Punkin'

Choir in Costume

We hold our choir rehearsals on Saturday mornings, which means this week it fell on Halloween. We invited the kids to come in costume, so we did as well. We just happened to have these very musical costumes on hand. It took many baby wipes, but I did successfully get all the green off.

Maize Maze

Topher's one Fall goal was to visit a corn maze. On Friday, we made his dream come true.

Robotic

Knowing that the glowsticks wouldn't work in the daylight, I added Christmas lights to the front of Topher's costume for his school costume parade. Then, the day before the event, Topher came home and announced that his teacher said they were all old enough to put on their costumes without adult help for the parade. That's great, except Topher's robot arms were held on by binder clips which he could not attach himself! I began to brainstorm a solution. The morning of the parade, I had an idea. I used duct tape to create a strap that went across his shoulders, holding the arms in place. He practiced putting the whole thing on, arms first, then the body, then the hat. The shoe covers I made disappeared and were never found, so we made do with his light-up shoes.

Guys, I might be a genius. I'm way prouder of that arm solution than I probably should be.

Did he get the costume on by himself for the parade? Yes!

Were the arms upside down so the strap was on his mid-back instead of his shoulders? Possibly!

Was it still a totally awesome costume? Also yes!

Topher was solidly in character while we walked the parade route. Some of the moms that attended the parade told me afterward that they tried to get Topher's attention while we walked past them. He turned his head toward them with a robotic movement, then made some beeping and booping sounds, and kept walking. He might be a method actor.

Peter: Week 13 in Pictures

Costumes and Candy

We attended our first Halloween event of the year last night. We went to the annual Boo Bash at Bryan's work. Then, instead of grabbing Wendy's to eat on the 45 minute drive home, we stopped and had fancy Italian food from a restaurant that had an impressive gluten free menu. It was a late night, but a really fun one.

I think the costumes turned out quite well this year. Phoebe curated hers and helped with Sophie's. I made Topher's out of unused pizza boxes, duct tape, a dryer vent, and glow sticks. Oh, and an Amazon box for his hat and tissue boxes for his feet. Those came off quickly, I'll need to tinker with my design.

In-House Costume Department: Halloween Mode

Peter: Week 12 in Pictures

Feeding a Small Army

Before he started his mission, Cooper asked if we could hold an open house so people from church could gather to say goodbye to him. I've never done something like that (Peter's missionary experience has been very different, so we've experienced a lot of firsts with both of them) and felt a little daunted by the request.  But I told him I'd think about it. His buddy Spencer was set to go into the MTC the week before Cooper. Since we would largely be inviting the same people, we decided to combine our efforts and hold a joint open house. She provided the German food (Spencer was called to Berlin) and we brought the Brazilian food. It was an interesting culinary juxtaposition.

I cooked for two days to be ready. I now can successfully make pineapple-upside cupcakes, sequilhos, and Pao de Queijo. I made so many batches of that last one that I memorized the recipe. We also took a veggie tray and a fruit tray. Bryan cooked a big batch of Brazilian steak and cut it into bite-sized pieces. He also made all the food signs in German and Portuguese.

We had nearly 100 people RSVP.

I would guess that about 75 actually came.

I didn't take a single picture of the people because I was on my feet chatting with people for over two hours and didn't even think of it.

But I did  take pictures of all the food before anyone arrived!

Even though they went in a week apart, they still found each other at the MTC and took a picture to send to their moms!