All Saints' Celebration!

Welcome to our homeschool group's All Saints' Party! I have had several people ask about how this party works. It's mostly due to the generosity of the O family coordinating it and letting us have it at their picturesque ranch. This year was a bittersweet celebration, being the first event out there since they lost their 17 year-old son Hayden in a swimming accident this summer. May God continue to bless their family as they grieve. And may his soul rest in peace.

So welcome to the tour....

First we have a nice picture of Steven holding mini-St. Francis of Assisi.
Isn't it a great picture of him (the daddy that is :)

Now the saint parade begins. We see Our Lady heading up the parade,
pulling the popemobile!

St. Elizabeth of Hungary with her basket,
and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in the black shirt

Parade!

Coming around the bend

Ellie with her "knight", her best buddy St. George!

Now the games begin!
This is the "Cake Walk of Saints"

"St. Martha's Bake Shoppe" where they iced and decorated cookies

David & Goliath ball toss

St. Therese's Shower of Roses toss

Queen Mary's Halo Toss

All Saints' Bingo

St. Peter's Fishing Boat

St. Paul's Missionary Journey

Knock Down the 7 Deadly Sins

Not pictured were: St. Thomas Aquinas Trivia,
Pope John Paul Face Painting, St. Isadore's Horseshoe Toss,
Pin the Mitre on St. Patrick, Blessed Kateri's Stone Rosary,
St. Francis Nature Craft, and St. Anthony's Item Search.

I love this picture of Ellie swinging.
This is where Mary Clare fell off and lost her tooth!

And a bonus picture of our gorgeous Goddaughter!

Hope you enjoyed the tour! And I ask for prayers for a special intention for Steven today...thanks!

God bless our new country and new President-Elect.

Girly Girls

"Mommy, if you let us have candy all the year,
you win you a kwize. I pwomise."

Playing dress-up yesterday
She said, "Mommy, take a picture of me,
'cause I look gweutiful."

Beautiful bride

Telling NeNe about her new lost tooth.
All she'll want for Christmas is her two front teeth :)

Beach Beauty

(warning: many beautiful pictures ahead ;)

Fishing Daddy

Sweet Sisters

Toothless Grin

Skipping with her shadow

Sandcastle

Bye Bye sandcastle

Fun with shells

Mr. Wonderful

Loving this beach place!

Daddy out fishing while girls are playing

Peaceful

Beauty

Sweet sandy sisters

Me and my crew

Family

And some effects from Ike

Crane lifts boat off the highway

We can't wait to go back again! A great time of the year for the beach! It was kind of bittersweet to enjoy the beautiful seaside, while those all around were working to clean up the mess left over from Ike. So many homes were damaged, debris lined the roadways, and there were still stray boats everywhere. My prayers continue to be with those residents of Galveston and those who help with the aftermath of the hurricane. God bless them.

The Beach

waves, sand, sun, tides, seashells, seagulls, sandcastles...a sweet peace invades my soul, even while continually fishing seashells and sand out of baby's mouth. We had a fun outing today. Pictures to come!

Halloween Fun!

We had a toothless Tooth Fairy, a Princess, and a sweet baby lion cub :)

Hope you all had a fun night too!

Nursing home visit

with the homeschool group this morning.

All the saints ready to visit the residents!

little Saint Francis liked his rope belt a lot!

St. Elizabeth of Hungary (queen who gave bread to the poor)
St. Francis of Assisi (you might notice the bird on his shoulder)
and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (American wife, mother, widow,
and foundress of teaching order of nuns)

Now we're resting up for the Halloween fun!

Teaching them to find the positives

After I knocked over a ~2-liter glass bottle of Mexican vanilla extract ALL over the pantry. It shattered and sprayed everywhere, taking me about 2 hours on and off to get it all clean!

Mary Clare: "Well, at least the pantry won't smell like dirty diapers anymore!"

You know you're a tired mommy

when you come out of the grocery store at midnight BY YOURSELF and notice you parked in the "Customers with Small Children" spot without even realizing it! (I do have the excuse of talking on the cell phone while I was parking though ;)

Too funny

She's going to be a toothless Tooth Fairy for Halloween!

And a fun week of babies!
Congratulations to Lillian!
Congratulations to Stephanie!
Continued prayers for Roxanna!

This weekend we saw this movie, a wonderful Christian movie about marriage. I recommend it to everyone and all my close-neighbors...I can babysit for you if you'd like a date night! Way to go Kirk Cameron...my childhood TV crush is doing great things for the world :)

We've still got a lot to do in preparation for Halloween and All Saints' Day, namely a Tooth Fairy costume and accessories and a St. Elizabeth Ann Seton costume, plus some things for our nursing home visit and All Saints' Day festival booth. Better go get busy!

"The Zoo Boo" by Mary Clare and Ellie

We went to the zoo. The zoo was so fun.
Oh I can't wait to go there again!

There was some kind of festival thing going on.

The tigers were sleeping.

The apes were pretty red, kind of orangey.

The elephants are big and fun.
Mac has tusks now! Mac is getting very big.

We went to see the giraffes.
I wonder why the giraffes like pumpkins?
I saw them eating one.

I saw the meerkat that was on the lookout!

The bunnies were kind of by the flamingos, near the water.

We went to see the flamingos when we were start going to leave.
They were pretty pink!

Komodo dragons were cool. The last thing we saw were the zebras.
There was some kind of gazelle thingy at the zoo.

The end.

Before and After

Before

After

Before

After

Ahhh. Much better.