Why I Am Officially the Worst Mom Ever (and prayer requests)

1. It's my least favorite time of year.  Yes....I'm a Halloween Grinch.  I hate the pressure to come up with Halloween costumes.  I hate dressing up in general (even as a kid, I hated it).  And I really hate the barrage of candy....because it's not just on Halloween.  It's all the week leading up to Halloween and all the week after it.  Every adult my kids come in contact with seems to feel the need to hand them several pieces of candy each.  I don't mind junk food in moderation..but really there is nothing moderate about Halloween candy. But, mostly I hate dressing up and trying to come up with costumes.  I don't think it's fun.  I think it's awkward and annoying and I would much rather just wear regular clothes.

Plus, I find it weird when other people dress up.  Heidi has a pediatrician's appointment today and the Doctor was wearing a Dr. Seuss hat and t-shirt and all his staff were wearing blue hair. Personally, I find it really hard to take someone seriously when they are wearing a Dr. Seuss hat or a crazy, blue wig.  As I said..Grinch.

2. I think my hatred for Halloween dress-up stems from a traumatic childhood experience. When I was Kindergarten I dressed up as a devil for Halloween (side note: I can't believe my parents let me dress up as a devil, it seems so out of character for them) and we were having a Halloween parade at school and one of the teachers pretended to be scared of me.  I thought she were really scared, and so I got really scared  (keep in mind I started Kindergarten at age 4, so at this point, I still hadn't even turned 5 yet). Yes, this was the great trauma of my childhood. Clearly, I need therapy now. 

3. Of course there is All Saint's Day..which is a little better, because Saint's costumes are a bit easier to come up with.  But, I still hate dressing up and coming up with costumes.  If you are like me, check out last year's post on easy-peasy, no-cost, no-sew Halloween and All Saint's Day Costumes.

4. I'm officially the worst mom ever because I didn't get any pictures of this year's costumes.  First my camera was out of battery and I'm still the last person on earth not to have a smartphone or phone with a camera.  And, then our costumes were so cheapo and homemade that they didn't stand up to trunk or treating.   And tomorrow we're not dressing up because instead of going to assorted All Saint's Day Festivities, we are going to a chess tournament.  Or if we do make an All Saint's Day party, we will be skating in at the 11th hour, and probably not in costume.

Anyway is what they wore...sans photos:

Greta:

St. Joan of Arc:  Homemade sword, shield (made out of cardboard and aluminum foil) and breastplate (out of construction paper) over a red, over sized dress.

John: 

St. Valentine:  Red Sheet, White Adult t-Shirt and homemade Bishop's hat made out of construction paper and cardboard..

NOTE:  Construction paper is NOT good costume material.  It falls apart and rips way too easily. 

And did you know that St. Valentine is the patron saint of beekeepers.  So Elsa wore a bee costume that we had...except it kept falling down on her because we were too stupid to put her arms through the armholes until after we took it off and realized...duh..those are armholes. 

Heidi:

Chose not to dress up because she takes after me in her hatred of dressing up.

Actually John hates it too, but he tolerates it for the candy.   

Halloween is definitely not our thing. Except for this! Heck yeah!

coolmompics.com

5. As you can tell from the above costume descriptions...a perfectionist I am not, especially when it comes to artsy, craftsy stuff. What's the opposite of a perfectionist...an It's Good Enough-ist??  That's me!

6. I thought this article was funny.  When is it okay to turn the heat on in New England? I no longer live in New England, but I still have the tendency to get a fixed date in my head to turn the heat on.   When we lived in RI, my goal was Nov. 1st and not before.  I didn't usually make it...and usually broke down sometime in late Oct.  I'm weak. When we lived in VA, my goal was Nov. 1st as well, and again I broke down a few days early..but not many.   This year we got our heat turned on in early Oct.  We're further North and I'm getting soft.  Plus it's gotten cold earlier.  I absolutely refuse to turn the heat on before October.

7. Ben is still looking for a good lawyer job..so please pray for that.  He's doing some substitute teaching in the meantime, but really need a real job.  And, Heidi (age 12) is having some sort of mysterious back pain, so please pray we can figure that out, cure it, and that it's not something super serious.  We're going for some tests this weekend.  Which is super scary, because believe it or not, I have no experience with "having tests done."  I mean, we've had screening tests or things like x-rays for broken bones from obvious injuries.  But never tests to determine the cause of mysterious symptoms.  So...all together, these two issues are making life sorta stressful right now. 

