Over the weekend, my parents bequeathed to my children an old table leaf that has been used for play in our family since I was a child. First it was a ramp for cars. Then it was a slide off the couch. Then I left the room for a few minutes and when I came back they had created this:



They also thought they needed to change into church clothes to work in this office because "you have to be handsome" in an office. But then John suggested that their company was a tech start-up where casual dress rules the day. He even pulled out a back issue of Fast Company magazine and showed them a picture. They bought it, which equals less laundry. Woo!

Oh, and there's also this--when you've rearranged the living room furniture so the chair blocks the view of the TV from the couch.

Yesterday I was rushing the boys through an early dinner at 4:30ish as they both had basketball practice at 5 p.m. Edward has his religious ed class at 6:30, so I try to have him eat his dinner at after-school snack time and then have a snack between bball and class.

They were not in the mood. Leftovers are never the most popular and we'd only had a one-day buffer from the original meal (homemade minnestrone soup from Monday.) Even though they said they were hungry, they were just being pokey and goofy. I finally said, "You have to eat your dinner. That's the fuel your body needs for basketball."

Daniel responded, "You mean we are putting gas in our bodies?"

"No," I said. "Gas goes in the car. Food goes in the boys."

He did not miss a beat: "And gas comes out of the boys!"

Even I could not keep a straight face. We had a good laugh, but after about a dozen repetitions of the punch line, I had to explain the concept of diminishing returns. The more you tell a joke the less funny it is. This lesson was not absorbed. I finally had to spoon-feed Edward's soup and then declare car silence for the 5-minute drive to the gym. The second they were out of the car the giggles returned as they repeated the gas line all the way inside.

Thank goodness they are on separate teams!

This post may have an audience of one, but my mom asked about Edward's basketball after my sister posted videos of her two girls' games yesterday.



You can see Edward playing some tenacious defense, chasing the blond kid in the red shorts all over the court. Until the blond kid gets the ball, at which point, the defense shuts down. Let's just say this is all a work in progress.

In another installment of "Daniel says the darndest things," he called me into his room tonight to tell me that he was having the same bad dream he's had for several nights. It stems from a book we read at Halloween, where a school bus gets stuck on the tracks and the kids die. Later, a couple gets stuck on the tracks, and the ghosts of the kids push them off and save them (yes, this was a kid's book full of goofy, otherwise innocuous ghost stories, and no, I did not expect this storyline when I started reading it).

I told him to try to think of something different to dream.

"But the dream computer in my head keeps playing that one," he said.

Thinking I had a clever way to get him to deal with this, I likened it to his Leap Pad.

"OK," I said. "You know when you're done with a game on your Leap Pad, you pull out the cartridge and put in something else, right? Well, just pull out the cartridge with the bad dream on it, and put in something different, like one about our fun sledding trip today."

"Dad," he said, "My dream computer doesn't have a place for a cartridge. It's my b-, b-, b-" (he's saying this to give me a clue to the answer).  "You know."

"I have no idea what you're trying to say, Daniel," I said.

"My brain, Dad," he said. "That's where dreams come from."

Chastened, I wished him luck and left him to his dreams.

Today was a snow day as the flakes were flying fast and furious at 6 a.m. when the decision had to be made. The forecast called for five more inches throughout the day, though we ended up only getting about three and it really was easy to get around in town. But that wasn't known at decision time, so there we all were. I stayed home from work with the boys. John went in a little late after scooping the first layer off the driveway.

We met some friends at school for sledding (see, we could easily get there, just couldn't go inside) and had a good time. Edward's buddy had a snow board that he wasn't too keen on, so Edward kind of monopolized it. His success can be attributed to perseverance and the fresh, wet snow that kind of slowed things down. The sledding actually wasn't that great as the sleds kept getting bogged down in the wet, mounding snow, but it was perfect for a newbie snowboarder.


