My view

from the kitchen window doing dishes after dinner this evening. Gotta love it.

All Saints Day!

We have been looking forward to this for weeks! Here is our little saint lineup at home featuring St. Lucy, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Padre Pio and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. (Stephen got a kick out of Austin coloring on him with marker for the beard and wounds of Christ!)

Face painting...always a hit!

St. Elizabeth of Hungary was mostly interested in the candy after playing a few games.

Saint Bingo...they played this for quite a while!

Mariana looked so beautiful and grown up!

A group of saintly friends with our St. Lucy hiding behind one of them. :(

Austin and I were Saint John Bosco and Saint Gianna Molla and did brief presentations along with several others...but no photos of that! He made quite a show even singing "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In" and leading a parade. (He was the last one to speak). So much fun!

Children's Barnyard

We have not been to this in a few years, and the children really enjoyed it yesterday! We were so blessed to go with a group of our very good friends!

Goats

 Sheep

 Baby chicks (I think the favorite of all the children...at least mine!)

Allia was so sweet carefully picking up the chicks and handing them to the younger children who wanted to hold them but couldn't pick them up on their own.

Pigs

Miniature Horse...the children enjoyed this animal because he was eating all the hay they handed him. So they were all walking around scooping hay off the ground to feed him.

Full Size Horse

Ahhh, the John Deere Tractor...can you say boy magnet?

The whole group!

Mmmmm, the ice cream sandwich treat at the end (this was how I convinced Stephen to leave the tractor! Luckily he knows what ice cream is!)

Sweet helpers

I am always thankful that the oldest in our family are girls...today Stephen hasn't been feeling so well. I think he has a cold, and when we were picking Gloria up from dance at noon he looked ready to conk out. So Allia started stroking his hair in the car, and she and Mariana made an elaborate plan to put him down for nap right when we arrived home. We came home, I served Gloria lunch, and they did it.  Stephen went down peacefully and happily with them, and by the time I made it upstairs to check on him he was already fast asleep!!! What great helpers!

Crazy Daddy Games

We try to do something fun and unusual as a family on Sunday to set the day apart as special for the children. Last week, it was hide and seek (good family fun!). Today after lunch Austin decided to create this wild jumping game where the children jump off the couch into a pile of couch pillows (which are usually not allowed to be on the floor!). They had great fun, as you can see!

The Sound of Music

Austin and I took the older two girls to see some friends of ours in the Sound of Music (my all time favorite movie!) this afternoon. They did a beautiful job! Here are the girls afterwards with Johnathan (Freidrich ) and Stephen (Rolf).

Soccer Saturday

Here we are with soccer again! I was at Allia's game this morning, and they played an awesome game. It was quite a match but they came out on top with Allia making an awesome pass to her teammate who then scored a goal in the last 10 seconds of the game! Here is the shot of her playing goalie in the first half (the photo is deceiving...she did make the stop, so no goal scored). Austin is going to Mariana's game, and I could have gone too. But I have to stay home to get ready for our special afternoon outing today. ;)

And unfortunately I have no photos from Mariana's game, but she made her first ever goal this week. Yay, Mariana!!!