News from Sept. and Oct.

I can hardly believe that Nov. is a little less the 2 weeks away. We love the Academy, and time seems to go so fast when you are counting by Mondays and Wednesdays. Instead of saying, in 13 days it is my birthday, I say in 4 more days at school it's my birthday. It makes it go much faster. :)

Anyway, I still have a jumble of pictures from Sept. and Oct. so here they are:

We had a tea party on the feast of the Rosary, while Cecilia and me were at school, the rest of the family made cookies and made them into this rosary:


And this message:


I had to add a couple pictures from our drive to school each Monday and Wednesday, it is such a beautiful drive!



One day in Sept, we all brought out blankets and pillows and rested on the trampoline, it was warm under our layer of blankets:


We had our first "real" Autumn meal sometime in Sept. It was my dad's famous potatoe soup, french bread, cheese, freshly picked apples, and the best apple cider in the world: Brown's Apple Cider. It was a feast:



We have this gray wig in our dress-up container and Ben found it and decided to put it on:




Because of school I am up before the sun every Mon. and Wed., most mornings the sunrise is hardly spectacular, although this particular morning the sunrise was superb:


And last but not least, Trixie has really made herself the queen of our family. She gets into the funniest things:

Trees = Leaves!

Thanks to the over 20 trees we have in our yard, we have an abundance of leaves on the ground! Coming from our old house where we had measly little piles, the huge piles we have created in this house, are really exciting. The other night I raked up half of the front yard and it made the biggest pile we've had. It wasn't even the whole yard.






And this is the really big pile:












And a few days ago Trixie decided to climb a tree, but of course then she was stuck and couldn't get down. Max was finally able to rescue her by climbing up after her and balancing precariously.

September is Already Over !?!

Wow, life is going so fast it is kind of scary. We have been so incredibly busy that I haven't had time to post anything on here for a while. Plus our computer broke down for about a week. So this post is just going to be a ramble of misc. pictures from the summer. September has gone by so fast that I haven't even had time to upload Sept. pictures yet!

School has kept us all busy as well as slowly unpacking. It is still an adventure to find things we need! We are sooooooooooooooo grateful to God for our amazing house! My brothers spend hours playing back in the woods and fields. We all spend time on the trampoline, and playing basketball. Which are luxuries we didn't have at the old house.

Uncle Jim doesn't get to come everyday, but he is slowly making progress with the little things left with Grammy's apartment. He did get up her siding and shutters, they look wonderful! I promise I will post pictures of the front of the house soon.

And onto the pictures:



Our first dinner at 232 Sheffield Dr. :


The cornfield:


Climbing one of our trees:


In a tree:


In a tree:


Playing in the yard: (Did I mention our GREAT our yard is?)


Trixie catching a nap:


Ben Anthony, Age 2, Pro Golfer:


John Paul got a toolkit for his birthday from Grandma and Papa Anthony. In the days following his birthday he made several things including this garden bench for our mom's birthday. I supervised them paint it and to their request I wrote "Mother":


Much to our excitment a few weeks ago a hot air balloon flew over our house:



And being me I have to include some pictures of our yard. :





And yes this is in our backyard, next to the cornfield:

Happy Birthday Ben and John Paul!

Happy 2nd Birthday Benny!

We didn't have a huge party for our 2 year old, just our little family, (well okay rather large family.) I think Ben decided to be greedy on his birthday, that is quite a mouth fool! :


He picked his whole piece of cake up on his fork, I have no idea what he was trying to do with it! :







Happy 9th Birthday John Paul!
John Paul had a rather larger party, seeing as he was turning a bit older then Ben. Sadly Cecilia and me missed it we were in MD with the Lohrmann's. But his best friend, Dominic was able to come as well as some of our family on my Dad's side. As you might of noticed, he had an army theme. It was his idea to have his plastic army figures on the cake, including one squished underneath the tank.





Rose and our cousin Emily were having fun with our Dad:

Our Newest Family Member

We recently added a small female calico kitten named Trixie, to our family. Let me back up and tell you of our kitten adventures.

About a week or two before we moved in to our new house, my dad found three kittens in our drive way, they were obviously newborns, and upon seeing how cute they were, my dad said we could have outdoor cats. The mother we think was a stray or the farmer's cat, (from the farm near bye), but either way she was terrified of us. She only came to her kittens at night but she would nurse them, wash them and eat the food we put out for her. Last week however, she hid the biggest one and abandoned the other two. We were at Hershypark that day and so the next morning when we went outside to check on them, one of the two black kittens, was dead. The other one was barely alive and died the next night.

But those three kittens did something to my dad and he said that we could get another kitten for an outdoor cat, if it was free. So we found a free kitten add in the newspaper and got Trixie, our little calico.

We have a nice warm comfortable outdoor shelter for her, and we gave her the run of the back deck, (she is too little to go around the whole yard by herself). But every night she would cry and cry at the back door. Last night she was shut away but still somehow crying at the door, she had escaped somehow and was half way up the screen door, stuck. The poor kitten was crying and quite pitiful.

And now she is inside. I know a few people that were really allergic to cats but got one anyway and after a few weeks they stopped getting reactions to their cat. I looked it up and apparently it's more of a chance thing. Some people stop, other don't. So we are really praying that after about a week, my dad and John Paul stop getting reactions to Trixie.

But boy is she cute!