Hope you are having a great Halloween/All Saint's Day!  I'm linking up with Jen for Quick Takes.

7QTF Halloween, All Saint's Day, Good News and other Stuff

1.

Ben passed the bar exam!!!  What a relief.  They FINALLY posted the results yesterday afternoon.  We were both hitting refresh on our computers all day yesterday, and when they were finally posted, I called him at work, and we looked at the "Pass List" together.  Talk about a scary time on Halloween!!! My heart was a-pounding until we saw his name on the list.  So, now he's licensed to practice law in the fair state of VA (which has one of the hardest bar exams in the nations, I might add).  Now..on to finding a lawyer job!!

 Thank  you for all your prayers...I know they helped!!  

2.

We do Halloween lite here.  It's not my favorite holiday by any means, because I hate putting costumes together, I'm not a fan of all the candy, and I don't really care for scary stuff.  But, the kids wanted to go trick or treating, so trick or treating we went.  Except apparently nowadays (we haven't been trick or treating 3 years), everyone goes trick or treating EARLY while it's still light out.  I think it's weird, because part of the fun is going in the dark, but whatever.  We were planning to get out by 7:00....well. because we are always late..that turned into more like 7:30 before we actually got out the door...so by the time we went around ,a lot of people were closing up shop.  We still got plenty of candy though..and had a nice evening walk.

Yes, we are the kind of people that have crooked pictures handing on our walls.

Greta is a bride.  John is a dragon.  Elsa is a bee.  And, Heidi has the scariest costume of all...she's a lawyer.

Cutest bee I've ever seen.

3.

Happy All Saint's Day.  Today we went to an All Saint's Day Party at church!

The kids had so much fun.

I know they don't look like they are having fun...pictures are never fun.

Mary, St. Edward, St. Zita and St. Clare.

St. Clare was less than saintlike when it came to wearing a veil.

They had their picture taken with Pope Francis too.

4.

So, I keep seeing this video posted on Facebook.

See Why We Have An Absolutely Ridiculous Standard of Beauty in 37 Seconds

Except I can't find 37 seconds without kids in the room to actually watch it.  Seriously, I can't get 37 seconds with all the kids outside before someone comes inside for...something.   Like just now they all came in because it started raining outside.  Sheesh...go play in the rain.  So, if you watch it...let me know how it is...because apparently, I will never get around to watching it.

5.

This is why I hate internet videos.  I hate news videos.  I especially hate recipe videos.  Who the heck has 15 minutes to watch someone make a recipe, when they could read the recipe in like 15 seconds.  Seriously.  There is nothing that annoys me more  than when I click on a link and there is no news story or recipe or whatever and it's just a video.  I would so much rather read a story than watch a video.  I am NOT a visual learner.

6.

It's funny how different different kids in the same family can be.  John is 5 1/2, and while  he is super smart at reading, math and chess, he is a bit behind in his fine motor skills and has trouble holding a pencil the right way and doesn't care at all for writing or drawing.  Elsa is 13 months old, holds a pen the right way,  and is already a rather prolific scribbler...especially on walls, in books and on her own legs.  She will happily sit there and "draw" for quite a long time.  Now, if we could just get her to draw on paper, instead of walls, books and legs, we'd be golden.
7. 

I saw this posted on Simcha's blog.  It's a wonderful take on that Maria Kang controversy.  Warning..it's long, but at least it's not a video.

Here's a quote..to entice you to read more.

Perhaps its relative uselessness is part of what makes self-improvement culture and health-fitness culture so appealing. It’s easier to fill one’s moral voids by exercising or studying art or undergoing psychotherapy than to view one’s fellow humans as one’s equals. Which is certainly not to say that they’re mutually exclusive, of course. One can lift weights and do volunteer work, read literature and give to charity, eat a balanced diet and be kind to children. The problem comes when doing things “for yourself” is seen as a morally equivalent act to doing things for others, because both are grouped into “doing good things.”

