Roundup: Birthday, Halloween, and Stuff

Time for a recap of all our back-to-back celebrations. Namely, a million pictures...

Ethan's Birthday

A week ago our Ethan man, my baby, turned 5. All the emotions here, of course. But he was 100% happy, bringing in treats and getting his birthday crown from school earlier in the week (since he didn't have school on his birthday), getting measured (4 inches taller!) on his actual birthday, eating waffles made for him by Dad, rocking the Spiderman gear, going to mass and seeing his patron, St. Jude, whose Feast Day is also the same day (no coincidence there) and finally, partying the night away with friends at Chuck E. Cheese. I should say that he was 99% happy, since he did shed big crocodile tears the second his token card ran out. It was his party, he could cry if he wanted to. But he was consoled by the new Spiderman PJs awaiting him at home. And I got to bid farewell to the psychedelic Cheese house for the remainder of the year, praise the Lord.

He posed on the steps and said "will you take a picture of me when I'm five?!"
He also asked me to play hockey with him, to which there was obviously no saying no!

All Saints Day/Halloween

Everything else this year was a pretty last-minute affair; I was on a bit of a costume strike this year (as in, for the sake of my sanity I was not going to spend any more time on costumes for Halloween or any other event than absolutely necessary).  

So when our church held an early All Saint's Day festival, the boys grabbed their knight costumes and some props to be St. George and St. Michael the Archangel. Marie wanted to be St. Francis of Assisi, which I wanted to support, but since we had no brown habits and I wasn't about to try and figure that out (see above) I convinced her to be St. Kateri Tekakwitha. Good thing they rocked it. 

(And she got a few moments in as St. Francis after all.)

Halloween was unseasonably balmy and warm this year, which was pretty much the best thing ever. Erik and Marie wanted to be Ninjas, but Ethan was set on wearing a cardboard ghost mask punched out from a box of he had baked with his Gran. So I was forced to break my costume strike and figure out how to dress up the cardboard mask. I went all out and bought a bedsheet, cut some holes, and he spent his entire time in costume hilariously attempting to see and needing to be led around.

Peter decided to go the Force Awakens route and dress as Han Solo, so I figured I would whip something together and accompany him as Rey. Since we had some bedsheet left over, I decided to use it as Rey's sash thingy, and suddenly I found myself sewing and for the first time every dyeing fabric with tea. So much for my strike. But it only took a few minutes, start to finish, and now we have ample fabric for future toga parties.

We also carved pumpkins last minute because the jack o'lanterns we'd been growing all season long were commandeered by the squirrels. But it ended up being a good thing because they barely made it through a single day of our indian summer before wilting pitifully.

Halloween parades. Guide Mouse to the rescue!

Star Wars costumes in the making. Really, I have no idea what got into me.

Cowpolks Gran and Granddad joined us for some chili and trick-or-treating, along with a few friends.

The fun of the finished product made it worth it!

Oh yes, and in all the craziness I also voted on Halloween, because God help the U S of A. I'm still counting on the second coming to save us all but I haven't seen any lighting and hellfire yet...so maybe God's just waiting till 8th. Otherwise, you can feel free to join us here until 2020!

Happy November!