Happy Halloween, Happy All Saints & Happy All Souls - 2011

A blessed trilogy to all of you!  The last three days have been days of fun and feasting in our house.  For Halloween, the kids were able to trick-or-treat at my grandparents' nursing home (on the Thursday before).  They also attended a Halloween Hustle where they trick-or-treated to the businesses where I grew up, marching in a parade around town with many other kids.  And, of course, they trick-or-treated at both of their grandparents house in the evening. It was a night of fun and the kids received WAY too much candy.  Here's a group picture of the kids....

 from left to right...

Pookey - frog

Max - blue dragon

Ariel - Granny (from Little Red Riding Hood)

Melody - Little Red Riding Hood

Fone - Indiana Jones

Mario - Captain America

Here's some more pictures of the night they trick-or-treated at my grandparents' nursing home....

Mario and his cousin were both Captain America!

All of the cousins on my side of the family (minus my big sister - we missed you, Carie!) 

the cutest, sweetest frog ever!

my wonderful grandparents

We celebrated All Saints Day day by dressing up as saints and having two families over for lunch, play and games.  Everyone had such a good time. I love how with the three families, it ended up being 18 kids (and the oldest child of one families wasn't able to make it because she had to stay home and work on school).  Then, we attended the All Saint's Day Mass at our church - it was a beautiful way to end the day.  Here's some pictures from our All Saint's Day Celebration....

 Our Saintly Breakfast

 Saints Candy Walk (to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In"

 I couldn't resist sharing this picture of all the shoes...  Too funny! 

Our Saintly Lunch

And, here's the whole crew (minus the picture-taker).  Our kids' saint line-up for this year is as follows....  St Padre Pio (Fone), St John the Baptist (Mario),  St Gianna Beretta Molla (Melody), St Lucy (Ariel), St Francisco (Max), and St Isadore (Pookey).  Also in attendance was:  St Maximilian Kolbe (2 of them), another St Padre Pio, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Juan Diego, St Joan of Arc, and others.  It was such a great time!!  :)

Wednesday was a bit rainy in the afternoon, so we didn't make it to the cemetery for All Souls.  However, we have the whole month of November, so there's still plenty of time to make it. 

I just recently read a wonderful article that shared how these three days fit perfectly with each other.  It was a great reminder on why we celebrate these days in our own domestic church.  Thanks, Danielle!