L Week

L week was all about the leaves.  Our first day of school we ran out into the cold and picked a couple of leaves, one for the grab bag and a couple more for some fun fall cards for Anni's Nonna and Papa.

 

She's pretty determined to make a card for John Fox as well, so that's in the works as well as a piece of Halloween candy she picked out.  "He will like twizz-el-ers, Mommy."

Our grab bag was pretty awesome this week.  We had lettuce, a leopard, a lion, the L block, a light, St. Lucy, a leaf and a ladybug.

We asked St. Lucy for her intercession this week, and, lucky us, one of our wooden dolls is St. Lucy!

Our next day of school, we went on another, longer, leaf hunt and made some leafy hand-print turkeys.

Aren't they cute?!  

Happy L Week!

Happy Birthday... to me!

I turned 27 today (it's kind of sad how many times I had to double-check how old I am... it's easy to lose track these days!)  I cooked zero meals and Daniel made me homemade strawberry shortcake (that's right, shortcake and whip cream from scratch... yummmm!)

Even Lettie got in on some of the goodness (the strawberry part), and needed an immediate bath afterwards... which meant adorable naked baby.

She looks so long!  When did that happen?

And, as my birthday gift to you, here are some random links I enjoyed in the past few days, some serious, some funny (first one = hilarious), some random, just some web goodness for you. 

Do You Speak Toddler?

Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

How to interact with the introverted

Church on the Bench

Keeping Score No More!

Delight in Her

Just to wrap it up, there's my adorable little baby face with my older siblings:

K Week

This is going to be a mighty boring post... my apologies!  Because K week fell on Halloween week, we only did school (and no craft!) on Monday as the rest of the week was filled with all kinds of craziness.  Our Saint of the week was St. Kateri Tekakwitha, which rang a bit of a bell with Anni since she was St. Kateri last year for All Saints' Day and we had just dug out the costume for her little friend to borrow.  We did have a great grab bag this time, though (thanks to my father-in-law who brainstormed with me and loaned me a couple of their toys while we were visiting the weekend before).  We had: a king, a kazoo, some keys, a ketchup bottle and the ever-trusty k block.  Stay tuned for "L" week... lots and lots of lovely leaves!

J Week

The week of "J" was very sparkly.  We made jeweled "j"s and a few of those jewels ended up on little felt crowns for their sweet little heads (Anni's ended up going through the wash... oops!  I reglued the jewels on a few days later and it lives on very happily).  Our Saint of the week was St. Joseph (a favorite in these parts, Daniel and I were married at a St. Joseph's Parish!) 

Seven Quick Takes: The Halloween/All Saints' Day Version

 

--- 1 ---

  
The day before Halloween, Daniel had to remind me it was the next day (am I the only one who loses track of the date some weeks?)... therefore, Halloween was quite a flurry.  The day started with an All Saints' Day party at the FOCUS office.  The only bummer was that we couldn't stay long, because Anni had gymnastics right in the middle of the event... sooo we missed out on the group picture this year (you can see it over at Catholic Missionary Family.)

Trick-or-treating at the office is a favorite every year, especially when the kids are old enough to know who they're dressed as and picked them out themselves.  Anni was St. Agnes and Colette was her little lamb.  They were quite darling.  It was the first year Anni wasn't too scared to say "trick-or-treat" and what Saint she was, so she was pretty proud of herself (and excited about the chocolate!)

--- 2 ---

Next stop: gymnastics.  It was all about doing things backwards whiiiiich... apparently is a really hard concept for the 2-3 year old set.  Still lots of fun.  It's going to be an interesting sideline the more mobile this little one gets, but she keeps me on my toes, and, well, it's just too fun to watch Miss Anni doing her thing to miss out being in the parent seats!

--- 3 ---

 

Next there was lots and lots of painting.  Anni worked on the pumpkins (we ran out of time to carve, especially with a squirrel devouring one of our big pumpkins, so painting it was) and I finished up my wooden dolls for our doll exchange today.

 

Yep, those squirrels have started on our other pumpkin, too!  I guess... we're feeding the locals? 

  

--- 4 ---

Thennnnn, there was the Halloween costume.  Anni wanted to be Super Anni and, well, with some hot glue, scissors and some thrift store finds... I did my best in what time I had!  Luckily, she loved it, and that's what counts... right?

--- 5 ---

We hit the trick-or-treating trail early... which meant we struck out a lot more with people still being at work, but, it was cold and windy.  In fact, I only made it around half the block with Colette, and then I took her home to our warm house and Anni and Daniel kept on rolling for the rest of the block (apparently, he kept asking her if she was too cold and wanted to go home, and she replied, "Let's move onto the next house, Daddy!")

--- 6 ---

This morning, we had our wooden saint doll exchange.  Man... I was blown away by some of the amazing detail!  Daniel reminded me that it's okay that mine's simple, St. Colette was a Poor Clare, after all.  Anni's current favorite is St. Maximillian Kolbe... it's such a great way to talk about the Saints on a daily basis!

--- 7 ---

Also, Daddy had today off!  There were even naps for everyone in the family... perfect! 

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!