Halloween Wrap Up

Last week I jumped at the chance to be a timer at the girls' intersquad swim meet.   I don't know how many chances I'll get to see Elinor and Faith swim this season--my schedule is pretty full and spectators aren't allowed at the meets anyway.  So unless I'm timing, I won't get to see them.  Elinor is a senior this year and Faith is a freshman.  It's interesting to see the culmination and winding down of Elinor's swimming happening at the same time that Faith, feisty and competitive little thing that she is,  is seriously revving up and coming on strong.  I'm glad that they have this one year of high school swim together.  Tall Fox and Small Fox.  Faith has had a really strong start to the season and she is loving pushing herself and making a splash! 

I am so proud of how hard Elinor has worked as swimming for all of her high school years.  She has amazed me with her energy and dedication.  She has given it everything she had and learned so much about herself and made wonderful friends.  Senior year is a time of transition, when the same things you've always done suddenly don't feel as comfortable.  You don't quite fit in the life you've always known.   It's a time to get ready to move onto the next phase.  She is throwing herself into her pharmacy tech class and working at the Walgreens pharmacy.  It will be bittersweet to watch her finish out her high school swim time.  Swimming has been everything we hoped it would be for her.  She has also finished her journey with formal piano lessons.  She has taken since she was barely six years old.  She plays beautifully and piano and swim have given her everything we ever hoped it would.

Now to finish up the Halloween posts-- Peter went as an Army guy.  I think every single one of the four boys have worn this costume trick-or-treating  It was a good investment.  Greta wore the too-small frog costume that we've had forever.  She insisted and I saw no reason to deny her.

George went as a Jedi with of of his best neighborhood buddies, Oli.  And they went all by the themselves the whole time-- no parent.  I know I wouldn't have been okay with that with my older kids, but here we are:)  The CDC recommended no trick-or-treating-- they said it was a high risk activity.  I did not agree.  We had fewer, but a still a good number of trick-or-treaters.

The organizing and the trading!  Oh joy!  They ate candy to their hearts content Saturday night and Sunday morning, and then, for the first time any child has taken me up on the offer, the three boys sold me all their candy.  It wasn't even coerced or anything!  They just said they didn't want to get sick and they didn't really want to eat it anyway.  Wow.  I did not see that coming.  But I liked it.

Cannon made an excellent Dwight Schrute.  

Cannon is a great character guy-- remember when he was Napolean Dynamite?

Faith didn't go trick-or-treating, but she did walk with Abe down to the super awesome Halloween house down the street to get a full size candy treat.  She said she was dressed as a track star. 

Greta was overcome with joy to meet up with her best gal pal, Aly.  They are the princess and the frog:)

The boys dance studio shared a couple pics of their classes during the week of Halloween.  There is Cannon front and center.

George's class on the day they could dress up for class.  The girl in the Jedi outfit on the other side of the teacher is George's carpool friend.  They liked that they were both Star Wars.

And now for the most inappropriate moment of Halloween 2020-- well, besides the questionable teenager party we hosted during a pandemic-- Faith's costume of choice...

Yep.  She's a flasher.  How did we get here?  So proud.  

So proud.  Truthfully, I was laughing so hard I couldn't say no.  Once again, here we are:)

The City Halloween Bash 2020

 

Last Monday evening Bethany, Elinor, and Faith were all involved with the city's Halloween bash at the City Park.  Elinor and Faith both volunteer on the youth council-- Elinor is the city's youth mayor-- and Bethany is still Miss Riverton.  Here is Elinor dressed as Anna from Frozen along with Olaf.  The city has a collection of costumes they had the volunteers wear.  The funny thing is Elinor's hair was much lighter when it was decided she would be Anna.  Between that decision and the actual event, Elinor dyed her a much darker color-- which looks amazing!!  She just told people Anna was going through a stage:)  Elinor made a darling Anna.

We missed Cannon-- he was at dance class.  It was pretty fun walking  all over and getting to see the girls.

Bethany loved being "Belle" for the night.  And seriously-- who wouldn't love getting to wear this dress!!  This dress has also been worn for several Beauty and the Beast play productions.  

And never to be outdone by her two older sisters, Faith was Wonder Woman!!  I mean, of course she was Wonder Woman!  Faith was born to be Wonder Woman.  

She had on a nude colored leotard and tights, but it was really cold and she froze her tushy off! 

 

She was part of the popular super hero photo-op along with an actual policeman and police vehicle.

Halloween Traditions

 

We had such a lovely, lovely time last Sunday.  We took our cops n' robbers pictures-- which would explain Abe's mustache, which is no more--and we carved pumpkins and we made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and we listened to our favorite Halloween playlists and we watched Ghostbusters.  And we loved being together and enjoying all our favorite Halloween traditions.  

