A marvelous (and belated) May...

    Following my new orderly posting routine, I will now share some pictures from the month of May, in general...of course you've seen my posts on the best event of May, the 2013 Family Economics Conference! Here is the rest of our month.... I'd love to hear if you enjoyed a picture or two from this post...you can comment here or on Googleplus.

   For our father's birthday this year, we decorated Spanish style, and watched El Cid, a movie that Papa has always enjoyed. Since this is one of our favourite styles, you can imagine that the epic decor stayed up for a while, even though it was springtime!

''El Cid'' birthday table in our recently painted dining room!

Although I love springtime, I was perfectly happy to have our dining room/living room this style for that week of May! We LOVE it! :)

stone...chains...candlelight

small trinkets, which we love to collect and use here and there in decorating

Sangria with fruit

a picture during breakfast

bread and candlelight

a birthday breakfast treat

This year, Katia's birthday card for Papa took on new dimensions!

Laura-Lise baked chocolate-y cookies which spelt out ''Papa'' These delicate creations went through some minor catastrophes...but stayed-almost- entirely intact for the grand moment of presentation

Of course...the big event of May was...the 2013 Family Economics and Discipleship Conference! Wonderful memories...priceless wisdom....what a blessing! I already posted on that but here are a couple leftover or repeat snapshots

L-L and M- first day

It looks like my Dad and I are dancing some fun dance...in reality I am twirling, and Papa is not

Jessie twirling

Below: most of us girls on the second day of the conference (missing oldest and youngest of the sisters)...yes, we wore black on purpose. It was kind of like a fun dare- how many folks could we get to dress in black!

Eating at the picnic....such beautiful lighting! Only in May!

Cake I made for Mothers Day! 

    As for other May happenings....there was a fun time with some of our sweetest friends! :) We went to a used book sale, ate our brought lunches at a huge Schnucks cafeteria and went to over 5 thriftstores together! :) I love antique and thrift shops!!! :) There is so much potential in places like that...you never know what you can find.

friends!

Sisters and friends! :) Fun times

The final thrifstore of the day featured several red-doored changing rooms perfect for.....
a fashion show! :) We gathered- interesting- items of clothing throughout the shopping time. It was fun to march out of the changing rooms all at once and burst into laughter at the sight of eachother!

Elodie...she actually bought those pants after all!

An odd assortment of fashions! M is the only one who looks not only sane but stylish!

We laughed at these shoes, but come to think of it- they're pretty fun!

Elodie's choice of crazy shoes. 

the second round of fashion show...it gets worse and worse.

still friends after a full day out! :) Thank you SO much H. family! :) 

Went to a mega American Girl store...brought back memories of my childhood filled with dolls. :)

yay! revolving doors. :) 

There was the week in May which I should call The Week of Animals....since we gardened much during those days, I discovered a whole nest of baby rabbits in the strawberry garden. Of course I immediately grabbed one...and my siblings came to the rescue for the other 5! :) They were adorable. That day someone found a snake...and I calmly wrote in my journal that night: ''wonder what we'll discover tomorrow!''- only to find a nasty opossum  lying supine in the middle of my newly-dug garden. It had obviously recently taken its final breath, and without ceremony I had Sam fling it over into the field behind us.

 The next day we found the black snake which we come across annually....and I'm sure we came across other things that week...can't remember.

We kept the bunnies for a while...but let them go a safe distance away from our property once they got too old to enjoy eachother's company.

soft, fuzzy baby bunnies!

Near the end of May, we went to a highschool graduation for our friend Zoe (who also happens to be the exact same age as Jessica- birthday twins!)
 They did such a good job with the ceremony; and we had a good time celebrating with them.  

siblings making music!

so sweet

my younger siblings helped demondtrate ''Juice of Barley, which they did perfectly

Zoe and her parents

birthday twins and friends

This year's Memorial Day party at our friends' was rainy, but that didn't stop us from having a blast! First, of course, we got absolutely drenched in the consistant downpour, then when we were a little more on a dry side trooped inside and ate, sang patriotic songs and played guesstures. 
(oh my...whoever knew me 5 years ago never would've imagined that I would end up finally loving games like that! :) )

This one was too cute not to post!

An interesting team: My enthusiastic Dad, reserved sister and brother, and...me! I missed my card....Alexandre did fine. Elodie did her best with her word ''nap'', but a confusion began when the audience guessed ''sleep'' and our Dad, thinking that's what the word was began vigorously acting out his own word! Oh my...We laughed over Elodie's expression in the video we took of it..

spending time with friends

an advertisement for Stately Steps which I snapped on an instant's inspiration that night.

....And THAT was our May...or what we have in passably enjoyable pictures! :)
I can't believe I'm still 'way back there....we had such a splendid June, July, August...I want to share about each of them NOW! :) But I, as you may have noticed, have barely been taking online time!

Have a great AUGUST then. :)