Fun days in June!

My original plan was to have a mid-June post and a end of June post... and here we are on the last day of June... sigh... So, here's a summary of June. :)

In the beginning of June was a very joyous event! On the Feast of Corpus Christi, two of my godchildren received First Communion! What made this even more joyful of an occasion is that only a couple months ago this whole family was received into the Catholic Church and all these children were baptized. It was truly one of the happiest days of my life. So, we drove to Whitehall and were present at Mass when the two eldest sons received Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament for the first time. I love being present when children (or converts!) receive 1st communion. It is such a blessing to see the joy in these children and a reminder to me of how I greatly anticipated my first communion as a convert to the Catholic Church.
After Mass we all had lunch together. Here are some pics I took (mostly at the luncheon).

 I made the kids cord rosaries, a cd of Blessed Sacrament chants and hymns, a Glory Stories cd, and a couple books on Mary, the Mother of God.  :)

A beautiful cake!

The happy family! :)

We've been spending a lot of time outside enjoying the nice weather. I went to a garage sale with the kids and got Philip a tricycle for 3 bucks and a toy lawn mower for $1! Can't beat the prices! :) Riding bikes is a favorite activity around here now. :)

Classic expressive Mary :)

Another favorite Mary and Philip activity is playing with rocks. They like to pick them up and put them in basket of Mary's bike and move them to different spots. haha!

A couple weeks ago, I took the kids to this fun little zoo about 30mins north of us. It's certainly not a huge zoo, but they had this great safari ride where the animals literally come right up to you and there were places where you could feed the animals. They also had small playgrounds here and there so when the kids felt like climbing around they could play on the playgrounds too. Plus, you’re allowed to bring in your own food for picnic lunches! The kids had such a good time. I hope we can make it back again with Matthew. 
Here are some pics I took. 

We also went to visit my sister this month. Mary loves Benjamin. She loves to hold him and play with him.

Here's a new favorite picture of mine of the kids with their Gung-Gung (my Dad). My kids love my Dad. hehe. Yesterday at Lowes, Philip saw a man some aisles away with a hat on (my Dad wears a baseball hat, a lot of times) and pointed at him and said, "Gung-Gung!" LOL

I hope to have another post soon about the fun we've had with the garden and what we've reaped already so far this year! I also hope to do individual updates of Mary and Philip. Hopefully I can write them soon! I hope you all are having a fun-filled summer so far!