Heaven on Earth!

I told you here that I'd be posting the other saints at our Little Flowers' All Saints Party.  I had so much fun with these girls saints!!  You'll notice, some of them really worked it!!  Cute :)

St. Catherine Laboure

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

St. Helena

St. Agnes

St. Joan of Arc

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

St. Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist)

St. Cecilia

St. Therese

St. Gabriel

St. Clare

St. Sophia

St. Francis

St. Therese

Blessed Mother

Blessed Mother

St. Rose of Lima

St. Joan of Arc

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

And just in case you're wondering (and if you weren't you will be when I tell you) that St. Francis' hair is the child's own hair!  Isn't she he incredible!?

All her hair is wrapped up, around and bobby-pinned in!  Her mother said it took hours!

Pantyhose and Bobby Pins... gotta love the ingenuity.

I must say, HE was definitely a hit!!!

(and don't you just love the stuffed labrador puppy?!)

What a wonderful afternoon the girls enjoyed!!

Little Flowers' All Saints Party

St. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Catherine of Siena

The girls reading their "Guess the Saint" clues...

These are our "Up in Heaven" Photos...

...aren't they divine?

Our wonderful Craft Mom (official title ::grin::) did the backdrop.  Actually I think she delegated - whether it was supervised or not, I do not know.  All I do know is that my dear daughters had white paint on them and loads (loads!!!!) of fun!  Thanks Michele!!

I am waiting on permission from the other mothers to post their daughter's pictures.  They are soooo adorable!!  (wait til you see St. Francis!!!)

Some Saint Games

The girls got in a single file line, oldest to youngest and a mom counted off each girl 1-4.  All the ones got on Team 1, the twos on Team 2 and so on.  So each team had an older girl (captain of the team) all the way down to the younger players.  They had to complete 5 tasks - each teamate assigned a task by the captain.

Sweep up the beans and dump into a wastebasket

Pick up the socks and put into a basket

Stack the dishes

Wash the window

&

The Captain had to bring back the basket of socks and the stacked dishes without dropping them.

When the team completed all the tasks they circled together to recite a Hail Mary (reflective of St. Bathildis's entrance into religious life in later years - after her duties were completed)

Pin the Rose on the Bouquet

Here the girls performed different virtues (charades style) while the other girls had to guess the virtue.

All you holy men and women, pray for us!

Our Halloween

People usually crack up when I tell them, "My kids start thinking of next year's costumes for Halloween the night of the present Halloween." Seriously. 364 days-o-plannin'.

The downer part of this year's trick or treating was the cold and rain. But the great part (besides the kids being so doggone excited) was the spontaneous visit by some great fellow homeschooling friends. The only reason I mention the homeschooling part is because we were some of the last remaining beggers around (again, in the miserable cold and rain) - we were all joking how our children are Hearty Homeschoolers. "We're deprived of most everything. This is our one thing. We're not stopping 'til we've hit every house!"

So here are the results of much creativity on the girls' part mostly:

Baby New Year (Charlie - 2.5yo)

The Pirate-y Boy - "ARG" (Joseph 4.5yo)

The Mad-Hatter (Dani 13yo)

And of course, Dread Pirate Roberts (John Paul 6yo)

Dani put this whole costume together herself. She bought the shirt for John Paul. Paul, Kayla and I were the only ones who knew of the secret costume. The other sibs loved it when they saw him in costume.

The Pink Panther (Therese 9yo)

Annie Oakley (Sophia 8yo - in 11 days ::sigh::)

Therese had an iPod shuffle with little speakers plugged in [$7 @ Best Buy] which was playing the theme to The Pink Panther. Paul attached the speaker to a belt with cable wraps and then it was hidden under her sweatshirt. She had the walk down to a T. It was so awesome. I really wanted to take some video of her, but it was rainy out. And cold. Yuck.

Dani bought her coat, shirt, vest, teacup and hat at Goodwill (actually, the hat she got at a party store). Her pocketwatch was an old alarm clock we had and we made a chain out of paper clips.

And now, they begin planning who they'll be in 364 days....