Golden Afternoon

Choclo: Dinosaur Hunter

 We've been watching Planet Dinosaur , (not to be confused with Dinosaur Planet, although their website is fantastic!) and this seems to have reignited Choclo's fascination with all things dinosaur.

We have also been taking advantage of mild weather and the peak of the leaf season to go on frequent rambling walks.  Choclo uses these walks to hunt for dinosaur fossils!







Among his recent finds, we have (from left to right): a tooth from a small T-rex , two neck bones from a rockasaurus, a tail bone from an armored dinosaur, and the club of an ankylosaur.

I know this, because he told me....






In case you aren't up on your dinosaurs, here is an ankylosaur, swinging his club at a T-rex.

As for the rockasaurus, well, I guess only professional dino hunters know about them.....

Math Snacks

Every so often, I run across a truly sublime bit of cross-curricular educational fantasticness.  Many of the Math Snacks videos hit close, but Bad Date is pretty much the apex of perfection. 

In three and a half minutes, it teaches math, rudimentary social skills, advanced social skills, nutrition, and why you should never admit that you listen to country music backwards.

All Souls

For All Souls Day, we went to Mass and then to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the graves of the Emperor's dad and grandparents.


While there, we were privileged to see a funeral procession with a large band and two flag draped coffins, one caisson pulled by black horses, and one by white. 


There was also a riderless horse, which I think means one of them was a commander of some sort. They were followed by, literally a "bus full" of mourners (walking). I have no idea who were being laid to rest, of course, but we prayed for them.

I thought of what my Dad says: the price of freedom has to be paid by each generation. 

The generations we were visiting were in a quiet part of the cemetery.  Dad was a WWII vet and Grandpa a WWI vet.  I never met Dad (he died when the Emperor was 13) but I've heard enough to really wish I had.

He loved roses, in fact, he planted a rose that still  blooms for me, so we always bring him roses when we visit.  We had little bouquets for the three graves of our loved ones, but I also brought a few dozen camellias and gave them to the kids.  They could pick any grave to put a flower on and pray for that person.

It was a lovely, peaceful, prayerful visit.  I love All Souls Day.  It's a beautiful reminder, in this dying season, that nothing is lost in God, and that, in death, our bonds of love are changed, but never broken.

All Saints

We had a great All Saints Day!  We made it to Mass and then went home to feast on Halloween candy.

In the morning we did Fun Blocks in honor of the feast  and in the afternoon, we played a saint game.

It went like this:  I wrote out ten male saints and ten female saints, cut them into slips and put them in separate bowls. The kids pulled names and head ten minutes to come up with a costume.

Why, yes, we do have a lot of dress up material in the house!  Part of the deal, however, was that you did not need to dress up as the saint.  Your costume could be a symbol of the saint, or something the saint was the patron of, or something else associated with the saint.

I so wish I had taken pictures!

Mxyl picked St. Florian and dressed as a firefighter (yellow slicker, fire hat, ax - patron of fire fighters).

Klenda picked St. Helen and made a crown and grabbed a cross (empress and finder of the True Cross).

Zorg picked St. John Bosco and dressed as... a boy!  (spent his life helping boys)

Leena picked.... hmmm.... I can't remember!  I'll ask her and update it later!

After that, we had a relaxed day.  My dear MIL came over and we tea - a perfect feast day!

Costumes

 Here we have Klenda as St. Dorothy, an early martyr.  On the way to her execution, someone laughed at her for saying she was going to heaven's garden, and wanted her to send him some fruit.

After her execution, an angel showed up at his door with 3 golden apples and three golden roses!

 Leena was St. Mary Magdalene...  She's traditionally depicted with a cross and a skull because she is contemplating Jesus' sacrifice and the shortness of our lives.

Usually the skull is not so creepy, however.

Also, she kept losing it, and we were constantly looking for Leena's skull.

 This was Mxyl's first year on the other side of the door - he liked giving out the candy and seeing all the kids in costumes.

He himself is dressed as a more modern looking St. Michael. 

Why have St. Michael always dressed like a Roman soldier?

The only down side was that one young trick or treater thought he was dressed as "a dead soldier..."  Ummmm. NO!

 Choclo wanted to be St. George, so, of course, Oob wanted to be St.  George. 

Fourteen years and four boys later, we probably own enough knightly garb to have all six kids be St. George, so this was not a problem!

Plus they could whack each other while waiting for everyone else to get ready.





Zorg went as Daniel, complete with pet lion.

We had just finished reading the book of Daniel, so Zorg was very authentic. 

He began every statement to me with, "O Mom, live forever!"

Pumpkins!

 

 Before we get to the promised pumpkins, I would just like to say that the spider webs, after a few weeks of wind and rain, just keep getting creepier...



Now, on to the pumpkins!

Half the Zoomlians tried something new. 

This kind of carving just scrapes the surface of the pumpkin.  You swab it with bleach, let it dry, and then paint it with glow in the dark paint.

Nicely creepy!  I had a a hard time getting a picture of the glow, however.

The manga pumpkin is Leena's. Zorg's has giant eyes, and Klenda made the ghost.

The other Zoomlian's took the classic approach.

Aided by some spiffy LED lights, we have Mxyl's Super Pumpkin, Choclo's Punky Pumpkin, and Oob's Freaky Pumpkin With Lot's of Pointy Teeth.

Why We Learned to Read

 

So we can spend large amounts of time sprawled on Mom and Dad's bed, reading comics.










Please note that Mxyl additionally spent a great deal of time (and his own money) getting PJs that clash quite so supremely!!

Halloween Cupcakes

 Also for Scary Movie Night, we made cupcakes.  After looking at all the great ideas on the web, everyone had a different idea of the ideal Halloween cupcake.

No problem!  Each of the older kids got six cupcakes to decorate.

Here you see Zorg making his "Eyeball Surprise."

Were you surprised?

And here we have Leena's "Brains."


Or maybe, Brrrainz!

 And Klenda's spider webs.  I really like her spiders, cut from licorice.

And last, but not least, Mxyl's graveyards.  The tombstones are Oreos, the ghosts are peeps and the pumpkins are the same kind we use on the number line.

Yum!  Yum!  It's hard to wait for the party!

Biohazards!

 Tonight is Scary Movie Night!  This is an annual event with the scout troop, and this will be the second year it's been held at our house (this year's scary movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark).

This is the first time Mxyl has been a patrol leader (troops are broken down into smaller patrols).  His troop has two patrols, the Bats, and the Biohazards.


Can you tell which patrol Mxyl and Zorg are in?

Can you guess who came up with the idea of having Biohazard patrol?

The third (honorary) Biohazard is Klenda, naturally.

Considering the costume, maybe we should say, "unnaturally..."

At any rate, the costumes were easy peasy and will look great under black light!

They are painters coveralls (less than $10 at Home Depot), randomly splotched with fluorescent green and yellow spray paint.

Oh yes, we did masks and gloves, some of which we had, but that still kept the total (per costume) under $10.

For the biohazard symbol, I had to look it up on the internet.  I traced half of it on piece of paper (held up to the monitor) so that I could make it as large as possible.

Then I laid the half symbol on a folded, larger piece of paper (mine was a store circular done on stiff paper) and cut away the symbol on the folded side.  It opened into a stencil that I used with black spray paint on the kids.

Did I mention that all spraying was done with the kids wearing the costume?  Naturally, since they were wearing painter's coveralls and masks,  they were completely  protected from paint.  I, of course, was not...

Why does this never occur to me until after the fact?

On the plus side, these costumes actually are (except for shoe covers and eye protection) fully functioning biohazard suits for most biological contaminants...