Scarlet O'Harra Would be Proud

The past few weeks have been filled with purchasing details for the new house. Among the important details, curtains ranked high on the list. You may have seen the HGTV commercial on house buying tips. "Tip #x: When purchasing a home, leave enough money for window treatments."

After a few days of changing in our walk-in closet, we decided to get curtains for the bedroom. Good idea. Then we put up some curtains from our old bedroom in the living room. The Family room and kitchen already had curtains. The boys rooms came quickly after and finally, I found the perfect set of curtains for my office. They are a green velvet with a vine pattern impressed on it, the whole thing trimmed with a green brocade.

I know that my sister will have a comment for them. Something along the lines of "they look like something Scarlet O'Harra would have made a dress out of." I'm sure my family know exactly which sister I'm speaking of.

I just thought I would use this post to head her off at the pass.

Spookey

Now that the world has moved on to Christmas, I thought I would share our Halloween experience.

First, there were the jack-o-lanterns.

Firstborn chose, outlined and cut this:

A nice intricate design that challenged his carving abilities and really reflected his view of the season.

Then Lastborn chose this one:

Again, just perfect. This is Lastborn's view of just about every season. This is why we secretly refer to him as Frat boy. Kudos to Lastborn for doing almost all the tracing and carving. He's growing up.

It was a wonderful night. The temperature was in the 60s and the sun was out until 7pm because the time change was moved to the following weekend. Most of the neighbors were out on their front lawns to give out candy and there was a party atmosphere. I heard that one cul-de-sac off our road set up tables near the main road and had all the homeowners out at the tables. So the kids didn't even have to walk up to the houses. They did one-stop-shopping instead.

Firstborn has made many friends including Mrs. M. Mrs. Ms house backs onto the ravine behind our house. Apparently, her sons played out in the woods for years. One son is in Jr. High and the other is in HS. So she is only too aware of the imaginary powers of these woods. She made a point to tell Firstborn to be sure to stop by her house because she was giving out full size candy bars. Firstborn has even played with her kids a little though they are a bit old for the woods. He is drawing them back in with is fort-building and imagination.

The highlight costumes were two teenage girls dressed as the teletubbies and three teenage boys dressed as Mario, Luigi and Waluigi. The Mario brothers even acted the part. Running randomly around yards and jumping up to bop their heads on tree branches, just like the characters in the video game. They even carried a tape player playing the theme song. Very creative. Of course they got extra bite size Hershey bars.

Lastborn pooped out about halfway through the neighborhood. He wanted to come home and sit on the couch in front of the TV eating candy.

In the end, we had enough candy to cover the neighborhood and the boys filled my biggest Tupperware bowl with more candy than you can imagine. They definitely like this neighborhood.

The heathen!

Well, I dragged the family to church this Sunday. Lastborn is getting his first communion this year and I felt that it would make his life much easier if he were actually exposed to church before the actual first communion date. So with much whining and complaint, I cleaned the three boys up (yep, DH too) and dragged them with me to mass. I couldn't get DH going any earlier than the 11AM service (and then he had the gal to complain about how late we were done).

It was a very different church for us. Very modern with high ceilings, large windows and very little adornment. The holy water was in a large modern fountain in the middle of the lobby. And yes, DH did feel the need to explain to the boys that they were neither to play in the fountain nor throw coins into the fountain.

There was no direct entrance to the church from the parking lot, you had to walk through another building. So we were entering feeling pretty vulnerable and out of place.

We sat down in a pew near the back hoping to not be noticed and the kids behaved rather well overall. I was beginning to relax.

Then came communion. I asked Lastborn if he wanted to go up with me or stay alone in the pew. He decided to come with me as he usually does. So we walk up to the altar with Lastborn in front of me, Firstborn in front of him. We get to the Eucharistic minister (I was smart enough to pick a Eucharistic minister instead of the priest. Whew!), and Lastborn puts out his hand for a piece of the host. He's obviously not following the prescribed rules for accepting the host, so the minister knows immediately that he's not had his first communion.
So, I push him gently to the side and approach the minister myself.

Not good enough. Lastborn pushes his way back and tries to reach into the challis. Oh my. I don't know what he was thinking. However, I do think that when I told him that he was getting his first communion this year, that he thought it meant immediately. He was determined and when the minister said no to him, he looked at her with the most accusing eyes. So then the minister offered to bless him and he suddenly got scared and tried to run off.

So, I have decided that the whole reason why Catholics bring their kids to church every single Sunday is so that they can avoid the embarrassment of being exposed as seldom visitors when they actually do show up and their kids do something like jump into the holy water fountain or shout out "why can't I have one?" at the top of their lungs.

Pig Latin

Lastborn has become an expert in Pig Latin. He is now holding classes with the 2nd grade at recess.