Welcome to this episode of Squelching Blogger's Guilt, otherwise known as the Photo Dump Post,
wherein I show you some of the many things we've been doing lately. Maybe I can even try to {phfr} it on up over here.
Brian was gone for another long retreat weekend. This time he led the retreat and this time rather than hunkering down at home which used to work well, I kept us on the move and busy. It did work well. At this point in my parenting career I think hunkering would've been a bad idea. The weekend flew by but by the time the husband came back I was ready to crawl in bed and sleep for a week forever.
We took a quick "hike" one day. By hike I mean we went to the preserve near our house that has a board walk and a short paved path and we walked on it.
The boys all wanted to wear green that morning. Not sure why.
Collecting some treasures that later got intentionally stomped on. Because that's how the Luke rolls.
There was also rolling involved.
Pretty sure we need some remedial rolling up in here.
I can't even remember what we did Friday.
And obviously not memorable enough for a photo.
On Saturday, though, we started out bright and early in the morning and went to the local farmer's market for the first time this year. Oh wait. But FIRST we found out that 24 of the 25 meat chicks that had just arrived in the mail the previous day had DISAPPEARED. I had put them out in the brooder and in the morning John Paul went to check on them and all but one were gone! I'm sick just thinking about it. There was a small hole and something must've gotten in but there is not a trace of anything. Why there was only one left, I don't know. So our day started off really tragically and crummily.
R.I.P. Chickies. I'm sorry.
But I tried to shake it off because there wasn't much else to do and I had four kids to get through two more days of weekend.
Anyway, farmer's market. I got ten pounds of raw honey to hopefully last us through the winter? Maybe? And pumpkins. We bought a couple pumpkins.
We walked to the park next door to visit the waterfall and ducks and let the climbing energy out.
My boys apparently think that chasing and trying to catch a duck is an acceptable thing to do at a park?
Then I made mom of the year and took them to a local pizza place because the boys earned some free pizza certificates through baseball. We got to sit outside on the patio and it was such a treat to eat food that someone else made! It was so relaxing (read: exhausting and I couldn't move but the boys were pretty good) that I took nary a picture.
Our next stop was supposed to be another local farmer's market but we got there just as they were shutting down. The boys did get their beloved and much much much anticipated honey sticks, though, because thank the heavens the honey lady was still there. Who closes at 1 p.m., though? Really.
So instead I drove the boys past the house I grew up in which is all sorts of weird. Is that just me? Then we headed to a local farm to buy more pumpkins. Because it's fall and we need ALL THE PUMPKINS AND GOURDS.
That face. That posing goat.
A very neat contraption that feeds the goats
Lesson of the hour: goats will not eat wood chips.
This is Luke's big face when he's talking about anything he thinks is big. He gets this deep voice and his cheeks puff out and it's pretty hilarious. He felt that this goat was a big goat.
I think the horse touched him? I don't know. But he's cute.
Head bandanas are all the rage, fyi.
We then headed over to my sister's house for dinner. Keep in mind this was all on that same Saturday. And I had to get them in bed all by myself when we got home. So, yeah. That was a long long day. Sunday there were no pictures but the boys were amazing at Mass, thank you sweet guardian angels! Then we went to another sister's to watch the football game and eat things. Then Brian was home!
Yay!
Now our celebration of Michaelmas/Raphaelmas/Gabrielmas. Seriously, I love you, St. Michael, but you need to stop taking all the credit.
The boys decided on their own they would dress up as the archangels for most of the day.
Behold Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael
Michael was pretty psyched about his feast day. He set the table all fancy and brought down his candle and helped with all the dinner and dessert.
Gabriel enjoyed his angel hair pasta :)
This year's cake frosted and decorated by Michael and David and proudly I can say I did NOT pry the spatula out of anyone's hands and let them do it all themselves.
After dinner we had some productions.
Gabriel appearing to Joseph
Raphael and Tobiah
Michael conquering the devil
That's the end.
Happy feast of the guardian angels! Say thank you to yours today!
Pretty parks, happy boys and goats, funny archangel theatrics, and tragically real dead chickens...I think we got ourselves a {phfr} all covered in here!
Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter.
Happy feast of the guardian angels! Say thank you to yours today!
Pretty parks, happy boys and goats, funny archangel theatrics, and tragically real dead chickens...I think we got ourselves a {phfr} all covered in here!
Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter.
oh my goodness! what kind of animal would eat 24 chicks? any blood? any trail? and what place around here has the nature trail and goats? we went to blackmen farm on friday but i'am interested in finding other local places to take the kids before it gets too cold.
ReplyDeletePhoto dump indeed! It looks like you have some beautiful places to play and explore nearby. So sorry about the chicks...crazy that there is no sign of them or what happened.
ReplyDeleteLovely pics, and angel hair pasta is such a good idea. Even I could have handled that one!
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing day, to start off so sadly! Poor chicks! Maybe they escaped and have started a free range commune somewhere near your house. Yeah, yeah, that's what happened.
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