Day of the Dead with Jacob Mehren

We celebrated our little Hendrickson version of Day of the Dead today.

At our home, that means I tell my kids about one or two of their ancestors while we enjoy our traditional Day of the Dead gingerbread skeletons.  'Cuz traditions are always more fun if yummy food is involved.

This year, I told the kids about Jacob Mehren, my mom's great-grandfather.  Jacob was born in 1857 to German immigrants who lived in Chicago.  He was an electrician and inventor who held nineteen U.S. patents, mostly for improvements he devised for the city's fire alarm system (Chicago hired him to manage it a few years after the famous fire destroyed about a third of the city).  Jacob spent a lot of time tinkering in his basement after work, often inviting his kids to work with him on his projects.

Here he is with his wife Elizabeth and their twelve children.  My mom's grandpa Clarence is the little boy in the dark suit on the front row.  As I've shared stories about our forebears with my kids these last few years, I've been deeply indebted to my dad, who compiled short biographies of numerous ancestors when I was young and shared them with our family.  I have about seven left that I haven't shared with my own kids yet.  I guess that means in seven years I'll need to either persuade my dad to write some more, or dust off my history major skills and learn how to create them myself.

The School Parade and Joy's Fourth Costume

Todd and I braved the cold to attend the big kids' school Halloween parade.

It's always an interesting mix at these parades.  There are kids whose parents spent over $50 on a snazzy costume the child will only wear once, and there are kids who scrounged something out of the back of their closet, stuck it on their head, and called it a costume.  Both approaches are fun, in very different ways.

There's my little mermaid . . .

. . . and Daniel the bat.

At the very end of the line was Joy in Homemade Costume Iteration 3: a candy corn vendor.  I thought it was clever, but she was a little disappointed that her classmates kept asking what she was supposed to be.

Time to go trick-or-treating!  Joy is wearing Homemade Costume Iteration 4: a superhero mask and cape from our dress-up bin.  Todd refused to wear any costume whatsoever, but people still gave him candy.

That's quite a haul!  There's a dentist in nearby Ellicott City who pays kids $1 per pound of candy (up to 5 pounds) the day after Halloween, and at first the kids were pretty keen on that idea, but when they saw all their sugary loot spread out on the table they decided they'd rather keep it.

Scrooge and Jack(s)

The pre-Halloween festivities continue (sometimes I think the parties before Halloween are more fun than the actual holiday).

Todd's Joy School group had their little Halloween party today.  The kids were supposed to wear costumes and sing Halloween songs for their parents.  Todd chose not to do either of those things (though he did at least hold his doggy/kitty tail and a little pumpkin).

He's a bit of a Halloween scrooge, but he won't turn down a holiday cupcake.

Our family home evening activity tonight was jack-o-lantern carving .  As a child I tried to have the least possible contact with icky, slimy, pumpkin entrails, but as a mom I'm so used to dealing with gross stuff that I just rolled up my sleeves and cleaned four pumpkins out ASAP so we could move on to the fun parts of the activity: designing and carving.  The three big kids designed their own jack-o-lanterns and then carved them (with a little help).  I gave Todd a few faces to choose from, then I did the carving for his pumpkin.

Let's see how these jack-o-lanterns turned out.

Left to right: Joy's, Daniel's, Anna's (note the flower on the side), and Todd/Mama's.

Trunk or Treat with a Math Geek

It's Trunk or Treat time folks!

I had grand plans of getting my old Renaissance Faire costume out of moth balls and putting it on for the party, but I was so busy getting the kids ready that I only had time to grab a headband with some cat ears to put on my head.  Then we arrived and Todd decided he didn't like his doggy mask, so I gave him my ears and went as a mom instead.  Anna happily went as the Little Mermaid (thank you, Walmart).  Phillip wore his Jedi costume and rigged up a glue-stick-taped-to-a-laser-pointer light saber.

Daniel asked to be a bat, and I made his wings this afternoon.  Forgive me for being really proud of how they turned out, but I have little skill when it comes to sewing, so I'm kind of amazed that they look as good as they do.

