts because it always happens that you are inspired while unable to share right?

Today is the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time and also a Parish Faith Night for our Church. Parish Faith Night is a special event that we host to help share information, fun crafts and fellowship. This particular Parish Faith Night was all about Saints and Feast Days. I was really excited that we were able to attend Parish Faith Night because we missed Mass this morning. My youngest son has been having an extremely difficult time with his emotional outbursts this week and this morning was rough to say the least. We have routines for everything to help our transitions and nothing seemed to keep Goalie in a calm disposition. We had a small talk after he completed Tiny Turtle. We came to the agreement that the wiggles and nervous feelings he was having this morning were very hard to control so we would not attend Mass but we would attend Parish Faith Night. It is sometimes very difficult to make choices like this because it does change our routine but it is better than keeping Goalie in his downward spiral of emotions he finds himself at times. He is formally diagnosed with ADHD but he is currently undergoing testing for an ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) because his school and behavioral therapist both have noted concerns that he may have Aspergers, which is a high functioning Autistic diagnosis.

In case you haven't heard of Tiny Turtle before, it is a new anger management skill we have been practicing for Goalie. If you are interested in trying out "Tiny Turtle"check out these simple steps:

First, form an imaginary turtle shell by curling into a little ball.
Second, take at least three deep breaths.
Third, say "I can do it, I can calm down" until you feel better and then you can emerge from your tiny turtle shell and move forward with your activity.

After a rough morning, I am happy to say that we really turned around the day and Parish Faith Night was a success! Our night was centered around the Saints and the Feast Days. To kick things off we started with an enormous pot luck dinner to start our fellowship. We had an abundance of many food, dessert and drinks. After everyone had eaten, we began a discussion with the children about Saints: What makes a Saint a Saint? Who can become a Saint? Who decides who is a Saint? Name some Saints and Feast Days. You know the saying "Kids say the darnedest things?" Well tonight was no different! So many laughs and great memories.

After the discussion we went into our Saint Parade! Here are my two little Saints below: Saint Dominic and Saint Joseph!

In addition to all of our fun events we also incorporated some printables for the families present to work on together. Check out Catholic Icing has an amazing Family Litany of Saints Worksheet that we discussed and there were also All Saints coloring pages. You can check out my Pinterest page if you are looking for some great Catholic coloring pages.

I think that my most favorite part of the evening was being able to sing The Litany of Saints with my two little saints and just be in the moment of peace and fellowship with my parish. I am so glad that the evening was a success and I am looking forward to the next Parish Faith Night in March!

Now that the night is over, I am enjoying a glass of wine with my husband! I am linking this post to My Sunday Best

God Bless!