All Hallows Eve 2021!

 ...So does anyone even keep a blog any more?  I apparently don't.... 

It looks like I didn't make a Halloween post last year?  We did go trick-or-treating but pickings were scant, as was to be expected.  Maybe after I finish this post I'll make one about last year too.  It's always fun to have a record of everyone's costumes.

spoopy...

A Year In Review

I think 2020 is over... which would make a year-in-review appropriate, although I'm not 100% sure we're not just stuck in the vestibule of Hell from the Inferno.

 

At any rate, here is a summary of what we did last year (assuming it was actually a year ago).  Surprisingly I have remarkably few pictures.  I guess we weren't very busy for some weird reason.

January

The year began as usual, with the disembowling of the gingerbread monstrosity house.

this would be Day 2.

Independence Day 2020!

Every year Mr Pickles buys a big box or two of fireworks, as do our next door neighbors.  A few years ago we started shooting them off together.  

yes, that is an obscene amount of fireworks

 

The kids all love it.  They especially enjoyed it this year, after being stuck at home so much.  Daniel's best friend, whom he's hardly seen all year, was allowed to join everyone for the fun.

Seriously, when else are you allowed to stay up late to play with fire?

Katie, ever the animal whisperer, made friends with a firefly.

God bless America!!

12 Days of Christmas

Happy Epiphany!  I love all the references to light in the liturgy today.  It also helps that today is the first sunny day we've had in ages.

So once again we honored the 12 Days of Christmas by planning on something fun and celebratory for each day.  Unfortunately our plans were slightly derailed by the now traditional Christmastime illness -- but I think we did enough to make the Christmas season feel fun and restful.

Day 1: Christmas!!

Christmas 2018

Guess who got a new camera!!!

Soot Sprite!

Just kidding.  He doesn't like the new camera.  It Makes Noise.

Christmas 2017

So, despite the bout of influenza that made its slow rounds through the fam, we were still able to have a good Christmas break. 

Opportunist Kitty makes good use of feverish people -- they are so comfy!

Starting Somewhere in the Middle

Happy New Year....

Mr. Pickles got me a new laptop for Christmas.

glowy screeeeeeen

I have only just now mastered photo editing on it.  And by "mastered" I mean "beaten into submission."  I hate it when a photo editor thinks it's smarter than you and that you can't possibly want to do what it is that you're telling it to do so it just point-blank refuses so you have to download an old version of a photo editor that you know will let you do what you actually want it to do even though you used to complain about how clunky it was to do one simple thing.

I have a college degree!  I am an educated person!  I do too want to batch resize!  So take that, stoopid pre-installed photo editor!  You have now been replaced by an obsolete photo editor.  I hope you're happy.

....Hence the extreme delay in pictured blog posts.

All Hallows Eve

Basic Halloween this year.  Pumpkins, costumes, candy.

Ghouled Cheese Sandwiches and Gore Soup for dinner

We couldn't agree on a theme this year, so it was every man for himself.  My only requirement was that the costume involved as little sewing as possible for Mom, and preferably used pieces we already had.

Miriam

Queen of the Night (with a ghost in the background!) -- she was practicing the aria for days beforehand in case called upon to prove she really WAS the Queen of the Night

Katie

tap dancer (she finally fits into my stash of dance costumes)

Jojo

an archer, with an awesome bow made out of pvc pipe

Daniel

a ninja. he originally wanted to be Yoda, but we couldn't find the mask/wig at our local party store.

Daniel insisted on this sequence of pictures:

1.

2.

3.  (apparently he's not a very good ninja)

Andy

Darth Vader!

(he doesn't quite understand how light sabers work yet)

Dominic

an impish elf (who required help standing still for the camera)

(...because he kept trying to do this)

Trick-or-treating is WAY more fun with friends.

After we came home, Miriam had to separate out the orthodontist-approved items.  (Daniel very sweetly shared all his KitKats with her.)

I spy a little someone helping himself

caught in the act!

Once again the kids noted how much harder they have to work for their loot in our neighborhood now vs. the easy days at the townhouse -- more miles to cover to get a decent haul!  But thanks to the leftovers from the Costco bag of candy, we had enough to last us for a whole week this time.

Next day was, of course, All Saints Day.  Before Halloween we went on pilgrimage to the Basilica of the National Shrine in DC (I love that church more every time I go) in order to walk through the Holy Door.  At the Mass the priest gave a beautiful homily about Halloween, how the Christian ought to view death, and the spiritual symbolism of trick-or-treating.  On the Eve of All Hallows, father said, children knock on doors asking for a treat.  This reminds us of the truth that someday, at the moment of our death, we ourselves will be knocking on the door of Heaven, asking for the greatest treat of all -- admittance to the kingdom of light and sweetness, where we will be welcomed into the fellowship of saints.  It gave me goosebumps, I tell you. 

