Saintly Celebration

Happy Belated All Saints Day!

Our crazy Catholic family continued our Halloween tradition of celebrating the saints with a bunch of our Catholic friends rather than trick-or-treating.  Once again it did not disappoint.  Unfortunately, I was too busy bouncing from game to game and visiting with friends the night of the party, that I kinda forgot to take pictures... Oops.  But at least I was able to capture a few of the highlights of our Fall fun these past couple of weeks...

Isaiah was daddy's big "helper" scooping the seeds out of his white pumpkin.

He didn't care too much for the messy work, but he was a great cheerleader! :)

Dominic had fun making a Christian fish symbol on his "Saint-O-Lantern"

Natey was proud to be able to carve his own pumpkin all by himself this year! 

He is getting so big!  He will turn 7 this week...GASP!

Isaiah--proud of his finished Saint-O-Lantern!

He is ready to put a candle inside to see how cool it looks with light shining from within...

Oooooh.

They all look so pretty with candles inside.

A good reminder for us to let our inner-light (the Holy Spirit) shine for this dark world to see!

Dominic was the bravest boy dealing with the messy pulp.

It is a messy job...but so worth it once they are cooked with salt and butter...YUM!

I also tried a recipe this year with cinnamon and sugar, but I think our family still preferred the traditional salty recipe.

Another big event last week was Nathanael's All Saints program at school.

All the kids dressed up as a favorite saint and had to give a short speech about their saint.

After the speeches, the whole class sang a saint song.

Here is Natey (oops, I mean St. Juan Diego) with his amigo St. Sebastian.

Saints Padre Pio, Juan Diego, and John Paul II.

(Our two older saints must have been bi-locating or levitating at the time of this photo) :)

Padre Pio looks like he's up to something.

JPII looks like he must be thinking of serious church matters.

Juan Diego looks muy sweeto y santo.

Our Lady with her sweet Juanito.

Padre Pio sure seems to be handling the stigmata well.

I wish I could learn to "offer up my suffering" with a smile :)

A handsome AND holy pope :)

Natey and Dominic re-enacting the story of Juan Diego meeting the bishop.

Kids playing the "St. Therese game" where they drop roses from heaven.

The pinata at the end of the evening is always the biggest "hit" :)

There was plenty of candy for everyone, and hopefully fun had by all!

Although for me, what was sweeter than candy 

was praying and singing with our friends around the campfire.  

We will definitely keep that as part of our annual tradition from now on.  

I was thankful for nice weather the day of our party...  

The day after our party the snow began to fall.

We got 6 to 10 inches!!!