Happy Halloween!!

Raise your hand if you loved "The Wizard of Oz" growing up.  Me too!!!!

For years (5), I've been wanting to do a family costume to honor the movie. There's alot you can do with 6 people, you know!

  

I'm extremely grateful they all agreed to participate and we planned and schemed for months!

Behold - Dorothy, Lion, Tinman, Scarecrow, Wicked Witch of the West and our leader...The Yellow Brick Road!  We were all "following" him around :).

We had a great time and got lots of attention from our neighbors.  It was super fun.

 Xavier and Julia taught Ellie the ropes of "candy trading".

 She was pretty eager to accept their offers and has not shown a lot of interest in eating much which turns out good for a certain witch in the house.



The day after Halloween, we had a lovely experience at mass for All-Saints Day. Ellie stayed in the pew the entire mass - a first!  She was not able to repeat that accomplishment at this morning's mass but, we'll keep trying.  After that mass on Wednesday we ran in the grocery store for a couple items.  I don't normally take all four shopping with me but this seemed easy.  Ellie was obviously in quite an agreeable mood that day because she got in the cart with no problem and was happy to just take a ride while we zipped in and out of the aisles. I found myself grateful that I can have a 13-year-old and at the same time, I'm not done getting that "feeling" every mom gets when those sliding doors open and you know buying Triscuits is not going to be as simple as it sounds.  But in that moment Wednesday, I was grateful to be hustling through the store with my four little saints.