Positively Defrightful

Halloween is probably one of my kids’ favorite holidays. I mean, they get to party, dress up, run around the neighborhood half the night, eat a bunch of candy…what’s not to love, right? To be honest, I think it’s fun too. I enjoy making a creepy themed dinner and creating fun costumes. And taking my parent tax out of their trick or treat bags. As a food allergy parent, the whole trick or treating thing used to stress me out, but my kids are so smart about the whole thing that I don’t really worry any more. We just help them go through their bags and swap out off limits treats for safe ones. And then the big boys get to eat all the rejected confections so they are pretty happy about the whole thing as well.

This year I fed the kids worm sandwiches, brain Jell-o and Jacked up veggies before sending them out the door.

Daniel went to a party and didn’t really do a costume this year so he is not part of our photo lineup. Malia was Ariel in the pink princess dress, but really looked like a standard princess because she didn’t want to wear a red wig. She was super excited though and even let me get her a hoop skirt to wear with her dress.

When we started the costume discussions last month, Matthew didn’t want to dress up at all. I think he wants to be a young man and not a boy and sees dressing up as something for little kids. But we turned to pinterest and found a non-standard costume that he was actually super excited about. Honestly, what’s not cool about being a pedestrian crossing sign?

Nathan didn’t have any grand plans, but he wanted a costume anyway. He really wanted a cape, Phantom of the Opera style, and I was happy to help him sew one. By help, I mean I helped him pick a pattern, taught him how to use a pattern, guided him in his selection of fabric and then acted as sewing advisor. He did all the actual cutting and sewing himself. He was enormously proud of himself, as well he should be. And he loved the whole swirling of the cape thing.

Since he didn’t have anywhere to go, Nathan invited a few friends to gather at our place for snacks and a movie. Unfortunately, only one person came, but they had a great time nevertheless. We made caramel popcorn and ate it all warm and sticky, so Nathan followed my lead and ate his with chopsticks to avoid the super sticky fingers. Honestly, I don’t know what normal people do without chopsticks. I use them for all kinds of non-Chinese food things. In fact, I use them for all kinds on non-food things...

So Happy Halloween y’all. Hope you had as much fun as we did!

Dork O’Lanterns

We finally got around to carving our pumpkins. Daniel’s schedule has been so crazy that finding a time to choose and carve our yearly squash has been a challenge. If he didn’t care about participating it would have been easier, but he still wants to do these family activities (for which I’m so grateful) and so we worked around his calendar. All the kiddos seem to have caught the dork bug and for once Nathan was the only one who looks fairly normal in his picture. To be fair though, he does look like he is pulling a dorky face behind that pumpkin…

As always, the images carved are definitely not the standard Jack face. Daniel went with the death star, Nathan did the headless horseman, Matthew crafted a Simba design and Malia selected the little mermaid. And then she carved the entire thing all by herself. I think she did a great job. In fact, I think all the kids did a great job.

And to be completely honest, the fact that they are all dorks is really not their fault. After all, they did get the dork gene from both of their parents so I guess it is inevitable that they would choose to let their dork show on a regular basis.

Missed It by That Much

Tonight was the Pinewood Derby. Our ward went their own way this year and invited all the activity days girls to participate. The girls were super excited and I think the boys were originally fine with the whole thing. That did seem to change a bit as the derby progressed and the girls started winning everything. But despite a few grumbles, the boys were good sports and took things mostly in stride. They had all the kids take their first four runs and then planned to narrow it down to the top 12 cars to do another round. Unfortunately, the first runs took longer than they had planned and they decided to take only the top 8 cars to the next round. But they didn’t make any kind of announcement to that end. Matthew’s car was in 9th place at that point and he was pretty anxious as they started the second round of runs and he did not have a place in the lineup. After awhile it became obvious that they had taken only 8 cars and Matthew was disappointed. I would have been disappointed too. Once the derby was over, I took Matthew to the store to buy some ice cream. As my older kids have discovered in the past, ice cream can help soothe a disappointment. Matthew made his entire car all by himself and I made sure to let him know how proud I was of that. Many of the cars obviously had a lot of grown up handy work, but he built his all on his own. And it was fast enough for 9th place. I’m super proud of him. He did perk up after awhile and was able to admit that he was proud of himself as well.

As a side note, the first and second place prizes went to girls as well as the prize for the slowest car. Of four winners, only one was a boy. 😐

Major Milestone!!!

Malia was brave enough to eat hot lunch at school today!

Futball

Matthew has not played organized sports for a while. He used to be all about football, but that waned after a bit and over the past year or so his interests have diversified. He has tried volleyball (a set of beginning techniques class as well as a round of tournament style games) and really enjoyed that. He would really like to try fencing but the beginners class that both Daniel and Nathan did has not been offered for quite some time. This fall he decided he wanted to give soccer a try. I think he really enjoyed himself. He loves to be active and outside and soccer filled both those needs. He said he would be interested in playing soccer again.