A tribute to a Great Great Grandma

My Great Grandma Scheele, my girls' Great Great Grandma, just recently passed away at the age of 101.  I know, amazing...right?!  She had 4 children, 8 grandchildren, 25 great grandchildren, and 13 great great grandchildren (with 2 on the way).  Quite a family from one lady...5 generations!

She lived by herself for 31 years after her husband passed away.  Sadly, I never got to meet him.  She was a very independent woman...drove until she was 91...and often worked or volunteered her time for others.  When her body started to fail her, my grandpa (her son) made sure she never felt alone.  He would go visit her every day after work, sometimes bringing Chase (my cousin Aubree's son) with him, which would just make her day.  She loved being with her family and would keep all our pictures tacked up on a board in her room.

My memories of Great Grandma consist of her often having Purdue basketball games playing on her tv when we came to visit, looking for deer on the back porch of her apartment, the Great Grandma sweatshirts that she always wore with each of our names embroidered on the front, a new pair of socks for each of us at Easter, an envelope of money at Christmas, and let's not forget her amazing chocolate cookies (with a piece of bread in the box for freshness) that greeted us every time we came in town.  She was a spunky old woman who was always laughing and making jokes.  I think of the joy on her face when any family came to visit her.  And how she was such a card shark, often winning our family euchre tournaments.  She was quite a lady!

Everyone was there at her funeral (except Nicholas...who gave her a shoutout in Spain!), which is how she would have wanted it.  My favorite parts of the funeral were Chase's (Aubree's 5 year old son's) speech...I am sure Grandma was smiling down from Heaven at his sweet, innocent words...and how each of her kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and great great grandkids got to take home a flower from on top of her casket...per her request.  There is no doubt that family was most important to her!

We sure are going to miss having her around!  

Rest in Peace Great Grandma!

Little Saints

Each year, our homeschool group has an All Saints Day party where the kids dress up as saints, give clues about their saint, and have the group guess who they are.  Last year, being our first year in the group, the girls were too shy to dress up, let alone speak in front of other people.  But this year the girls were all over it!  It probably helped that they have made friends in the group and know all the kids better.  I was so proud of them!

Can you guess which saints they are?  They picked out who they wanted to be.  I love that they love the saints!

Rose's costume came together at the last minute with a few items found in our closet.  I was actually pretty excited about the way it turned out.  Believe it or not, the white around Rose's face is the sleeve of one of Paul's undershirts...and the veil is my black skirt.  Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Ava's costume we already had, so that made it easy on me.

Ava as St. Kateri Teckakwitha

Ava didn't want to say her clues, but she did get up there and stand in front of everyone.  A big step for my shy child!  It only took one clue for people to guess her saint.

Some of the spectators

Amelia and Rose dressed up as the same saint so they stood together as Rose gave the clues.  I wish I could have gotten Rose reading her clues on video.  I wrote out four sentences on a notecard and she read them all by herself, with the exception of the word tuberculosis.  I was beaming with pride.

Rose and Amelia as St. Therese of Liseaux

When we got home that night, the girls put their costumes back on and gave Paul clues to see if he could guess who  they were.  They were having so much fun that we continued the game with a few more saints as well.

Ava as St. Rose of Lima

Rose as St. Cecilia (like the cymbal?! we didn't have a harp:)

Happy Belated All Saints Day!

Happy Halloween

Little twins in my favorite Halloween shirts

Halloween outfits

Although I do not love most things about Halloween, I do love the costumes.  I miss my Purdue days when I often got to dress up for Breakfast Club and themed fraternity parties...I definitely need to find more opportunities to wear a costume!  

A Man in Black, Grapes, Ballerina,
Rapunzel, & a Fashionista

This year, I decided to have a family Halloween party a couple days before Halloween.  (Every holiday should last more than one day...don't you think?!)  We all dressed up, ate pizza, played games, ate candy, and carved (or gutted) our pumpkin.  *Disclaimer everyone picked out their own costumes

A white Will Smith & a cowgirl

Doing a Halloween "Candy Walk"

Playing Halloween Bingo

Madeline got the first bingo!

Playing Roll A Jack-o-lantern

Halloween coloring books I made for the girls

Pin the face on the pumpkin

Time to gut the pumpkin

Everyone helping clean out the pumpkin

Ella wan't too sure about the pumpkin guts

She found a better way to occupy her time :)

Our albino pumpkin kitty

On Halloween day, Madeline went to the library for story time with Paul's cousin, Michelle, and her kids (as she does every Wednesday), and got to wear a costume.  She picked Minnie Mouse, which I wore when I was little.  I love seeing the girls in things I wore as a kid!

"Minnie" Madeline dressed for story time at the library

Of course the "big" girls were disappointed that they didn't get to go, so I decided to let them do school in their costumes as well.  (And we didn't want to leave Ella out, so we made her a pumpkin.)

Halloween costumes for the school day

Although they like dressing up, all they really cared about was getting to wear make-up.  They complain almost dailly that it isn't fair that I get to wear make-up and they don't.

A ballerina and Cinderella...SUCH girly girls!!!

FINALLY it was time to trick-or-treat...I think the girls had been asking if they could get ready since they woke up that morning!  Rose and Ava were clowns for "real" Halloween.  They wore clown costumes that Joy and her sister wore when they were kids, then Paul and his brothers wore when they were kids!  They were adorable and in amazingly good shape!

My happy clown and sad clown

But not really sad...just putting on a face :)

The crew

Trick-or-treatering here we come

The reason I love pandas so much...
look at that face!

"Trick-or-treat!"

No better place than Daddy's arms!

Even Ella had to get in on the action!

Since our girls are still young (and it was so cold this year) we didn't stay out very long.  After about 45 minutes we came in to a nice warm house, white chicken chili, and lots and lots of candy!  ...now I need to figure out how to get rid of it so I don't eat it all!

Pumpkin Farms

I love everything associated with apple orchards and pumpkin farms...hayrides, picking my own apples, wandering through the pumpkin patch for that perfect pumpkin, feeding the farm animals, pictures of the beautiful fall scenery, etc.  Well, last month, the girls and I went to an Apple Orchard in Lexington with the homeschool group...it is hands-down my favorite place to go in the fall!  The place is huge with so much to do...and it didn't hurt that it was a gorgeous day!

The huge wooden chair at Boyd Orchard

One space for each of them on the cutout train

Our group getting a little lesson on apples

Rose and her buddies: Amelia, Ceci, Rose, & Catherine

The 3 year-olds, John Paul & Madeline, hitching a ride

All the girls

Ava searching for 3 perfect apples

Madeline and her pumpkin

Ella intrigued with the bunny at the petting zoo

The huge haystack they love to climb

The ginormous slides at the playground

Even Ella got to try them out via Mary Rose's lap

Ava on the smaller slide

The girls on pumpkins eating their treats that they picked out

Yesterday, we went on our annual family visit to Gallrein Farms and unfortunately, we weren't as lucky with the weather.  Although we still had a good time, our visit was shorter than usual due to freezing little children.

Please excuse my hair...it was SO windy out!

Ella did NOT want to sit on the hayride

Freezing on the hayride out to the pumpkin patch

Rose riding Big Peanut

Ava and Madeline waving to each other as Ava's horse passes by

Madeline on Little Peanut

Ava riding Tigger

Ava LOVED feeding the animals!

Madeline was happy to watch :)

My autumn feels fulfilled now that I have gotten my pumpkin patch fix.  Now it's time to carve our pumpkin!