Saints in the Summertime--St. Anne

 Grandmothers are wonderful women that are an important part of their grandchildren's lives. Even Jesus had a grandmother. Hannah, or Anne was the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary--the mother of Christ. She is not really spoken of in the New Testament, but legend tells us that Anne and her husband Joachim were not able to have children for such a long period of time. Joachim went away to pray about it for 40 days and nights, and when Anne learned he was gone, she too prayed. An angel came to her and told her their prayers were heard and she would indeed have a child and her child would be spoken of in all the world. Mary was conceived without sin and Anne raised Mary to put her faith and trust in God, dedicating her to Him. God choose his good and faithful servants to be the parents of the Mother of Jesus.

Mathilda shared that St. Anne is pictured cloaked in red and green...colors symbolic of immortality and divine love. She is the patron saint for many, but specifically grandmothers and women in labor. She is also the patoness of homemakers and sewers, so Mathilda chose to depict these things in her lesson. (I am along for the ride, available to assist and occasionally veto unrealistic ideas, but she was set on sewing, so I took a deep breath and we proceeded. I wasn't sure what the boys were going to think...not that they would be opposed to learning something about sewing, but taking direction on it from their sister seemed a little daunting)

We found a couple of coloring pages and then the perfect little embroidery templates of saints and made watermelon (red and green) cupcakes and red and green apple slices, and then Mathilda read a bit about St. Anne, and prayed for her to take our petitions to Jesus. St. Anne's feast day is July 26th.  Good job Mathilda. 

The sewing element has kind of surprised me.  All of the kids were excited, and in fact, I had to go buy a couple more embroidery hoops and thread.  I wasn't sure about all of them wanting to try, but they did (not Amelia), and they have been embroidering for days now!!

  In fact, I've been working on this post for days and it is difficult to finish, because I've been threading needles, rethreading, rethreading, rethreading, rethreading, undoing, tracing a new image, untangling, rethreading.  Talk about practicing patience!  :)  I'm thrilled that they're all interested.  I'm not so sure I really know how to embroider, but I know how to make it look like an outline on the front, and now, so do my kids...at some point I'll get pictures of all of their cute little creations...it must be kind of relaxing for them!

 Imagine Tim's surprise when he walks into a quiet house to see all of his children sitting with needle and thread, embroidering on tea towels!  I've ended up cutting up several towels to make them go around and reduce the bulk in hand, but it's been totally worth it.  (Although I finally had to ask for 20 minutes of uninterupted time to finish here...they had to literally put their work down, because it has been three solid hours of helping someone with their needles.)  FUN.

St. Anne, pray for us!

(Jakob is away at camp this week...and regarding the photos taken in the dining room the last several posts:  all that stuff along the wall in boxes is waiting to be delivered to the thrift store!  WAITING being the key word here.  Hopefully it won't become permanant decor there, although it's beginning to blend in!!!)