Ash Wednesday

Lent is here!

I'm making this Lenten wreath again with the kids later today.


Then we get ashes tonight at Mass.


We also dug out our Mite Jar.


The kids really enjoy this one. Joe's mom prepared this Mite Jar for us and we use it as another Lenten tradition to collect money (from ourselves) throughout the season to later donate to charity. Grammy wrote out 40 fun math challenges on strips of paper. Each evening during Lent, one of the kids picks one strip out of the jar and everyone helps figure out how much change we put into the jar. The strip might ask for $.05 for every chair in the house,


or $.20 for each bed, or $.05 for each light bulb downstairs. We give a little change each day. It encourages a spirit of grateful giving...and it's a source of entertainment for all of us each evening after our reflection prayers and after we blow out the Lenten wreath candles.

Grammy gave us this Mite Jar about 8 years ago, so it was certainly before our kids could do the math. At a very young age, though, they still loved to search through the house for all of the items or try to do the basic counting. Now, the kids have replaced a few of the strips with some of their own ideas.

I've created a very basic document with ready-made Mite Jar strips that is available to print from here. I plan to edit it to make it a little cuter at some point, but the plain style will suffice for now. After all, plain and simple is symbolic for Lent, right?!

Between all of the busy-ness this week already (hosting Bunco, re-fi closing...), we've been preparing ourselves for the Lenten season. It is something that we always look forward to as it is a wonderful time to reflect on and strengthen our faith. Making some fun family traditions helps reinforce the real meaning of the season rather than focusing on the more secular traditions.