All Hallows Eve 2018

In the "leaving things to the last second" catergory:
a) we bought these pumpkins this morning:

note to self: buy more carving knives for next year

b) Andy was undecided about his costume until 3 pm:

I think it turned out well -- Katie helped him pick it out

isn't he adorable??  look at his widdle tail!

Ninja Jojo (that's just fun to say)

Daniel went as Link again

Toothless/Nicky wanted a sad face pumpkin

"Nicky, show your wings and go ROAR!"

also b) I used leftover fabric from the girls' capes and pinned it to Nicky's hoodie to make the wings.  I did exactly zero sewing of costumes this year.  (I used pinking shears to cut out the girls' capes -- no hemming!  Score!)

isn't Katie's Triforce pumpkin AWESOME?

you'll never guess which musical Miriam's into these days...

Someone tonight asked them if they were twins. 

"Kuuuuubooooo....."

(reference)

the post-op trade fest

Nicky ate most of a Hershey's bar and didn't like how his chocolatey hands felt so he decided to wipe them on the carpeted stairs.

Soot Sprite dressed up as a familiar for Halloween

When we got home from trick-or-treating he was sitting up in one of the bedroom windows, lit up from behind.  He looked exactly like a cat silhouette decoration.

ooooooooooo!

The only picture I didn't get but wish I had was a shot of our whole group.  We had 4 other families join us for pretty much our own Halloween parade.  After about one street we inevitably divided up into 3 separate groups, based upon walking speed.  Somehow I ended up with the boys, which was of course the fastest group.  For them candy collecting is serious business -- you don't waste time!  Of course all the teen girls lagged behind, since all they wanted to do was chat. 

Once the small fry were done they all went back to our house and dumped their candy on the floor to examine, trade, and devour.  That's another picture I should have got -- sundry super heroes and army men camped all over my living room, surrounded by a great sea of chocolate and lollipops.

We didn't seem to have as many trick-or-treaters come to our house this year (aside from the 20 or so who were part of our own group), so we have lots of leftover candy.  Oh, darn!  (I always make sure to get all my favorite kinds, just to prepare for this very eventuality.)  (Also, I'm so glad I recoverd from that food poisoning in time.)

Happy All Hallows Eve!

Andy is 6!

testing... testing... 1-2-3... does this thing still work?  excellent!

Andy had a big week last week.  We started off with the feast of one of his patrons, Pope Saint John Paul II -- the Great -- on Monday.  Feast days equal dessert days, and are therefore a Big Deal.  Katie, who is rapidly becoming The Resident Baker, whipped up a batch of snickerdoodles in honor of the occasion.

Then Thursday was his 6th birthday.  Unfortunately it was just another work day in some ways; Miriam had class, so we still had to haul ourselves out of bed early so Miriam could discuss bones with her advanced biology class for 2 hours.  (Her teacher, who is now a practicing physician, used to play rugby of all things.  So he had all kinds of stories about all the bones he broke when he was younger.  His poor mother.)  Actually, Andy didn't really mind -- while Miriam is looking at slides of cells or speaking Spanish we get to hang out in the nursery (classes are held in a very hospitable church's basement classrooms) and play with all the toys.  Since birthdays are automatic holidays in our house, I didn't bring any school to do.  So Andy and Dominic got to play with friends and eat snacks and cupcakes that we brought to share.  Not too bad a deal. 

After a lunch of crepes with strawberries and whipped cream another friend whose birthday was earlier in the week had a party at the park that afternoon, so we got to hang out with more friends and eat cake.  (October parties at the park are always a gamble -- thankfully the weather cooperated and it wasn't too cold or windy that day.)  (We also got a couple weird looks from the other moms there who were with their sweet little tiny tots, as our ginormous crew of 14 obviously school-aged children took over the playground.)  And THEN Daddy came home early and made pizza for dinner and we had MORE cupcakes for dessert.  Add to that that he got just what he wanted for his presents and he got to choose what video game everyone played that evening, you have one happy six year old.  When I asked him at the end of the day how his birthday went, he said, "AWEsome."  (Actually, it was more like "awethome" because of that adorable little lisp.)

Then on Saturday we had a little party for him with all the usual suspects (best friends, neighbors).  I wasn't involved in the planning of it, but apparently I ought to have been -- there were a couple details that weren't decided until the last second, and the activities were not very well regulated (at one point we had bored kids wandering around the house).  Well, lessoned learned: always double-check the plan.  At any rate, Andy was happy and loved being with his friends, so that's what really mattered.

he wanted chocolate cake with strawberry icing and sprinkles and a rainbow made out of jellybeans.  (that icing was AWESOME -- I was eating it straight out of the bowl)

the requisite Silly Picture

Andy's six-year-old brain has been doing all kinds of fun stuff.  He's starting to read random things on his own -- he's always sounding out words wherever we are (remind me never to take him into a public bathroom).  Meanwhile, we're on the letter "D" in his phonics book.  ...I think I need to pick up the pace a little.

He is also obsessed with swear words.  Not that he SAYS them, he just tells me often about the one or two times he heard someone say (a mild) one.  When he gets mad he says "STUPID!" which I guess is the six-year-old equivalent of a swear word.

He is also obsessed with weaponry of every kind.  Everything he plays with turns into a weapon eventually.  We have a lovely wooden educational set of letters of word boards -- all those little letters have been guns and bombs and bad guys for a long time -- I don't think they're ever actually used for their intended purpose.  So for his birthday he wanted a gun with a scope.  I REFUSED to buy the dart sniper rifle he saw in Walmart (really, Nerf???  I lived in DC in 2002!) but we found a cool Star Wars nerf dart blaster that makes laser sounds, and also has a scope.  And the darts glow in the dark.  So, yeah, way cooler and better than the future-terrorist-in-training toy.

We have fun speculating about what Andy will be when he grows up.  He definitely likes all his ducks in a row -- and if you gave him some toy ducks, that would be proved literally.  He understands the whole "place for everything and everything in its place" thing instrinsically, which is awesome.  It's always nice for a mother of a large family to have one ally in the battle against total chaos! 

We'll see what this year brings for Andy!