Saturday, November 1, 2014

Oh Lord I want to be in that number!

All Saints Day Party!

We took the kiddos to 2 different Saint Day celebrations. 
This first one was at a local retreat center.

The second All Saints Day Party was at our parish.
Our Mother's guild - St. Gerard's put it together and it turned out really fun.
My pictures just do not do it justice as I was rushing to snap a few pics before the festivities began.
We had 15 activities/games:
Here are a few that I took a picture of.

 Oh, first though are our Heavenly Gates!
 

I saw a heavenly entrance - so we ran with their creativity...
Our balloons clouds kept popping...and falling I guess too!

 

Games:

 St. John Bosco
The kids kicked a soccer ball in the goal and then received a variety of balls for a prize.
 St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
My 8 year old daughter, Lydia, thought of this game and I loved it!  The kids had to study the items on the chalk board and then turn around and something was taken away and they had to guess what was missing.  Super Cute!  They received "smarties" candy for a prize.

St. Mary Magdalene's Perfume shop


Match up the scents!
We had: Mint, Lemon, Cherry, Banana, Root Beer, and Garlic....yum!


Toss the Halo on the Saint

Saintly version of a ring toss game.
We used yellow glow necklaces for the halo....prizes were LED Finger lights.

St. Anthony, St Anthony please come around


something is lost and cannot be found!
Kiddos Saints simply pulled a prize out from packaging peanuts...easy enough!

St. Joseph's 
Workshop Shop


The idea was to have 2 kids race to build a chair, but I think they just built one and called it good!
Prize was a pencil....since they are made from wood!

St. Isadore's Pumpkin Bowling


St. Helen


 trying it out.
Prize was Mott's Medleys Fruit snacks from Costco.

St. Peter's Fishing Game



We had versions of this game.  I did not get a picture of the other version for the little ones...
There was a little baby pool filled with blow up fish and the little ones could find a statue of St. Peter in it.  They loved bouncy in the little pool!

St. Cecelia's Musical Chairs


Absolute hit with everyone.
  Except Our Lady would not move out of her seat, she just sat there and watch the other children walk around her.  It was cute....Our Lady did not want to wear her veil either.


We decorated a tree in honor of St. Francis....
St. Lucia in front!

Saint George -
There he is!


 Fighting the dragon


Throwing him in the fiery furnace!

 St. Therese

Rose Toss of course.

Parade

The Saints paraded around the parish center...St. Lucia was so sweet to carry Our Lady!

We had 3 more games/activities - I just did not snap a picture of these:

St. Patrick - pin the shamrock on him
St. Martha's Bake Shop - Decorate a cookie
St. Helen - Find the True Cross - simply pick from 3 crosses to guess which one Jesus was on - turn it over to find out! 

Each station had a picture and a bio of each saint.  In the case of the Toss the Halo game I made a picture with Jesus (from Faith Keepers Holy Card Maker as were most of the other pictures) and the sheet read:
Help Jesus Toss the Halo on the Saint
Let their halo shine bright for they are filled with Jesus' light!

Wish I had better pics - this was a few years of seeing all the ideas online and finally implementing them in our parish - it was great fun - thanks to all the moms that helped locally and all the moms that post such fun and creative ideas online for us to draw ideas from!



All Hallow's Eve....Halloween

We were running behind on Halloween, so my pictures are few.
But here is my crew.
Ghost...holy of course.
Roman soldier in the back on the right.
Ladybug....who refused to put the hood on so one could see she is a bug.
Elsa
Anna

Cupcake (we carved a few days ahead....hence the black spots)
Tinkerbell with pixie dust (hence holes)
 Huskers
Celtic....sort of...cross - kinda messed up a bit
 scary....Evan wanted to do that one


It was a coooolllddd night ....

Poor girl's hair turned white
(just kidding we sprayed it.)


 He blended in with our ghosts this year.


Brrrr


5 little ghosts.
Happy All Hallows Eve
and the next day we were saints for an all saints day celebration.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Fall Fun at Martin's Orchard

Oh, I love this orchard.
We live up the road from one of the largest pumpkin patches in the country,
like the Disney World of Pumpkin Patches.  
But, somehow, I almost prefer this simple orchard and pumpkin patch.

They have a mini corn maze.

Nice to not get lost for hours or lose anyone like you can in the big ones.
(Not that, that has happened - we only lose our children at Universal Studios)


 Corn play
Can you tell who wanted to bury herself?



Cy
He loves this jacket,
it is getting so small for him, but he is in denial about that.


Watch out


scary guy in the bushes.


It melts my heart when I see him help the littlest one.
Marin was scared to go down the slide
after the first time down was at mock speed.


She was adamant about removing her jacket.
Stubborn as the day is long that child.


 my crew



So it was nice they still had raspberry picking




Marin ate a few along the way
I heard a lot of "mmmm"
"ahhnt more"


  



 Off to get pumpkins...





Lydia called it the popcorn pumpkin.
We opted not to take that one though.





Love fuzzy, wuzzies


This is a silly pic - she was pretending that teeny tiny pumpkin was heavy.


Aliza looked at our bounty and was so happy to see all the raspberries!
"Wow, that is a lot of raspberries"
in her 4 year old little voice.
How did God make kids voices to sound so so so so precious, how?


Just the girls



They climbed up and down and raced each other.
The boys kept racing on opposite sides...
Evan finally figured out dad was having Cyrus get a head start sometimes!


Lydia found the teeniest tiny apple.


 She ended up finding more and collecting them.  


Marin found a slippery tunnel.
She probably would have spent the whole day in it - if I let her.


Llama hanging out.
(Llama makes me want to say pajama)


I love that fall sky ~
especially with those big black tires!



Aliza told us it was the best day ever!
She says that a lot - which is quite beautiful.
I love how little ones truly appreciate the simplest things in life.
Give her a new .99 cent coloring book
 and you would think she was given a whole candy store!


 

We all just kept saying how great of a day it was.
Lydia even mentioned how she does not even care if we make it to Pumpkin Disneyland Vala's this year because we got to go to Martin's and pick pumpkins!


An attitude of gratitude...very beautiful.