You don't get to have days like this too often.  You wouldn't be able to appreciate them if you did.  But this day did my heart good.

We always love when Clark and Alexa come hang with us.  They were dressed as Whataburger employees-- I understand that is a popular burger chain in Texas-- where they both served missions and someone of her side got a bunch of Whataburger swag.  The orange shirts are quite festive!

I like how Abe and Clark have the same pumpkin carving technique.

The kitchen table was covered in pumpkin guts, so we set up in the family room and ate our BBQ chicken drumsticks and watched Ghostbusters--Abe's favorite movie.

A few of my beautiful pumpkin chocolate chip cookie creations-- so beautiful.  Because I'm not eating sugar or flour, I did not partake.  But it turns out I don't need to eat them to thoroughly enjoy them.  I just really like making them and being in their presence.  

This was George's first year of gutting and carving his pumpkin entirely on his own.  He was pretty proud of himself.  I'm not surprised that this very creative boy would be in his element in pumpkin carving.

His first pumpkin masterpiece!

The finished products

We do love us some Halloween traditions!

Cops and Robbers Halloween 2020

Cops and Robbers 2020!  Well now, this was just fun.  Honestly, thanks to COVID it was a little bit of a case of "all dressed up and no place to go", but no matter.  We did it for our own entertainment and to appease Abe-- our local Tradition Czar:)

The cops were Abe, Bethany, Faith, and Cannon.

The robbers were Greta, Peter, George, me, and Elinor.  It was interesting there was no discussion or debate about who was going to be on which side-- everyone just called out what they wanted and this was how it broke down.  Five robbers and four cops.  

I know... it's sad that its so hard for us to express ourselves:)

The kids are such good sports.  We usually have multiple discussion over the course of the year as to what our family Halloween costumes will be.  Lots of ideas are thrown out and we like some and others not so much.  This idea was late contribution and immediately everyone was on board and excited.  The kids often don't trick or treat or attend parties in their family costume-- which is not a problem at all.  But they seem to enjoy the tradition of having a family theme, so we keep doing it.

My favorite pic.

A lot of fun with my favorite people.

A Lot About Pete

 

Peter finished his orange books in piano.  He is quite an enjoyable student to work with-- he is enthusiastic and highly focused.  I guess it's not surprising, considering it's Peter we're talking about it.  That describes him in a lot of ways.  We're all getting ready for our upcoming Christmas recital-- listening to children practice Christmas music is one of my favorite things.

Greta is not a fan of going to bed.  And why would she be?  She is the youngest and generally the first one to be put to bed.  She knows there are still lots of big people awake and she doesn't like to be left out of the fun.  Fortunately, it usually only takes a couple of Primary songs for her to be out like a light.

The entire month of October is fun for dressing up:) 

I hate all the slinkys in the whole world!  

Even though I do have mad slinky untangling skills!  

Ah, yes.  Be jealous of my three hours of dental work I had done a couple weeks ago.  It was not pleasant, but it needed to be done and it had been avoided for far too long.  So I was brave and now it's done:)

You know who else was really brave last week?  

I know it's hard to tell with the masks on:)  Peter had to go get several cavities filled.  Darn it!  I can't complain, because I know the genetics have worked in our favor with most of our children for far longer than we deserved.  Unfortunately, luck in the dental gene pool seems to have run out with our Peter.  In the end, Peter needed to have oral sedation to get the work done because it was hard for him to relax, stop talking, and hold still otherwise. 

We were warned that the sedation doesn't always work with all kids.  He never did go completely unconscious and he could still respond to the dentist throughout the procedure.  But thankfully it worked enough!  Am I surprised that Peter could resist sedation?  Not so much.

The whole process of getting this dental work has been more involved and complicated than I would have liked.  That being said, it was was relief for me and Peter to have it done.  And now, we get to go back in a couple weeks to do the whole thing again to the other side-- BLAH!  But so glad for modern medicine!

Lunch time at the Fox house last week was all about RAP BATTLES--- ha ha ha!  They are so funny!  The kids put on some sort of rap track and then they battle each other by making up raps on the spot.  

My favorite from last week was Peter speaking on the beat-- "You--are--a worm....... And--I--am---the bird--- that eats--the---worm.  

I'm totally counting this as a poetry unit in our language arts studies.

One of my dear friends brought me this clock a few weeks back.  I know I'm not the only one to feel that 2020 has been a rough year.  Seriously.  Our family has faced some challenges and we're learning and growing.  And it's been painful and we've felt a little fragile.  This friend knows how I've been doing and she saw this and thought of me.  And now this sits on my window sill by my kitchen sink.  And I look at it as I do dishes and think how true it is.  "Life is a balance between holding on and letting go".  Just the message for a mom of young adults and preschoolers!  And I think of how grateful I am for friends who love and listen.