All Saints Day dress rehearsal: Lili

It's that time again. The girls have their annual All Saints Day presentations tomorrow. I never seem to have my act together enough to take a video on the actual day, so here is a little preview.

All Saints Day Dress Rehearsal: Kateri

Of course, since the older girls have had to practice their Saints speeches every night for the past couple of weeks, Kateri wanted to get in on the action. She picked St. Cecelia, and we tried to keep her speech short and sweet. Here's a transcript, in case you don't speak Katerese:
"Hello, my name is St. Cecelia. I lived a long time ago in Rome. Now, I am the patron saint of music. St. Cecelia..."

Sorry about the flash of princess panties...that's why a dress rehearsal is so important...gotta work out those kinks in the performance.

All Saints Day Dress Rehearsal: Audrey

The Book of Genesis

The kids had a half day yesterday. For some reason, Audrey decide to use some of her extra time making a booklet retelling the story of Adam and Eve:

I love these early attempts at spelling:

Wons a pon time = Once upon a time

And I'm sorry, but the strategically placed bird just makes me laugh. Why go for a boring old fig leaf? Also, God made him out of sand?

I skipped to the last page...there was a lot more about the "rool" breaking, but you get the idea. I also made the mistake of asking her why the cherubim with the flaming sword had no face. She gave me a pitying look and said, "Mom, don't you know angels don't have bodies?" Touche, Audrey.

lately

Lately I've been a terrible blogger, so here's what we've been up to. We celebrated Uncle Steve's birthday with what looks like a blowtorch instead of candles. Luke has become successful at bypassing Abby's fear of him by bribing her with his iPhone. She even will snuggle up with him on the couch in order to play with it...

...but it only lasts so long.

Luke's fanaticism about his winter lawn has reached new heights this year. He trained a hawk to patrol the back yard and keep the pigeons and sparrows from eating his preciou rye seed. Just kidding, this guy just happened to show up on the lawn, but at least he kept the birds away for a little while.

We are busy making costumes for Halloween and the kids' All Saints Day presentations. For Halloween, we are carrying on our movie theme tradition with the Burch fam. This year it's How to Train Your Dragon, so all of the kids are going to be Vikings. Nanny even sent a big box of fun fabric for this purpose, which included my grandmother's old mink stole. I am not usually squeamish about things like this, but it grosses me out big time. There is something about its beady little eyes and dangling paws that makes me shudder. Kateri loves it as long as you don't try to drape it around her chubby little shoulders. Then she freaks out, as well she should.

She calls it "The Wolf."

Fall sports are in full swing. Kateri and Audrey are "playing" soccer. Kateri much prefers the cooler evening practices to the hot Saturday morning games, where she burns out after about ten minutes and wanders the field aimlessly; pink cheeked and dejected-looking. Her coach told us, "yeah, Kateri practices a bit better than she plays." It's true.

Lili started playing volleyball this year. There are actually enough girls for VDM to have its own team, which is wonderful. The girls were so adorably surprised that they had their first win last Saturday.

We went out to dinner to celebrate the girls' good report cards and reminded ourselves why we never let our kids drink soda. Seriously, look at Audrey's face. That's what root beer does to kids...

Kateri didn't have the soda excuse...she was just being a goofball.

Be careful

when you're sneaking up on a little witch doing her homework.

They startle easily. (Or at least they pretend to)