7 Quick Takes about Making It Through the Week, Costumes and Decorations, and Lessons Learned from the Ancient Patriarchs

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

How's everyone hanging in there? Halloween on a school night is its own special circle of Dante's inferno, but we're fine. Everything's fine. My kids are definitely not still living daily in a sleep-deprived, sugar-induced manic-depressive episode. 

This is me, minus the coffee.

—2—

Trick-or-treating went well. Our 8-year-old Poseidon wanted to take off his beard after three houses because it was "itchy" (despite having worn it around the house nonstop for two weeks for fun) so nobody really knew who he was, but he didn't seem to mind.

My teenager went out trick-or-treating separately with his friends, and unfortunately they got into trouble. From all accounts (my son, his friend's mom, and the police officer I talked to on the phone) it sounds like they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ran across a boy who was out making trouble and got aggressive toward them.

So my son wasn't in the wrong, but it probably looked pretty incriminating when the police showed up and he was literally dressed as a mug shot... in retrospect, it was maybe not the best choice of Halloween costume.

—3—

The costume parade at the elementary school was so cute this year. Of course the kids had lots of cute and creative costumes, but the adults who filed past were what impressed me most. They really put some effort into it.

The principal was Gru, and the teachers were minions. I laughed and laughed at that. The principal is a petite little lady so she wore black leggings and a huge men's coat filled with stuffing, complete with a bald cap and a prosthetic nose. She looked just like him. And then the cafeteria ladies were dressed as a knife, fork, and spoon. 

—4—

I've also been enjoying seeing people's Halloween decorations as I drive around town. It seems like more people are going all-out decorating for Halloween now than they used to, is that true?

Here's a picture of my favorite yard:

I look forward to these eyeballs every year.

My favorite part is how this bush has ears. Do you realize what that means? These people have a bush with two tufts sticking up out of it, all year round, specifically trimmed this way for just one night. That's dedication.

—5—

We didn't get around to carving our pumpkin until November 3rd, but better late than never. Phillip told the kids they could each design and cut out one facial feature, and this is what they came up with:

It's actually really hard to get a decent picture of a lit jack-o'-lantern.

When deciding what to name it, half the kids wanted 'Martha' and half wanted 'Penelope,' so they compromised with "Marthnelope" and drew a name tag on the side of it with a Sharpie. 

—6—

My 16-year-old is taking a Taekwondo class several times a week, and it's a lot more intense than I expected it to be. She really likes it, though.

Her grandma is here visiting and asked if she could sit in and watch a class. My daughter hesitated and explained that sometimes they do things during warmups that look kind of silly, like running high-knees or skipping in a big circle around the room.

"But it doesn't look stupid if everybody's doing it," I protested.

"Actually," she said, "I would argue that it makes it look more stupid."

—7—

In our family scripture study this week, we're talking about the book of Daniel. In the part we were reading, the king made a law to forbid any prayers that weren't offered to anyone other than him, but Daniel kept praying to God anyway.

I paused there and said something to sum up for the younger kids like: "Daniel knew that obeying God was more important than anything else, so he didn't care what the king said. Even if it meant he would get in trouble."

After taking a minute to absorb the faith-promoting message, my 8-year-old asked, "So we don't have to listen to you when you say to clean up our room?"

So I think they got it.

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