What We've Been Doing in Addition to Nothing

 Top o' the Evenin'.... or mornin' if you are in Spain.

 The kids thought I needed to see a picture of Frodo eating a bite of either squirrel or rabbit... aren't they thoughtful? 

 "I could eat you up with my kisses."  Just something I heard in a homily or 10.

 And I bet you didn't guess that what is on her head is a pair of leggings tied up like a newborn baby cap.

 Ok, now we went on a most amazing field trip.  If the Uffizi Gallery, Offering of the Angels (Creation to Resurrection) comes to your area (and it is only coming to 4 areas in the whole USA) be sure to go and see it.  It is absolutely beautiful and amazing.  We had so many homeschoolers in our tour I had to ask a handful of families to go on a separate day... that would be the group that included my family.  It might be added that my children didn't break anything!   It was so good that I am hoping to go back before it leaves next week.  All the kids really enjoyed it as well and answered almost every single question.

I'm still hoping to find out whether my friend Cecilia in Italy is part of the restoration process of this exhibit.

 Just stretching afterwards and helping little sisters.

 Because we have one of those gigundo 15 passenger vans with big tires I drove around for 1/2 hour before I was about to cry looking for parking.  We need 7 foot clearance... not these little midget ramps.  I had to add some things to my confession list believe me....  A friend of mine suggested I park at a church down the road so I did.... and they graciously didn't give me a parking ticket or tow my car. I think Catholic Churches give a little leeway to a 15 passenger van, it's part of the sympathy in downtown towards large families, is my guess.  It was a rather lengthy hike but was able to leave the kids with said friend at the museum while I did the parking.  That said, I did run into a priest and that is always something very welcome while walking down the street!  However, afterwards we had to get back to the van so if I was going to walk I figured my able-bodied kids could walk too.  I failed to look to see if we got any double-takes as this family of 11 kids plus an extra who was going to ride home with us.  I hope we made a sensation!

 We spent the afternoon with some friends.  At one point in the day we had 3 mothers and 27 kids. Are we awesome or what?  And you know what. There wasn't any fighting.  Here they are building with Keva blocks ... gotta get some of those.

 And there still was no fighting when the little guys were doing this (nerf guns)....

 ... and the towers ended up like this.  It was a great, great, great time.

 So, a priest told me recently ... and truly I thought he was jesting.... that on opening day to movies people dress up and that's why they (the priests) didn't usually go to opening day (unless it was to a movie that had priests in it, hahaha  we do have the funniest priests). I did offer to have Galadriel make some black priestly hobbit cloaks (or I suppose elven cloaks for the taller ones) but as it turned out, I think the offer was declined.  However, I saw one of my sisters-in-law who confirmed that indeed people do go dressed up on opening day. Really?  My kids were absolutely delighted to find out they will be able to wear their cloaks that day... in public... hoping that everyone will notice.  I've no doubt about that. Above were some of the littler ones working on some kind of  hobbit get-up  costuming.  I think they need a little work.

 Deer out in the field just waiting to become meatballs, gyro and burgers.  Tomorrow (Nov 17) is the "real" opening day.

 We helped put on an All Saints' Day Party... in honor of Halloween All Saints' Day...

 Lots of donations for door prizes.

 Our kids and some of our neices/nephews helped with heading up the games. They did a splendid job.

 Marigold would like you to know that she stole St. "Woocies" eyeballs.

 The traditional candy corn count... 312 to be exact.

 Marigold as St. Joan of Arc with her goodie bag.

 Rosie as St. Theresa with the rose toss.

 Cute little St. Michael and St. Patrick.

 Marigold playing the rose toss.

 Eowyn as St. Philomena manned the fishing pond.

 Virtue Games:  Feeding the Hungry with St. Elizabeth, I guess I forgot to take a picture of Building the Church with St. Francis

 Little St. Theresa

 St. George with his little wee dragon in his goodie bag.

 Sam manning the "Find St. Peter's Keys"  however, somehow the foam keys turned out to be a foam fish.

 Guess the Saints

 Color the Saints table

 Life does not get better than lolly pops.

 Lots 'n lots of food.  The pulled pork was particularly good.  Lots of creative ideas.

 The little blessed Mother and her little Baby Jesus

 Did I mention that life doesn't get better than getting a buzz on lolly pops. Marigold said so.

 She really wants you to see that she is a double-fisted lolly-pop eater. 

 Slurred speech... actually she doesn't talk she just gaggles but I think it was slurred. These were her first 2 lolly pops... that I knew of anyway.

 The food was yummy. 

 Parade of Saints

 The costuming was very awesome.  Even my kids!  However, we cheated. Auntie helped the big girls put them together so need I say they were great!

 Following the parade o' saints was a square dance. I sat on the side-lines and laughed my head off.  The little ones actually did quite well and they were so funny.

 I'm fairly well positive that these two were not up to much good.

 We know which of our kids are from which side of the gene pool.  For example, these 2 did not get out and square dance.... however all the other kids got out there, much to my HUGE surprise.  And what a good time they had.  The square part of the square dance lasted one round then they went to line dancing.  In the end Sam did join in the line dancing but Pippin did not step foot to dance even one hop.  But it might be explained that he shares a birthday with Aragorn so it might be a secret agreement.

 Saint Cupcakes.

 Ok, I couldn't resist this picture of the boy who was picking out all the little candy bits in the sweet chex mix (which was AWESOME by the way... .I heard that a certain sister-in-law of mine made it so I'm hoping she will pass on the recipe... it was soooo good.)

 Chicken dancing.  (my children wanted to know why people do that dance at all... I have always wondered, too)

 Lolly pop stupor... (you decide which... *chuckle*)

 Line dancing

 Drawing the door prizes

 I don't know but I did think it was funny that Frodo picked out as his door prize something donated from our "store".  Of course he knows that if he asks me for it he won't get it. The shoemaker's kids don't wear shoes (neither do ours) and the toy lady's kids don't have toys... or something like that.

 Bilbo and Poppy going through their loot.

 I just have no idea what this is all about.

The end.