We have friends who don't like Halloween because of its more grisly trappings as perpetrated by secular culture, and for the most part I agree with them.  (I don't get zombies.  Why exactly are they cool?)  But I always love to see how grace builds upon nature; the church has always taken what was good in a culture and used it to teach us the truth.  At bedtime after trick-or-treating, we can use that moment to thank God for all the sweet things in the world, to be able to prepare us for the even greater sweetness of Heaven and the Communion of Saints.

And no, I'm not just trying to justify trick-or-treating so I can steal Snickers from my kids' candy buckets.

Easter

So I was planning on posting about Birthday Week first, but I remember almost nothing from then so I'll have to ask my resident memory-keepers what exactly we did.  Meanwhile, here's a bit about our Easter!

So once again we indulged in our new Easter tradition...

Pysanky!

The girls are pretty much independent -- from design, to dyeing, to using the kistkas and the beeswax -- so while I did the Easter baking on Holy Saturday, they went at it.  They just need me to melt the wax off at the end.

it IS pretty dicey.  but I haven't figured out how to melt the wax off in the toaster without making a total mess, so this way is still simpler -- so long as I don't do something stupid like hold my thumb over the flame

finished projects

Sooo... below is one from last year that we never blew the yolk out of, since we were afraid a small crack would ruin it.  We kept it in the fridge, hoping it would dry out, then pulled it out in March.  However, based on a dramatic episode involving another un-blown egg and the inside of the china cabinet last year (important announcement: do not store intact eggs inside your china cabinet), I put this one in a cup outside.

You can't tell from the picture, but after the egg warmed up, one end really, REALLY wanted to point straight up.  It finally did crack from the internal pressure after a couple days.  And no, it didn't smell like you would expect a rotten egg to smell.  It was... more like vinegar?  It's hard to describe.

(We did blow and lacquer this year's eggs.)

I'm still working on mine.  The problem is that the egg has to be room temp to stop sweating & take the wax, which means leaving it out for at least 30 mins before I can work on it.  So my dilemma is this: if I take the egg out, there is no way I can guarantee that I will be free to do ANYthing 30 mins later!  I guess I have a couple more days until Easter is finally over....  Although our Eastern Orthodox friends JUST celebrated their Easter, so if I borrow their calendar, I've got plenty of time!

Another Pickles Easter tradition:

Easter Bunny bread!  Yeah, yeah I know it really ought to be a lamb.  But I like bunnies.

I totes forgot to get a picture of everyone in their Easter finery until the next day when I saw everyone else's FB photos of their adorable families in pastels.  This is all I got:

Since Miriam is singing in our church choir now, she got to do alllll the Holy Week liturgies, including Easter Vigil AND Easter Sunday.  So natch, earlier in the week she came down with a mild head cold that severely limited her ability to sing descants.  Lots of gargling with warm salt water brought it into submission by the end of the week, thankfully. 

Our little church choir traditionally sings the Hallelujah chorus for Easter, which is risky for little church choirs because it's one of those things that can be really awesome or really, really cringe-worthy.  Thankfully they always fall on the "awesome" end of the spectrum, and it's always a great finish to all the pascal pageantry.  THIS year, the diocese's Ghanaian community (who are hq'ed at our church) joined their choir to ours for the Easter Vigil.  One thing about those Ghanaians -- they can sing!  Sadly I wasn't at the Vigil, but Miriam says the Hallelujah Chorus was AMAZEBALLS.  Next year I think we just need to suck it up and all go to the Vigil.  (It's just hard to wrap your head around attending a Mass that BEGINS an hour after your kids' bedtimes!  Yet another thing that falls on the potentially-really-awesome/really-horrible spectrum.)

Happy last few days of Easter!

Christmas wrap-up

So here are a couple more shots of our Christmas season, beginning with St. Nicholas' day earlier in December:

*ripriptearshred*

The babies always get something in their stockings too.

ooooooo....

om nom nom

Andy got lacing boards

The baby also got a Christmas outfit:

"Kiss Me: No Mistletoe Required"

we obey this injunction regularly -- who wouldn't, with that face?

Katie was exceptionally creative this Advent.  She made her own Advent calendar:

We now have so many Advent-y things that we couldn't even keep up with them all.  There were still several doors on the Advent calendars unopened by Christmas Eve, and we regularly removed big chunks of the Advent chain at a time.  No one felt gipped, though -- we were religious in our observance of taking turns blowing out the Advent candles.

We tried to spread the decorating out over different days in Advent, but ended up doing most of it right before Christmas (and even some right after).  That's okay -- everything got done eventually.

Andy is old enough to help decorate the tree now, too -- although he spent most of the time playing with the vehicle ornaments. :)

All gussied up for Christmas Eve Mass!  (We chickened out again regarding Midnight Mass -- one of these years we'll get back to it.)  Notice all the short sleeves -- it was ROASTING.  (and by "roasting" I mean 70s -- I was tempted to turn on the A/C while I was baking but REFUSED --  it was the middle of December for Pete's sake! It's a Matter of Principle!)