Linking up with Jen for 7 Quick Takes

Easy Peasy, No-Cost, No-Sew All Saint's Day and/or Halloween Costumes

Yes, I know I'm getting this out awfully close to Halloween and All Saint's Day.  But, hey this post is for the slackers and the procrastinators, the disorganized and the lazy and the non-crafty (like me). 

If you're one of those people who plans our their costumes a month in the advance or goes out and buys an expensive costume or spends hours sewing to make the perfect costume, this post is NOT for you. 

If you are non-crafty and on a tight budget and just participate in those parties/trick or treating for the fun, food/candy and social opportunity and always end up throwing a costume together at the last minute just so you can say your kids are dressed up.  Well then, this is the post for YOU.

So, here are five different pictures of Halloween/All Saint's Day Costumes we've done with no cost and no sewing.

Actually, we do like to learn about Saints for All Saints Day...but Halloween...we're just in it for the candy. 

1.

So, first let's talk about Halloween.  Because that comes first. 

For Halloween we typically just cobble something together from our costume/dress-up clothes box and call it a day.  As I mentioned before, I tend save all costumes.  And girls love princess dresses...like this one.  So, we tend to accumulate these things and then pull them out.

And, over the years, we've tended to have other costumes given to us as well, like this:

or this.

So, I just pull something together.

This year, I have a  bumble bee costume someone gave me for Elsa.  John is going to wear an army hat and camouflage shirt that someone gave us for the swamp buggy parade we were in last November (sorry, I don't have any pictures of that).   Greta is going to wear a fancy white dress and her first communion veil and be a bride.  Heidi is still undecided, but probably going to wear a long skirt, a flowy shirt, tie a scarf around her neck and be a peasant girl.   But, I'm trying to convince her to wear a business skirt and jacket and my glasses and she can be a lawyer.  I don't think she's going for that though.  Oh well. 

2.

Now, onto All Saint's Day.

Here are some costumes we did in the past.  Saints costumes are even easier to cobble together than other costumes. 

Mary, St. John Bosco and St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Mary's costume is a white, floor-length dress that she already owned, with one of my long, white cardigans on top (to make it long-sleeved, as you can tell from the picture, the dress was sleeveless).  For the veil, she is wearing a blue shirt on her head and it flows down like a veil.

For St. John Bosco, he is wearing one of Ben's white t-shirts with my black t-shirt on top.  On him, they were over-sized and robe-like.

St. Elizabeth is wearing a borrowed red dress, a black t-shirt (one of mine) and a piece of raw  (un-hemmed) blue fabric that we happened to have tied around her neck.  The crown is just from our dress-up bin.

3.

 St Therese and St. Adelaide.

St. Adelaide is wearing my long green skirt and has a red blanket tied around her shoulders.  This was really hot, because we were in Fl that year.   The crown was made out of poster board and "gems".  We had "gems" aplenty in our craft bin.

This St. Therese costume was actually given to us..it was a "real" costume. 

4.

 But it's really easy to cobble together a nun costume.

Greta is wearing an adult sized brown t-shirt (which is that size on her) a white shirt underneath and Sr. Veronica's extra nun veil, with a piece of rope tied around her waist.

Heidi is wearing one of my brown long-sleeved shirts, one of my brown skirts, a white t-shirt underneath, and on her head is a another white shirt with a black shirt on top.   Again, we tied a rope around her waist.

5.

Saint Dymphna, St Appolonia, St. John of the Cross.

St. Dympphna is wearing that same long green skirt, my long-sleeved black t-shirt, my white t-shirt and a white scarf tied around her head.

St Appolonia is wearing my red dress, her own t-shirt underneath and a pink sash from another dress tied around her waist.  She made a necklace out of marshmallows (meant to represent teeth) since St. Appolonia is often pictured with a necklace made out of teeth.

St. John of the Cross is wearing my brown t-shirt and he has my white cardigan tied around his neck.  And he's holding the cross.

Costumes for little kids are super easy, because grown-up sized clothes are frequently robe-length or habit-length on them.  Put a t-shirt on your head and you have an instant veil.  Blankets and towels and safety pins can make an easy veil or robe as well. And, lots of saints were princesses, so just pull out that old princess costume and you're good.

Have a Happy Halloween and All Saint's Day Everyone!

Linking up with Mama Needs Coffee for 5 Favorites