The Rosary and Its Graces.

The month of the rosary has seen our family pray a decade of the rosary each night. It's been a month of graces, too. Our littlest ones have slowly moved away from colouring in rosary beads on paper and started praying with actual rosary beads. They're getting the hang of following and keeping track of the prayers with the beads now. 

Our little man loves leading the rosary. He started out saying the prayer in his 5 year old fashion: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed dat dat dat women and blessed is *mumble mumble* Jesus....." 

We all went red in the face one night trying to hold in our laughter. Such a sweet effort and I was relieved he could laugh along too. After a few weeks, he's managed to get it right. Yay! 

The bigs pray a decade of the rosary daily with the school this month. In order to be able to bring rosaries to school, they unearthed our jewellery pliers and fixed rosaries that had been broken for years. It's incredible what they can accomplish when they set their mind to it. They have been bringing extra rosaries to school to share with friends who are without.

Tonight, our big boy prayed a whole rosary on his own. He takes awhile to fall asleep and we've often encouraged him to pray when he can't sleep.

I struggled through the rosary with the husband tonight, and I'm pretty sure I had some micronaps along the way. We toddle along and God meets us where we are. We like to remind the children that each Hail Mary is a rose in heaven for Mother Mary. 

I committed to once a week sewing lessons for our big girl. Instead of throwing money at it, I am bumbling my way through, practising sewing a buttonhole before teaching her to sew one herself. She made it, and went on to make a garment for her soft toy. It is exhausting, actually doing the work for this, and I don't fancy myself a teacher by any stretch, but it was quite a meaningful first session and she enjoyed the hour with me.