Three Plus Two

The Feast of All Saints... Belatedly

So what did we do yesterday, on All Saints Day?

We made Spoon Saints! 

First we had to lay down some rules.

1.  No making up your own saints.

2.  No alien saints.

Then we got to work.

Farmerboy and I made Mary, St. Nicholas, and St. Patrick.

I made St. Angela Merici.  She's the patroness of teachers of young children, and my name saint. 

Gareth made St. Patrick, St. Therese, and St. Dominic.  He dressed as St. Dominic for our All Saints Day party, which was held on Saturday at the shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

This is Katydid's first batch of saints -- St. Therese, St. Barabara, St. Lucy (she's supposed to have a wreath of candles on her head), and St. Catherine of Siena.  (Katydid dressed as St. Catherine for our All Saints Day party.  But I don't have any pictures, because my batteries died.)

After the kids were done making saints, Farmerboy took his into the learning room to play with them.  We discovered the saints in pitched battle, calling each other names.

"Saints do not call people dinghead!" said Gareth.

"No," I said, "I'm pretty sure Mary would never call anyone a dinghead."

Farmerboy looked down at the saints in his hands.  "Yeah, well, St. Patrick would," he said.

A week of feast days

Elizabeth posted a link to this post about the upcoming "Days of Grace."   My education as a Catholic has been mostly lacking in information about saints' days and the liturgical calendar in general, so it has made me very happy this year to learn more.

I was particularly pleased to learn that October 2 is the Feast of Guardian Angels.  When I was pregnant with the babies, I would say the Angel of God three times every night: once for Pip, once for Pop, and once for me.  It was such a stressful time, and I was very worried that all of this stress would result in premature labor.  So I leaned a lot on our guardian angels.

The babies' birthday is coming up.  It's October 3, the day after the Feast of Guardian Angels.  In spite of being born a month early and weighing in at only about five and a half pounds each, the babies were so healthy that they spent not one moment in the NICU and came home when I did. 

I used to feel funny talking about answers to prayers, but the babies have taught me a lot in that regard.

A Day of Sacraments

Yesterday must have been a good day to receive the sacraments.  Gareth made his First Communion... and the babies were baptized... (They were mad they couldn't crawl around and someone who shall not be named {ahem - not me} forgot their bottles so they were hungry... and Father had a hard time keeping them straight, but both of them were eventually baptized.)

And so were Mary Ellen's babies!

Later we had cake...

which Katydid and Farmerboy helped bake...

(That's Grandma sneaking them frosting.)

I would like to include a family photo, but the one we have shows a three year old who'd just been crying that he wanted to go home, one very hot and disheveled looking baby, one screaming baby trying to climb over my shoulder, and a bored looking First Communicant.  (Katydid, however, is beaming.  But then Katydid tells me that she wants to be a saint.  And a zoologist.)  So I think we'll just leave that one to laugh over at home.  It's a good thing that God doesn't require all our special occasions to be perfect!