MARDI GRAS/Pancake Tuesday!

Ahhh. Today is always such a fun day. Blogsphere and Facebook light up with pictures of pancakes, ice cream, chocolate, feasting, king cake, masks, and beading. It's Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday, Fat Tuesday! Yipeeee!! Hubby made us the BEST Pancake supper with eggs, veggie omelet for me, and BACON! YUM!! Thanks!

Then, the eve brings on the morrow - Lent 2012.

I need to admit something. I am most excited. I NEED this Lent. I need something to help me focus on God and something WAY BIGGER than me and our current lot. I need to remember that I can be a living offering - carrying my own cross. As many times as I'll stumble this Lenten season in carrying my crosses, I can have as many opportunities to grow a little stronger in the Lord.

(This next part is adapted from last year's post)

I'm always so inspired by Lent, and the ideas I glean from the internet and blogs, and those ideas have given my family traditions I never grew up with. Usually we make a Easter Countdown calendar (a sheep that you add cotton balls too) but I didn't have the energy to put that together this year OR last year. Karen had a great idea to make solemnity days a great discovery and a special treat day from coloring the days purple - Lovely LOVED that. This year, Valiant can have her own to color!

The rest I'll list -and yes, it looks long, but much of it is just part of our routine. It's funny how much MORE I want to do! Other people's blogs just get me too excited!

My Sacrifices/Goals:

~  I will be doing both my daily Small Steps for Catholic Moms, and also doing the authors' Lenten Meditations and do their daily fasts, alms, and prayers. They will be my "giving up" and "adding to" for Lent. Every day is something different from an internet "fast" from e-mail/internet, to simply being more present to my kids or spouse, or no TV for a day, to not cutting corners with my daily work, or giving 5 minutes to God in the morning and evening. They challenge me, which enriches me if I listen to the instructions. I love how varied it is and it makes me give up more than I would make myself do, or DO more than I make myself do.
~ I also love reading the Little Black Book for Lent. It is full of great meditations on each Sunday's Gospel and is divided Monday - Saturday on the right side of the book. The left side of the book explains a tradition, a person, a feast, or neat fact that adds to the bible verses being studied. It is really fantastic.
~ I am aiming to start my day with 3 Minute Retreats . Have you tried them? They are biblically based and they can take less than a minute if you want them to. They are amazing for all Christian walks.

Hubby's Goals:

~ Giving up soda for Lent (this is huge for him).
~ work more on some Kof C duties both at home and church.
~ work on his prayer life.

Family/Lovely Sacrifices and Goals:

~ We will pull a prayer out of our family prayer jar this way, this season.
~ Ash Wednesday evening service
~  Kate give me an idea during her 2010 Advent practice to eat simple dinners - soups and salads. My family will be doing that this Lent as a family sacrifice as much as we can.
~ We want to work on real Family Dinners TOGETHER. Since we moved into our condo, it is harder to sit around the table, and we've fallen into bad habits. I'd like to aim for a more formal setting 3 x's a week to start!
~ I would like to start a Mother/Children tea time for me and the kids around 3pm, three times a week to help us connect outside of homeschooling or our crazy schedules.
~ One of the bedtime stories each night will be a New Testament children's story - starting from Jesus' birth to His Resurrection. We did this last year and it was great - we actually used the Children's bible stories to cover the whole new testament!
~ Fridays we'll attend our church's Fish Dinner and Stations of the Cross.
~ We'll attend the Lenten Penance Service at our church.
~ We'll be doing Lenten Adventure activities - e-mailed to us 3 times a week. We love this every year!
~ We'll have a sacrifice jar where Lovely can put beans in for each sacrifice she does ("Love is what you do, not what you feel" - meaning sometimes doing things for others out of love isn't what you feel like doing). On Easter Sunday those beans become jelly beans!!! Here is ours from last year. Thanks Karen for the idea!!
~ We will do this Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy cross and flowers from last year (scroll down for pic). We hung the cross today on our door! Again, Karen literally made this possible for us! Thank you!
~ We will hide the "Alleluia"! (Lovely is really excited!)
~ We'll make Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday and Resurrection Rolls for Easter Sunday and pretzels often (symbol of Lent).

OUR (Hubby and I) UNIFIED Personal Sacrifices/Goals:
~ We want to do our dialogue sessions at least 3 x's a week.
~ We want to do some spiritual dialoguing sessions 2 x's week together.

There are more fantastic ideas being shared at Catholic Icing. WOW!

So - These are our Lenten plans and goals. I can't wait to see what graces pour forth from the new focus the next 40 days. I love the traditions we discover, the growth, the journey, the prayers, and the challenge. We'll probably stumble, but the challenge is to try again. Pray for us....we'll be praying for you!!! Happy Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras!!!