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.

Our DC Trip, Part 1: The Mall (Not the Kind with a Food Court)

We've been living within an hour of our nation's capital for months now . . .

. . . and I decided it was high time we took the kids to see it in person.

I decided to keep things simple.  We started at President Lincoln's end of the National Mall, and worked our way over to President Washington's, checking out various monuments along the way.  Abraham Lincoln is one of my heroes.  I feel so grateful that we had a president with such wisdom, compassion, and plain good sense leading our country during its greatest crisis.

Joy made sure her Minecraft friends had a good view of Lincoln's second inaugural address on the north wall of the monument.

Our next stop was the Vietnam Memorial.  It was sobering to explain the war (briefly) to my kids, and look at the names of thousands of servicemen who died in that conflict.  Anna even spotted the name Daniel on one panel of the wall.  I'm sure there were a lot more Daniels and probably a few Todds on those panels, too.  It would have been so hard to send one of our boys to war, and not have them come home.

We strolled through Constitution Gardens on our way some other, more famous sites.  I think the kids were more intrigued by the ducks than by most of the monuments they saw today.

The next stop on our little tour was the WWII Memorial.  It may not be as iconic as the Lincoln or Washington monuments, but it is one of my favorites.  I love the focus on unity, sacrifice, and facing difficult challenges because it was the right thing to do.  While I'm grateful that we don't face the threats that generation did, I think we might be better, stronger, and even happier people if we had to sacrifice and work together the way they did.

Before we left that memorial, we made sure to snap a picture of "Iwo Jima" on the Pacific end of the memorial.  My grandfather was a Marine who served there.  It was his first deployment--talk about baptism by fire.

We then proceeded to the Washington Monument.  From far away, it is just a unique landmark.  Up close, I found it awe-inspiring to stand next to that massive tower of stone reaching over 55 stories straight up (it was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1884).  I didn't bother taking a closeup--it wouldn't have done the monument justice.  It is a fitting monument to a towering man whose character and dedication inspired an entire nation, and who responded to that hero-worship so selflessly.

Tough Assignment

Mission: Take nice snapshots of the kids for an upcoming family history activity.

Targets sighted.

Success.

Success.

Success.

FAIL.

FAIL.

FAIL!!! 

Good enough.

Beta Daniel

Daniel's been promoted . . .

. . . to be his Wolf den leader's assistant.  Admittedly the promotion is kind of by default because the former assistant aged out and the only other Wolf in the group just moved here this month, but I think Daniel still appreciates the bit of responsibility that comes with that little epaulet.

Enough serious talk--time for some post-Cub Scout meeting kickball in the church gym.  The builders put wire cages over the clock, air vents, and scoreboard for a good reason.

The Wall

We try to do a fun family outing or project every Saturday after chores.  I'll be honest, sometimes our fun activity is just relaxing around the house together, but today we tried something  more adventurous:

The YMCA's two-story climbing wall.

Remember that scene in "Frozen" when Princess Anna tries to climb a cliff and runs out of steam about four feet up?  That's about how things played out with our Anna today.  And Daniel.  And me, the first time I tried it.  Hauling your body weight up a wall is a lot harder than it looks.

I actually made it two-thirds of the way up on my second attempt, and Phillip managed about the same.

Joy was the only one who made it to the top.  I think she owes her success to determination and lots of tree climbing over the past few months.