COVID Thanksgiving

Between COVID and knowing that we would be with a bunch of family for Christmas, we kept Thanksgiving pretty simple. Just us and Timmy. We invited Mom & Dad Blood, but Dad wasn't feeling up for the drive this year. But that doesn't mean that we didn't need a whole bunch of pies! This picture doesn't even include Timmy's delicious pie.

Don't miss Catherine's tiny pies.

She fell in love with the tiny pie crusts at the store and HAD to have them.

Elijah decided to start off Christmas morning bright and early.

It is a very good thing that he is the cutest of all time.

Thanksgiving feast, complete with Seth's giant hair and Timmy hiding from the camera.

We missed our traditional friends dinner this year. We decided that if the weather was good, we would still do pies together with the Knoxes (outside, of course). Between our tons of pies and their tons of pies, everyone ate until they were stuffed and still went home with a bunch of pie. Just the way it should be!

Elijah opted to sample all the pies left on the table.

The next day Bente, Melissa and I decorated the church for Christmas. Still not sure exactly why I was invited since I have no decorating skills (that's Melissa) nor was I the decider (that's Bente). But I helped hang some stuff and enjoyed spending a couple of hours with my friends!

And then it was time for complete social isolation in preparation for our Christmas trip to Arizona!

Photo Fun

We begin with some more glorious Aaron Art:

Apparently Seth was not on his good list that day. 

NUKE!!!

Also, skills:

During a car trip Elise and Catherine were drawing pictures of themselves playing together.

Girl art is very, very different from boy art. 

Flowers, butterflies, singing birds, smiles, sunshine.

Not a nuke in sight.

Then there's Catherine's "I stole Mom's phone" selfie photography:

Masterpieces, I'm telling you. 

And, after five-and-a-half years, I finally got our family photo wall (aka Wall of Shame) up in the basement. It makes me happy every time I walk down into the basement.

November Already?

Voting happened.  I may have broken my ban on pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music on the drive there because I just needed some cheer. 

Seth and two of his friends are doing a small book club together this year. Each mom takes a month selecting the book and leading the discussion. November was my turn! We read A Long Walk to Water. During our first meeting I had the kids try to walk across the yard with a (small, half-full) bucket of water on their heads. None of them could make it more than ten steps or so. Definitely made them realize exactly what Nya had do do while walking for hours every day (barefoot!) to get water and carry it home. 

We've also been enjoying our "not a co-op" co-op on Fridays with a few families. One week Tessa hosted and taught the kids about the history of nachos (it was National Nacho Day). The coolest part were the peppers. She taught them about the Scoville Heat Index and then laid out a sampling of peppers ranging from sweet bell peppers to habanero peppers. Seth maxed out at poblano because he's weak, but Aaron? Aaron made it to habanero:

After enjoying some nachos and playing some Mexican party games, the kids headed off to the woods to play and explore. They found a TON of monkey brains (aka Osage oranges) and proceeded to set up some sort of society complete with elders and a temple for the sacrificing of monkey brains. 

Elijah somehow ended up being the ruler of this civilization.

Possibly because he had the largest pile of monkey brains. 

Much to Elijah's delight, we found a great deal on a new Roomba and Jon jumped at it.

Now we have TWO Roombas: 

One to actually clean,

One for Elijah to trap in a corner with his walker.

He was a bit overwhelmed when we ran them both for the first time.

"Which one do I chase??"

Catherine found an Elijah-sized hat and it was adorable:

Elijah is mostly into cars and Roombas right now, but one day he discovered the tiny animal collection. He selected a tiny dinosaur and a tiny puppy. For the next week he carried them around, one in each hand. They would make little whimpering sounds, or growling sounds, and then attack us. Or climb all over us. It was the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

I barely survived this vicious attack.

Dia de los Muertos

For years I've wanted to put together a Día de Muertos ofrenda for our family, but Halloween has always been so busy that I never got around to it. Thanks to COVID, this year I finally did it! We each picked an ancestor, learned about their lives, then shared their stories with everyone. We put their pictures on our ofrenda along with some of their favorite foods and other items that reminded us of them. It wasn't quite our usual Halloween, but it appeased the kids!

Two Catrinas

Baby shark had apparently gotten used to creepy makeup by this point.

We were hoping for a nice 50-60 degree evening.