Dominic is wondering why he isn't in bed Right Now.

As you can see, Grandma stayed with us!  She came a couple days before Christmas and stayed until the day after New Year's.  It was a delight to have her with us.  She is very good at just fitting herself in to the family dynamic and jumping in wherever help is needed.  She was a real blessing to us, but most importantly just plain fun to have around.  Holidays are always better with extra family to share them with.  (I'll bet she was glad to get back to her nice, quiet house afterwards, though!)

We had lots of fun celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas -- it was a great way to spread out the fun.  Now, to finish Christmas cards!  Hey, we technically have until Feb. 2 to get them out, right?

Peace to you and yours,
the Pickles

All Hallows Eve

Whew!  Another Halloween aka costume-making-frenzy has come and gone, and we have 5 candy-filled pumpkins to prove it.  I always wonder if I should schedule the kids' dentist appointments after October....

Our tradition is that each child gets to pick his or her own pumpkin from the local garden center, but it has to be a pumpkin he or she is capable of carrying to the weighing station.  (Mom and Dad do not schlep gargantuan pumpkins for 4-year-olds.)  I pick the one for the baby.

The kids design their own pumpkins and help clean them out, as much as they can.  The girls are almost completely independent, aside from the occasional advice regarding design or execution.  This year Joseph tried his hand at carving and did a fairly decent job, I must say. 

I still ended up cleaning out about 4 1/2 pumpkins.

For lunch on Halloween, Daddy made ghouled cheese sandwiches:

For dinner we had Smilin' Jack Casserole (ground beef sauteed with bell peppers and baked in a pie pumpkin -- grown-ups loved, kids hated), and Dirt for dessert (chocolate pudding with crushed gluten-free oreos -- everyone loved). :)

We agonized for MONTHS over our Halloween costume theme this year.  I think we (and by "we" I mean "Katie") started brainstorming around July.  Finally we came to a consensus: Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword!  Mr. Pickles will play the game while the kids watch -- it's something fun they share together.  So I got dragged, kicking and screaming, into my first cosplay, if you can call it that.

Miriam was, of course, Princess Zelda:

Katie made the harp, everything else was recycled costume

Katie was Fi, the manifest spirit of the hero's sword or something:

you can't really tell it from the shot but her hair is spray-painted blue.  I made the cape -- threw it together in an evening while Mr. Pickles was on Baby Duty. The ribbons got ditched halfway through trick-or-treating -- they kept falling around her ankles

 Jojo was the hero's friend, Pipit:

shirt: 50 cents at Salvation Army, turned inside-out to hide graphic. hat: I made (whereupon I learned that I despise sewing with knits). sword: party store

 Daniel was our hero, Link!

shirt: recycled costume. hat and sword: same as above. (we got a sword for Andy too so he wouldn't shriek and pitch a fit feel left out)

Action shot!

Oh -- Katie made Jojo's scabbard too (Daniel's was a repurposed quiver).  She spent all morning in the basement with cardboard, scissors, string, and tape

Andy was a character called a Remlit.  By day they are adorable little mewing kitties, but at night they turn into fierce attacking monsters.  (Appropriate for the dual nature of a 3-year-old, I thought.)  We dressed Andy as the day version:

big brother's hoodie, turned inside-out.  felt ears safety-pinned to hood.  tail: brown felt, stuffed, and wrapped with masking tape to look like stripes. and safety-pinned on.

Even the baby dressed up.  He went as a green Chuchu, a blob-like creature with a large slimey mouth:

note the large mouth.  (this was his cranky time right before he fell fast asleep, and slept alllll through trick-or-treating like a good little blob). costume: baby bunting I think I picked up at a consignment sale ages ago.

So as you can see, my cosplay style is whatever-I-can-get-away-with-that-looks-authentic-enough-yet-requires-as-little-effort-as-possible-from-me.  Is there such a thing as Scruffy Cosplay?

We went trick-or-treating with friends -- it's always more fun with a big group of people!  The weather cooperated bee-yoo-tifully, too -- it was perfect Fall weather.

the friends were a present, a dragon, a giraffe, and a pumpkin (the irony is that the pumpkin's name is Peter!)

The hospitable houses were few and far between this year -- what is wrong with people?? -- so the kids had to cover a lot of ground for their haul.  There weren't a lot of trick-or-treaters out, either -- maybe because there aren't too many young families in our neighborhood? -- but that did work out to our advantage because each house was giving away more candy, trying to get rid of it!  For the first time ever, we actually had part of a bag left over. (but since Mr. Pickles bought the good stuff, Mrs. Sweet-tooth-is-my-middle-name Pickles didn't mind one bit -- usually I have to raid my unsuspecting children's loot to get anything) 

Once again, fun prep and a fun evening!  It did make me miss sewing for fun (instead of mending pants, which is all I do now).

And just because he was so cute, let's see Andy again:

The End