If Snow White brings home this much candy, and a nerd brings home this much candy, and then you add the Hulk's candy, a demon's candy, and the snazzy dressed ladies candy, you end up with way toooooo much candy!

"Sing with All the Saints in Glory"

The Sodality girls at our church hosted their annual All-Saints costume party last night.

We had a little angel attend the party,
along with Moses, who visited with Grandpa before heading out.

The Perfect Party Day!

Gracie enjoyed the best day a birthday girl can!

She got to have her favorite dinner!
Everyone was home to celebrate!
Becky made her a super cake!!
She received a very exciting present!

A digital camera, just what she always wanted!
Say cheese!!

Homemade Halloween Bowling

My big girl's needed to supply a game for the annual All-Saints party at church tonight, and I saw a neat idea somewhere about making a bowling game from empty soda bottles.

I didn't make that,

instead I used a bowling set we had (milk bottles and a "mooing" cow ball) and transformed that into bowling fit for Halloween.

First, I just wrapped the original bowling pins in a full sheet of black and "orange" construction paper. (We have used up all our orange paper this halloween season, so we colored some yellow paper orange.)

Ta-dah!

Next was the fun part, I decorated each pin. I made some pumpkins and some ghosts. The ghosts were made with white paper face shapes glued on, and the pumpkins were made with a black sharpie for the face, and a handmade stem.

I bought a bag of artifical gourds and pumkins at Joann's Fabrics for 60% off, so I think the cost was about 2 dollars for 6. We used these for the "bowling ball". This set held up very well. About 20 kids played with them for an hour and they were still in great shape. The artificial gourds became chipped and cracked though. (They are styrofoam inside and a hard layer on the outside.) I thought about using a real gourd but I am afraid that it would end up as mush-so we will be sticking with artificial.

Happy Halloween!!

It's Gracie's Big Day!

Happy Birthday, Gracie!!! We love you!!!

Our Miracle Girl-7 Years Old

I can't believe that it has been 7 years, it feels like yesterday, it feels like a lifetime.

Thank-you, Lord, for giving us this miracle, and allowing her Momma to stay and watch her grow.

Let is snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

The next five long months have begun......

Tot School

We had a busy tot-school week with alot of learning mixed into many, many outside "big kid" activities.

I pulled out the Lauri Fit-A-Space puzzles and both tots enjoyed them.

Luke has become very good at sorting them by colors and then putting them together. I gave them each three at a time, but I think Luke is ready for more.

For the past two weeks have been concentrating on nursery rhymes.
Kimberly is just loving this version of Mother Goose that we got from the library.

Because of the Halloween season and in light of our latest visitor, we have been zeroing in on spider nursery rhymes. I saw a post about this book, Kathy Ross's Storytime Craft Book, which gave it rave reviews, and I have to agree completely.

The first craft we made was to accompany the nursery rhyme, The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

We made the Itsy Bitsy Spider with a bead, pipe cleaners, a sharpie, and black yarn.

I made a waterspout and reenacted the rhyme, many, many times.

Christmas tinsel gave a wonderful water effect, "washing the spider out!"

I had bought a package of wooden beads to use in future projects. Kimberly got a hold of them, so I gave her an egg carton and she was happily occupied putting them in and out of the carton for quite a while.
After she tired of that, I handed her a pipe cleaner and she spent another half an hour stringing the beads. I have aways preferred pipe cleaners to other things for stringing because the tots are so much more successful using this method.

We have also been learning about the numbers 1, 2, and 3 this week. I bought this Diego game last week, and it is very cute.
I removed all the cards except the cards with the numbers 1, 2 and 3. Doing this, we used twelve cards to play with.

Kim and Luke then took turns picking out a card, they looked at it and we discussed the number on the back and the type of animal on the front of the card. The number of animals corresponds to the digit on the back.

After picking a card and counting the animals on the card, we match the animal to the correct playing board. The boards are divided into four categories, walkers, swimmers, flyers, and climbers. This is a game we will come back to time and again, because there are so many different ways it can be used.

I hope you enjoyed out Tot-School post this week. Make sure to go to the 1+1+1=1 website and check out other Tot School posts.

Why do I post these pictures?

Because I want to remember the screams at its discovery in the kitchen.

Because I want to remember the great big 6'2" hero son that saved the girls, who were yelling "kill it, kill it!" but then the sensible young boy who said, "you had better get Mom, she probably wants to catch it!"
Because it is the wonder of this same boy as he studied our creature for several days as it stayed on the kitchen table, even while we ate.

Because I don't want to forget the daughter, who, two days before, yelled, "kill it!, upon returning from being out of the house, discovered that our spider had been granted an early release (out of doors). She then was upset with everyone because she didn't have a chance to say "good-bye!"

I post these pictures because I don't want to forget the family memories they bring vividly back to mind.

Chocolate Mug Cake-Yummy Yummy!!

Grab a coffee mug, spend 10 quality minutes with the kids, and tada, a decadent delight from the microwave.

The anticipation is palpable.

Wooooow!

Uh-oh!

Everything didn't come out of the cup, but that's ok.

It is so yummy, scrape out the cup and share with your family. (But only if they smell it and come looking for it.)

You can find the recipe at Her Cup Overfloweth. I hope you enjoy!!

Our Athlete of the Week!!

Congratulations, Danny!!!

Click on the newspaper clipping to enlarge it.

Picture of the day

This year, it wasn't meant to be....

Following last year's exciting shoot-out victory over their arch enemy, New Life Christian School, Holy Cross suffered the agony of defeat tonight at the hands of the same team.

Even with tons of school spirit, including the coach's painted

fingernails, a victory wasn't in the cards today.

Fans filled the sidelines with spirit showing on their faces.

The boy's soccer teamed helped to encourage the girls.

The score was tied 0-0 at halftime, and the "silly string" was flowing,

but as the sun began to fade, a ball slipped past our players, and a goal was scored against us.

Some of us took it worse than others.

The game ended with a 1-0 score, and alas, this year, we finished #2, but there is always next year!

On a wonderful bright note though, my dear Amy was honored by being named to the conference all-star team! Her coach Dad, was honored to pose with her for this celebration photo~
Way to Go, AMY!!