Instead we got 40 and overcast.

Thankfully with the fire and lots of blankets, it ended up being really lovely!

We had the Knoxes, Mullins, Hendricksons & Timmy come celebrate with us.

Hoards of children swarming over the playset:

Our ofrenda:

We ended the night by watching Coco, because you HAVE to watch Coco at a Dia de Muertos party!

Thanks to Timmy for the projector and to Paul Hendrickson for the tech support.

No, it wasn't our usual Halloween. But I think in the end that I enjoyed this one more than many others in the past. Having a chance to slow life down has been a beautiful thing. I need to keep that in mind when life gets back to normal and I feel pressured to do all the things again. 

Halloween, COVID style

We debated about it for a while, but in the end we decided to pass on trick or treating this year. There was also no ward party, so we had to find reasons to get dressed up. The local community college was doing a drive-thru trunk or treat, so we decided to give that a try!

Catherine's original plan was a skeleton, but then I introduced her to the Mexican Catrina.

Elise knew exactly what she wanted to be and refused to be dissuaded by her ridiculous siblings saying things like, "Aang is a boy! You should be Korra instead." Who wants to be Korra when you can be Avatar Aang?! And so, Aang she was:

Going into the Avatar State:

The cutest Avatar ever:

Aaron, ever one to keep me on my toes, asked to be a Stick War Legacy SwordWrath. Since I have no idea what that is, I put Seth in charge of costume design. Not sure how much it actually looks like a SwordWrath, but it was kind of terrifying and Aaron was pleased:

Should have looked harder for a black shirt... Oh well!

Seth came up with his entire costume by himself. My only additions were the pocket full of pens and a calculator and the sweet, sweet 80s mustache I drew on with eyeliner. And yes, he did put up with a lot of comments from his uncles: "Tell Seth he can't dress up as himself for Halloween!" Luckily he found it all quite amusing. Being a nerd is something he's happy to claim!

Channeling Dwight, except Seth has no idea who Dwight is:

I really didn't have any plans for Elijah this year. I figured we'd find some old Halloween shirt and call it good. But then Emma Knox sent me a picture of the cutest baby shark costume and I just knew that it was destiny. And so I present, Elijah the Baby Shark:

He was not interested in holding still, so this is the best shot I got of the fin:

We loaded up in the van, which was the point at which Elijah noticed Catherine's makeup:

She hid behind the book for the rest of the drive.

The trunk or treat ended up being a total flop. After sitting in traffic waiting to make a left turn for 40 minutes (there was no one there directing traffic, so the right turners just got to keep coming), we finally gave up. The kids were all quite disappointed. Thankfully our ward had scheduled a drive-thru trunk or treat for later that evening, so there was still something to look forward to. Seth was unhappy because it was specifically just for Primary kids. But his siblings shared and the Knoxes gave him his own bag of treats. We also gave them access to all the Halloween candy I had bought. In the end I think everyone was okay, even if it wasn't what we usually look forward to doing. 

Also, this happened:

Sharks with Swords.

Could it get any more terrifying??

We had to take it away after he gave his siblings a few good whacks.

Pumpkin Carving

I bought pumpkins in early October. We didn't even touch them, but they completely rotted on our front porch. So...I bought pumpkins again and we got to carving! I even bought some legit carving tools this year instead of sticking with the usual cheap ones that we always break. The kids (Catherine especially) had a great time trying out all the different carving tools.

(Seth is in the background looking for patterns online)

Catherine's pumpkin #1:

Seth's design: The Cyborg

Aaron's pumpkin: Plants vs Zombies zombie:

I particularly like how Aaron's eyebrows and hairline both have this nice wave pattern going on.

Elise's pumpkin: Avatar Aang

(that face...)

My pumpkin: The Corona

Catherine's pumpkin #2: The Skull

All the pumpkin seeds!

As we pulled out the pumpkin seeds to roast, Catherine asked how many seeds I thought we had. What's that you say? A math lesson on estimation?? Check and check! We each took a guess, then I had Jon help her come up with a fairly accurate way to determine how many seeds we have. They weighed ten pumpkin seeds, then weighed the entire bowl to see how many we had. The total ended up around 2700! More than double the highest guess! Jon said we'd never eat them all, but we proved him wrong (mostly thanks to Aaron, who ate probably half of them single-handedly).