Joy, of course, wanted to make her own unique costume.  She tried to construct a Creeper costume out of cardboard today, but that didn't work out so she tried making a Minecraft helmet and a cardboard mine cart to ride in.  Those didn't really work out either, so after ditching her helmet at the party she spent the rest of the evening as a quirky math geek (i.e. her usual self).  By the way, the math geek won that jar of candy corn by guessing (almost) how many candies were inside.  There were 352, and Brother Yarn guessed 358, but Joy guessed 357.5.

Time to trunk or treat . . .

. . . and admire our friends' costumes. :)

Autumn in Maryland

I love autumn in Maryland.

The weather has been pleasantly cool lately, and the colorful autumn leaves are so beautiful. 

Speaking of fall, I am continuing our October tradition (which I started WAY back in 2010) of letting each child choose a little pumpkin, then I hide them at night so the kids can find them in the morning.  I try to remember each night, but sometimes I forget and the kids remind me the next day.  Joy and Daniel always look for theirs, and Anna usually does too, but Todd isn't keen on the game yet.  His stripey pumpkin has been in the same spot for days.

Family History Discovery

I like to go to the family history center at our church building to research our family's ancestors, and I recently learned that they host "Family History Discovery" events for families, with activities for the young and not so young.  It sounded like a lot of fun, so I made an appointment for a Hendrickson Family History Discovery this afternoon.

The center directors printed up five generations of our family photos, and we took turns trying to put them in the right spot on our family tree.  I don't think I'd seen photos of any of Phillip's great-grandparents before, but I recognized most of the other photos, and I knew many of their names and their stories.  It was heartwarming to see so many familiar faces on our tree.  

Next, Sister Gardner helped the little kids with family history coloring pages while Brother Gardner showed Phillip, Joy, and me how to use some family history websites . . .

. . . and Daniel did temple picture puzzles on another computer.

Lastly, they pasted a picture of our family into photos of landmarks from places our ancestors lived, like the Isle of Wight over in England.  It was fun to see pictures of our family "visiting" places like Denmark, Scotland, Quebec, and Germany.  Maybe we'll visit some of those places for real someday.

Our DC Trip, Part 2: Cool Rocks and a Familiar Face

After sharing a snack in the shadow of the Washington Monument . . .

. . . our family walked over to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.  I didn't realize until we arrived that it closes at 5:30pm, just twenty minutes after we got there.

At least we had time to look at some cool meteorites . . .

. . . and crystals of all shapes and sizes.  See that little girl with the pink shirt, pink pants, and pink fingernails?  Her favorite crystal is the one in the lower, right-hand corner because . . . it's pink.

On the walk back to our car, I stopped and waved at the White House, just in case President Trump happened to be looking out the window.  My kids thought I was weird.  They're probably right.

One of my favorite things I saw today was a monument I didn't even know was there before this afternoon.  As Anna and I were walking along Constitution Avenue, she looked up ahead and said, "There's a statue of George Washington!"  I replied, "I don't think that's George Washington," and when we got close enough to read the inscription I was stunned to see that it was Jose Artigas.  When I was serving as a missionary in Uruguay, I noticed that every city and town (even little Bella Union, which only had a handful of paved streets) had a plaza with a bronze statue of Artigas in it.  He's sometimes called "The George Washington of Uruguay" because he united the Uruguayans and led their fight for independence.  Today I learned that Uruguay gifted this statue (which is a copy of one in San Jose, Uruguay) to the United States in 1950 (and they gave an identical one to Montevideo, Minnesota, which is a sister city to Uruguay's capital with the same name).

When I saw this statue, it brought back fond memories of my mission, and of Uruguayans' devotion to their national hero.  I couldn't resist calling out, "Che! Como andas?!?" (Dude!  How's it going?!?).  Because, as we've already established, I'm weird, and weird ladies talk to statues in foreign languages.

So long, Capital!  It's been fun!  We'll be back soon to spend more quality time with the Smithsonian(s).  Maybe President Trump will wave back next time.