Halloween

Annie was invited to a Harry Potter themed birthday party near the beginning of September. We decided to try to figure out a Fleur Delacour costume. It turned out great! And I was like, sweet, now Annie's Halloween costume is taken care of.

The hat was going to be the hard part, and this one is not an exact replica. But it's close enough, right? It suggests the thing. It was from Party City. It had a feather and a band around it and was dark green. I think it was for Oktoberfest. We took off the band and feather and spray painted it blue. You wear it at an angle and BAM, I think it looks pretty good. The dress and blazer were from a thrift store, and I just had those blue shoes. Annie made the wand. 

So I had used up all of my creative juices on this costume, but Annie wanted a different costume for Halloween. I told her she was on her own. She wanted to do Astrid from How to Train Your Dragon 3.

I said, girl you are crazy...and on. your. own! It looked WAY too hard, and I had already spent my mental, emotional, and actual budget on a costume. Annie was undeterred. 

She started making some arm guards out of cereal boxes. There were a few prototypes before she settled on a design. She got the shape she wanted, and I suggested she figure out on a smaller scale what she was going to do for dragon scales before she went too much further. And thus I was dragged into the project as an advisor. We thought maybe we could get a patterned duct tape that would look like scales and be kind of reflective. So Annie spent some time shopping for duct tape on Amazon. She ended up spending $14 on a ginormous roll of duct tape that was...the completely wrong color. Boo!

Eventually, we found some helpful Youtube videos of people doing cosplay. Of course they had fancy, expensive foam sheets and tools like soldering irons and molds of their own heads. But we were able to hijack some of their techniques and use them with our cheaper materials. And every once in a while Annie would gaze longingly at the $500 cosplay Astrid costume for sale on Etsy.

One video showed a way to make a pattern for your foam pieces. You wrap yourself in saran wrap. Then you duct tape over the saran wrap. Then you cut yourself out of this creation and use it to make pattern pieces on construction paper which you then transfer to cosplay foam. Well, Annie decided that she could stop at the duct tape step of this process. Then we would cut scales out of cheap foam and paint them with iridescent paint (an idea from another Youtube video) to make them look shimmery. So this was an idea she thought would be doable, so she got to work. 

This breakthrough was about two weeks ago, and Annie basically worked on it non-stop right up until our ward trunk-or-treat last night. She would paint (she even painted the duct tape), cut out scales, paint scales, hot glue on scales while listening to audiobooks. Aaron and I think she spent at least 40 hours working on it! 

One other real tricky part was figuring out how to get the saran wrap/duct tape clothes to actually stay on your body. We thought we might just have to duct tape Annie into the clothes--which reminds me of the story of my mom sewing Liz into a prom dress the night of the dance. In the end, we did duct tape her in a little bit, but we also fashioned some little ties similar to what Annie had been doing on the arm guards. We used that on the duct tape armor, and it worked really well. The shoulder guards were (barely) secured by duct tape, string, and a safety pin. I was surprised at how well everything stayed in place. 

She did it! And had the satisfaction of defying her parents' wishes and predictions:) She is wearing a brown turtle neck, and the skirt is an old one of mine. Those were not made of duct tape. Good job, Annie! She worked really, really hard, and I think was feeling kind of stressed out yesterday as the hour drew closer. She got some really good feedback from some of her peers. One 12 year old boy behind us in the trick-or-treat line told her the costume looked really great. And a 13 year old girl was shocked and appalled that her parents wouldn't know immediately who Annie was supposed to be. 

Now a word about Scotty's costume. We called him Gandalf the Greige. His hat came from the Halloween section at Goodwill. And he's wearing a ripped up sheet. The stick came from the woods. We didn't even attempt a beard. It's the hat that sells it on that costume. So we had one devilishly difficult costume and one dead simple costume. Aren't they cute kiddos?

And at the ward trunk-or-treat, a friend said to me, "I've been looking for you. You always wear the best costumes." And I was like, what?? Do I even wear costumes? And then I thought back and remembered that I have worn a costume the last several years. I think I'm kind of a costume person. I think I like costumes. But I don't think of myself as a costume person. I think Aaron's crustiness about costumes has rubbed off on me. But maybe I actually like it! Isn't it funny not to have realized it before. Must be that theater bug inside me. When my friend made that comment I also remembered that I was going to wear the Fleur costume! In the stress about getting Annie into her costume, I forgot to put on the Fleur one. I'm a little sad about it. That was a good one! Someone should have worn it.   

