All Saints Party

On the Sunday after All Saints Day, our homeschool group held an All Saints Party.  Anthony still had his broken arm at this point, so Dan stayed home with him and I took the rest of the kids.  That meant coming up with costumes, of course!

St. Dominic

St. Kateri Tekakwitha

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

St. Dominic, St. George, St. Elizabeth, St. Kateri

After a potluck dinner, the kids lined up to tell everyone who they were dressed up as, and then they had a procession. 

Many of the families set up games to play, complete with prizes!  In this game, the kid had to try to knock off Goliath's head with a "stone."

Catherine stopped to decorate a cross.

Anne got her face painted.

Joseph asked this young girl to paint a tractor on his face!  It turned out cute.

Three of my saints, having a blast.

The balloon dart game was very popular.

The Cookout At The New Campsite

In late October/early November, Dan decided to create a fire pit and campsite area.  It is not far from the clubhouse and near to the racecourse.  First Dan dug up the dirt:

Then the kids helped carry out the big dirt clods:

Even Anthony helped:

Kids love to get in the dirt!

Here is the finished fire pit, lined with rocks:

Time to put up the tents!

Hanging out in the tent.

The finished campsite:

So we invited some friends over for a cookout.  We did not, however, actually camp out.  We'll save that for the spring!

The girls played on the big tire.

Roasting hotdogs.

Dig in!

All the kids chowing down

No campfire is complete without roasting marshmallows!

 

While we were all enjoying the food and company, Dan sneaked off and put on his scary mask and tried to scare the kids.  None of them fell for it, though.  They all just laughed and tried to get him.  Then Anthony put it on, which looked really funny:

The Broken Arm

You don't often have a 2 year old with a broken arm (thank goodness!), so I have to do one more post about Anthony and his broken arm.  It was difficult to keep his cast dry and (mostly) clean.  This is one thing I did so he could still play in the sandbox:

Bread sack with rubber band at the top worked well.

Anthony was spoiled by his big sisters.

He got worse about taking naps, so some days I would find him like this.

Anthony and his "Hulk" arm.

Hooray, the cast is off!  Mommy and Anthony celebrated with chicken nuggets and pop.

His cast was on for a total of 4 weeks.  Did I say four loooonnng weeks?  We were all so glad when it was done.  I was also glad that the weather did not get too cold because it was hard to find any long sleeved shirts that would fit over the cast.  We were also grateful the fracture was a simple one, because it could have been so much worse.  Hopefully we will not have any more broken bones around here anytime soon!

Anthony was so brave getting the cast on and off.  Even when the nurse started sawing on his cast, he didn't even flinch.  She was impressed and said he did better than the 10 year old down the hall!  She did ask me if I wanted to keep the super-stinky cast.  I refused.  Pictures are more than enough!

Are They Twins Or What?

Dominic and Anne, age 7.

One day Anne's tooth came out!

Two days later, Dominic lost the same tooth!

October Garden Photos

These pictures aren't of the garden, but of things made with produce from the garden!

Stuffed peppers

Dan's Hot Sauce from our hot peppers

Halloween 2012

Here are our Halloween kids, ready to go snare some loot:  Anne is a witch, Dominic a skeleton, Anthony a dragon, Joseph a knight, and Catherine a witch. 

Enough with the pictures!  Let's go get some candy!

Anthony still had his cast, so luckily someone had given us the cute dragon costume that was easy to put on.

Sampling the loot.

To The Zoo Again!

At the end of October, we renewed our zoo membership, after it had been lapsed for about 5 months.  So the kids were extra excited to go.  As you can see, it was a warm day for October.

Since Anthony was still in his cast, I got him to ride in the stroller a lot.

Walking on the trail.

Measuring up to wingspans.  I think Catherine stretched to a Spoonbill.

We checked out the rhinoceros.

This is always a favorite spot to stop and play.

That cast looks like a weapon!

Anne and Anthony looked at the gorilla and he looked right back.

"See, I broke my arm and I have to wear this stupid cast."

One of the tigers kept pacing alongside the window right next to the kids.  The tiger is so huge!

 So I took a video:

Then we watched a zookeeper bring food to the bald eagles.  Clumps of some kind of meat and a large dead rat, yum.

When we got to the grizzly bears exhibit, we found one of them splashing around in the water.  We sat and watched him for quite a while and I took a bunch of pictures.

All of a sudden the bear leaped out of the water and slapped his paws on the glass right in front of Dominic!  You can see Dom was a bit startled.  (Me too!)

Going through the jungle.

Chinese alligator

The penguins put on quite a show for us.  We watched them for a long time.

 This was our longest trip to the zoo ever, I think about 5 hours.  Probably because we hadn't been in there in a while.  I told Anthony that day that we would come back when he got his cast off, since he didn't get to play on the playground.

Carving Our Pumpkins

One night in late October, the kids all went downstairs to where our pumpkin crop was being stored (what was left after we baked, pureed, and froze a bunch of them!), and picked out their pumpkin for Daddy to carve.

Anthony's got his!

Anne helped get out the pumpkin guts!

Each kid, for the most part, drew a picture and then Daddy carved that on their pumpkin.  They loved it!

Here is Dan's masterpiece for Halloween 2012!

One pumpkin for each person.  I think Anthony's (the one on legs towards the left) was the creepiest.