Magnificent May Crowning

It's so hard to believe that it's already May and that we find ourselves winding down our second year together.  After a full year of learning our nine core virtues, using Mary as our guide, we ended with a beautiful afternoon dedicated to a May Crowning of the Blessed Mother.

The girls remembered to wear the maiden's wreathes that we created at our April meeting and they all looked absolutely lovely....like the true princesses that they are...in their best dresses. 

We gathered first for our usual coloring page, this one of the Coronation of Mary.

After our opening prayers and discussion on our virtue for the day (piety), we talked about all the virtues we've learned about this year and tried to remember all the different flowers that symbolized those virtues.  Each girls was then given a flower (one of those representing our virtues) which she would add to Mary's crown.

We headed out to the Marian garden on outside the rectory and all the girls awaited a turn to climb the ladder and give a flower to Mary.

The battery to my camera began to flash just as I started to take pictures of each Bud ascending the ladder.  I have to believe that it was Divine Intervention that the battery lasted through entire crowning!  (And we would soon find that this was not the only bit of Divine Intervention for the day,

either!)

So, here they are...each and every one.  Watch Mary's wreath grow as each Bud adds her special touch!

  

 



And at last...the final flower!

We posed for one last group picture around our beautiful Mother...

and then the treats came out!

It was at about this time that our Graces expired!  A huge rain storm hit just as we finished up and got settled back inside.  Not one Bud got wet!

And Mary looked absolutely lovely!

Oh, Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,

Queen of the angels, Queen of the May.

Oh, Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,

Queen of the angels,

Queen of the day.

Blessed Mary, Mother of God,

Pray for Us!

Keep planting seeds...

Maiden's Wreaths

It's been too long since we've had a Rose Bud post!  We have had a couple of meetings since our fashion show, but I was terrible about posting, so I do apologize.  This one should hopefully make up for it!

We are down to our last two virtues and our last two meetings of this school year.  We are preparing for a special May Crowning of our Blessed Mother at our next meeting, so at our April meeting we did some getting ready!

First...the virtue: Love of Neighbor

We have a lovely local women's association that services the community in so many wonderful ways.  This season, they have been collecting self-serve breakfast items for their Weekend Snack Pack Program.  This is an outreach program for area children who need healthy breakfasts on the weekends.

We saw this as a great way for the Buds to get involved and help their neighbors, and dedicate themselves to some spacial alms giving this Lent.  We set donations boxes in our school, made some posters and started collecting!  Each Bud also brought her donation to our meeting. 

We were overrun with items!  It was wonderful.  We took them to the collecting box that was located in our church and it literally filled it to the brim!

Thanks to everyone for their generous donations. 

The rest of our meeting was dedicating to preparing ourselves for our May Crowning.  Of course, we know that Mary is our Queen Mother.  And we know that Jesus is Christ our King.  So that must make us all princesses! 

So, we began this portion of our meeting with a story, followed by a lovely "princess" craft and then another gorgeous treat from Ms. A.

One of our Buds received this book from her Daddy in celebration of her First Holy Communion this year.  It's a sweet story of Gigi, who discovers she is royalty... the daughter of a great King!  The girls just loved the humor and it was beautiful to see the looks in their eyes when they realized the answer to Gigi's question, when at the end she wonders...

"When will I get my crown?"

We decided to make some "temporary" crowns as our crafts. 

We constructed a Maiden's Wreath.  It was a lovely little ivy headpiece onto which the girls placed some of the flowers that represent the virtues we are learning about: 

peony ~ love of God

violet ~ humility

forget-me-not ~ piety

carnation ~ obedience

daffodil ~ industry

ivy ~ hope

It was also filled with ribbons and bows and all things princess!  We will keep these wreaths safe and wear them next month as we crown our Blessed Mother.  Of course, we plan to dress like the princesses that we are for the occasion too!

What do you think of these lovely ladies?



What a group of cuties!



Of course our meetings are never complete until Ms. A gets out those reusable Gymboree boxes that we all know will be filled with goodies of one kind or another!  What would we have done this year without her amazing yummies?

And this time, we even had royal service!

What did he get himself in to?

Well, I think we can say this meeting was a royal success!

Keep planting seeds...