Visitors

Conference weekend we had the William and Heather clan for a visit. We sat around, watched conference, chatted, and ate yummy food. You know the drill. But this year, any gathering includes the fun feeling of taking your life into your hands/toying with fate. You've just got to let that go every once in a while if you're going to stay sane, right?  

The kids always like to play in the woods, but the adults joined them on one of their trips. We ended up down in the dry creek bed where there were hundred of tiny frogs. That's why we're all squatted down looking at the ground. You can see Scotty holding one below. They were just jumping everywhere. The mosquitoes were also insanely active, so we didn't stay long. 

My friend Renata brought by a conference bingo game for the kids, and it was wildly popular. We also followed through on our tradition of conference cinnamon rolls from an HEB freezer near you.

More recently we watched my BFF's kids while they went to her brother's wedding. It's crazy going from two kids to six kids, and I felt like my brain was on high alert, and now I understand why I have so few memories of my sister-in-law Anya (mother of 7) sitting down. It was a lot of work, but the kids were really well behaved, they went to bed nicely, and we didn't have any trauma or drama.

Okay, there was a little bit of trauma and drama. I decided to take the kids to a pumpkin patch. One of our co-op friends was going, so we thought it would be a fun activity for the afternoon. It was 86 degrees when we arrived at 2:00. By the time we left, it was 58 degrees! We were standing there by the petting zoo, and a huge wind blew dust and leaves into our eyes, and the temperature just plummeted. We were not ready! We had shorts and t-shirts. The youngest, little Madeline, has no body fat to speak of. My friend generously shared her blanket with us. So I wrapped Madeline in that, and she just sat on my lap the whole time. Corinne got cold, too, and would join us in the blanket. But she ventured forth a little more than Madeline. She really wanted to ride the pony. From the moment we got there, she had that goal in mind. The older kids were distracted by other fun things, but she remembered the pony. At one point, she was just sure we had missed our chance to ride the pony, that the line was too long, and she was so sad. But we went over, waited our turn, and got a wonderful 60 seconds with the pony. And it was so cold! 

This was a really fun pumpkin patch. Even with the crazy weather, we were there for about three hours. Under normal conditions, I think we could have easily spent six hours there. Another funny thing was that all three older girls in our party (including my friends daughter) got big rips in their pants from going down the slides at the top of the tire tower. Oh, and the pig races were fun. They named all the pigs--Kevin Bacon, Lindsey Loham, Hamione Granger, Ron Pigsley...you get the idea. And the pig races were on the other side of the tire tower; sitting over there blocked some of the wind. So it was a happy place. 

There was a moment where I was holding the two little girls on my lap. I had wrapped them up in the blanket, and I was trying to tuck in all the little places where the wind could get through. But I myself was completely freezing, shivering all over with cold. It occurred to me that I could just dump these little people onto the ground and steal the blanket for myself. I was bigger and stronger and faster than them. But there was no part of me that had any desire to do that. I wanted them to be warm. And I think that the vast majority of adults in the world would feel the same in that situation. It gave me some hope for the world. 

Mini FAT Trip--Labor Day

Texas has been amazing this fall. September 1st rolled around, and the temperatures suddenly, magically went from 100 degrees every day to low 90s. We could definitely feel the difference. It inspired us to go hiking. 

I can't believe I've started calling a walk through a wooded area hiking. But they do use that term here. And "nature walking" doesn't have the same ring to it. We decided to call our hike a FAT trip and that automatically made it more exciting. A very important element of a FAT trip is the food. We ordered some breakfast from Cracker Barrel, picked it up, and ate it in the car. Then we went to a pretty, shaded trail that was in the middle of a suburban Austin neighborhood. It did a good job of pretending to be away from it all. And it was the perfect length, and there was even a little bit of elevation gain. 

Kid Tribe and "The Land"

Our homeschool co-op is called Kid Tribe. This is our third year of doing it. Only two families (I think) from the original co-op are still in it. So it has morphed over the years. This year, we are doing a fall garden at our friend Jenalyn's land. They bought ten acres and are building a house. Their kids call it "The Land" so that's what we've been calling it, too. "We're going out to The Land." 

