All Saints Day

We had our second annual All Saints Day party today. While it's a lot of work to have back to back parties, Halloween and then All Saints the next morning it's totally worth it. This year Prophet wanted to be Noah. Like, REALLY wanted to be Noah. Rooster really wanted to be an angel with no prompting from anyone, Demand wanted to be Mary holding baby Jesus (nothing more, nothing less) and King, well he was St. Francis because the costume fit and was oh,so, cute on him.

Once again I followed the lead of the wonderful Catholic families that blog about their liturgical year and road their crafty coat tails all the home.

We had even more games than last year. We had "Canonize the Saint" (ring toss),  Saint coloring,  St. Anthony I spy/LookNFind game, Help St. Helen find the True Cross, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton's saints reading corner, and candy guessing jars that were saint themes.

I made this banner that I found on Shower of Roses. Shortly after I assembled the banner she posted on Facebook that she too was doing a guessing jar game. We both found it on the same blog but, Jessica, at Shower of Roses made awesome labels which she made available for free download. I am forever grateful for this woman. I want to be her when I grow up.

After our Trick or Treating mini party last night and the kids sleeping in because of a sugar coma we had to rush to get the house ready for the All Saints party. Everything was great though, we had lots of themed foods and then our friends brought tasty treats to share as well.

We had:

To drink: Apple/Cranberry Cider (which I forgot to offer to anyone), (St. Bernadette's )water, and "Blood of the Martyrs" Punch ( raspberry sherbert and sparkling cranberry juice).

To eat: "Kateri's Popcorn", "Saints Halos" (Onion rings), "St. Nicholas' Balls of Gold" (clementines), and "Our Lady Undoer of Knots", knotted Twizzlers. Funny story. Demand knotted half a package of Twizzlers earlier in the week an we stored them for the party. We opened the ziplock to find them all undone or cut in half. HA!!! Demand declared, "Our Lady is undoing knots in our lives already!" Lesson learned. We tried knotting the rest of the package but the same thing happened. I think we'll use string cheese next year.

Onto the fun pictures you've been waiting for.

Prophet dressed as Noah. I made his costume and as I told Mr. Sloth, I felt like Vanessa in that episode of the Cosby show where she offeres to make Theo a shirt. Not my talent.

I found this on Pinterest and loved it so I printed it out and temporarily taped it on an existing picture on the wall.

The guessing game jars. I did three jars and stuck with more savory foods as we were already loaded up on sugar from the night before, and our party is rather small. but Shower of Roses did like 15 it seems. She has labels for both the jars and the guessing sheets. Check it out.

Here's the link to the blog I found the idea on. Catholic Inspired.

Ring toss game. Throw a halo around a saint and get a prize. I had to let go and let God, and hope that none of my statues would get damaged like last year. It's not bowling people.

Help St. Helen find the Cross. This is a game I made up and we play on Demands Feast Day. Prophet hid nine crosses around the house for people to find.

The prizes. I just realized that with the kids taking a class at the Cathedral each week I have time to run to our local Catholic Goods Store so I stocked up on some prizes this week. Stickers, pencils, prayer cards, and St. Michael scapulars.

 Here's King, I mean St. Francis at the coloring station. He should be wearing birds but the boys broke them in 30 seconds. Long suffering. Long suffering. Long suffering.

Our Noah. At first when we discussed the costume I thought he would settle for nothing less than gopher wood and a handicap ramp but when I asked about him carrying around the Ark finger puppet set that he loves he  said, "Yes! That's a great idea! " Whew. Cancel the order for gopher wood.

And here's our Rooster.He's wearing our Priest alb that Prophets Godmother made, and the wings are awesome and easy but I failed to get a picture of them. Foam board + coffee filters= angel wings.

Blood of the Martyrs Punch. It would have been more red but I have been so obsessed with my apple-cranberry cider these past few days I accidentally used most of the cranberry juice and had to use a cran-apple blend instead. Oops!

Usually on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes we make "Bernadette's dirt" but I thought chocolate pudding/oreos would be a bad idea for this party. I didn't want to say Lourdes Water and be confusing so I went with St. Bernadette's Water.

Some of the crew. Notice Demand's costume? Yeah, she was Mary with baby Jesus but before the party she decided that her gown was choking her so it was the veil and Jesus, and then she didn't want to hold Jesus anymore so it was just the veil, and then, it was nothing.  I  need to make a Jesus Ergo for next year. ;)

Prophet, ahem, Noah, and St. George's Dragon enjoying the Ring Toss game.


Well there's nothing like back to back parties to make you want to deep clean your house so I spent the first part of the afternoon cleaning and then managed to get a great amount of school done with Demand and Prophet. AND had time to hang out with the kids for a while and shower before Mr. Sloth and I swapped for Mass. It's been a long time since I've been to Mass by myself. It was wonderful.

So "Feast of the Church Militant", done. "Feast of the Church Triumphant", nailed it. Tomorrow is the "Feast of the Church Suffering". May the souls of the faithfully departed. Rest. In. Peace.!