The garden has been a BIG hit. I can't count the number of times Annie has told me how much she loves our co-op and the garden. Our ranks have swelled this year. It's been fun to have new people and lots of people. I think we have eight families. It is so fun to see the kids arrive (it's about a forty-five minute drive), get out of the car, and ooh and aah over the progress of the garden. They flitter from the tomatoes to the beans to the squash to the peas and exclaim in wonder at each stop. I loved The Secret Garden, and watching the kids makes me feel like the truth of that lovely book is happening right in front of me!

The kids also love to play in the trees and explore "The Land." Capture the Flag was all the rage for a few weeks. One family (of mostly boys) even went home and sewed homemade flags for the game. There's also fort-building and lots of animal bones to find. We've seen turtles and deer. And the moms try to put together a little lesson every week about plants or bugs. Last week, several people couldn't come. So we had a smaller group, and the kids had their hearts set on building a fire. They were trying for forty minutes or so to do it with a magnifying glass. Eventually, they used a lighter, which was much more successful. A missionary who was there helping on stuff with the house showed them the log cabin fire starter technique. They were in heaven. My friend asked her son to pack a lunch for them and was confused to see that he'd brought cheese-its, cucumbers, and two bags of marshmallows. But that was his plan all along--to roast marshmallows. And that's what they did. With fondue sticks over the fire.

Here is a picture of the first squash we harvested. There was a big ceremony and much checking of readiness before it was picked.

This is Malabar Spinach. Isn't it a pretty plant?

Our Covid Summer

 There has been a dearth of pictures this summer because we've mostly been at home. But this summer we were saved from insanity by swimming with some co-op friends. I should have taken a picture of them at the pool! We'd meet there every week and stay for 3 or 4 hours. It was great. We also went twice to their house, once to see the goats and once to see the slab for their house get poured. We were really grateful for someone to hang out with. 

After much deliberation, we also decided to take a trip to Utah and Idaho. We wanted to be careful not to take any covid germs to the grandparents. So we stayed home, completely cut off from the outside world. It was horrible! Don't make me do that ever again! We barely survived. And our reward was getting to see people and have some good times. Originally we had planned to leave on a Monday. But on Friday afternoon we were eating lunch, and I said, "We could leave this afternoon." And we could! So we did! We drove from 4-midnight on Friday and then arrived in Bountiful the next day around 7 or 8 pm. Breaking it up that way was nice. I always thought it would be horrible to do the long day of driving on the second day, but it wasn't bad at all. And somehow it felt like a day and a half of driving instead of two days of driving. 

Aaron's parents are doing a kitchen remodel. So they put him to work on that. It has been exciting to see their progress. 

We headed up the canyon for a campfire one evening we were there. The kids climbed mountains and streams and saw an owl and a snake. Both kids reported talking to Aunt Angela as one of the funnest parts of the trip. We also had fun doing loads of puzzles and playing Splendor. 

And we got to see the newest grandchild/cousin. So much fun!

Up in Idaho we crossed paths with Andrew and his family for about 12 hours. It has been two years I think since I've seen him. I brought my Dear Evan Hansen book, and we got to jam out a bit. It was fun. Oh, we also had an outdoor lunch with Felicia and Abbie before we went up to Idaho. Hot tub! I had a very nice chat with Spencer who's four. What a cutie!

Grandma and Grandpa McCombs are the best gardeners! Here is a cabbage compared to Annie's hand. There were seven others just like it!

Scotty and Aiden were strangely faithful about putting these hats on their heads every time they walked through Grandma and Grandpa's front door. 

Scotty wanted a picture in the apple tree. 

It was so nice to see family and to be somewhere other than our own house for a while. 

On our way home, we took a wrong turn. It was frustrating. But then we saw a sign for Goblin Valley. So instead of turning around we went there. It's where I fell in love with Aaron:) It was a bajillion degrees, and we were the only people there, but we had a good time.

We thought this one looked like a robot. 

So we are still surviving this very strange year. It has been a doozy. I think at the beginning, it was like, oh wow, this is new and I'm learning so much from this experience. Now we're all just kind of tired of it, right? Looks like we'll have to dig a little deeper and build some more character. And we are getting back to normal a little bit more. We'll be doing a nature journaling/gardening co-op this year. I think it'll be great!