After that it was home for lunch, where I ultimately lost my cool in the face of one of my own worst childhood traits reflected in my children. The boys took minuscule bites of the macaroni & cheese I prepared (after they rejected my suggestion of pb&j) and announced it was gross and wouldn't eat it. It happened to be a new variety I'd seen on special--Betty Crocker's attempt to enter the mac&cheese marketplace. I couldn't tell you what was wrong with it. I despise mac&cheese in all forms so of course I didn't taste it and wouldn't know how it differed from any other brand. (Note: these are boys who do not object to the generic store brand in place of Kraft.)

Having spent 20 minutes gagging over the smell while making it, I can tell you I was not a model of maturity in response to their rejection. I announced that they would eat it or nothing else the rest of the day and stormed down to the basement to do some laundry. Sorting the whites and colors apparently soothed my soul and returned my sense of empathy so that when they came down to say they weren't hungry anyway, I took a deep breath and asked if they wanted something else instead. Cheese and crackers all around.

We totally used to do that to my mom as kids and I honestly don't know how she didn't just slap a jar of peanut butter on the table and walk away. We would only eat certain kinds of pizza (certainly not the fundraiser pizzas my parents spent hours making to support our Catholic school.) We would not stoop to the level of jar pasta sauce--homemade or nothing! My grandma once made us mashed potatoes from a box and we acted like she was trying to poison us.

It's a good thing time travel is impossible because the 2013 me probably would have bolted back today to throttle the 1983 me. Oh well...

We followed up this lowlight with an hour of quiet time--e.g. separate corners. Boys to their rooms and me to a quiet lunch and a Gilmore Girls rerun.

Here's what the boys were up to--I'd say it was a win for all. (Note: LONG videos; I simply don't have the energy for editing.)





Then we snuggled on the couch with Swiss Family Robinson, the Disney movie, and they boys were totally enchanted with the multi-room, multi-level treehouse. We didn't finish though because although school was canceled, rec department basketball went on as scheduled. The first night for both boys. Edward had told me he only wanted to play this time if he got to be on a team other than the Bulls (he's played in two other sessions and just happened to be a Bull each time; he did NOT want a third Bulls t-shirt.) There was no way to know ahead of time, but with a huge sigh of relief, he was given a Pacers t-shirt for this session.

Daniel is in his first class and just as intense as he was about tee-ball last summer. Of course, if he ever becomes a big star (ha!) we'll have to recall that he went to his first practice in worn out, left-over-from-Edward shoes I found in the garage because we'd left his regular shoes at school.

Didn't slow him down.

This is a post for posterity. The making of The Snowman.

As noted previously, John and I spent an afternoon in three different hardware stores seeking snowman construction materials with limited success. At one point we thought our best option might be to stack three progressively smaller planter pots together, but seemed iffy and would have gotten kind of expensive. Later that day, John poked around online and found a site that demonstrated how to make humongous papier-mâché pumpkins from large plastic garbage bags stuffed with newspaper. Inspiration.

So with a couple of  papier-mâché books from the library, we set about our work. The boys' interest was sustained for about 5-10 minutes at a time, so this turned out to be about 95% John's project. By the end even he was admitting he was getting a bit obsessive about it. But in the beginning, he did have help with the paper ripping. 

Then came the first layer of  papier-mâché  Edward painted about five or six brush strokes and then left John to his work.

We had to buy extra large drum liner garbage bags for the bottom ball then regular black Hefty and white kitchen liner bags for the middle and top.

Clearly the enthusiasm levels were not equal at this point in the project. Here the balls are simply stacked.

The next step was to  papier-mâché them together. At each step, several layers were required with time to dry in between. So it's easy to see how this project stretched through the entire month of December. A final layer of blank newsprint (left over packing paper from our move four years ago!) went over the whole thing so that the ink wouldn't show through the white paint. 

Then it was time to paint. Once again, there was great enthusiasm at the donning of the painting smocks, but each boy limited himself to about three or four brush strokes before leaving the rest to John. Through it all, my primary role was documentarian and flour and water whisker. If you ever need a batch of  papier-mâché goo, you know who to call. On second thought...

This is where things got a bit obsessive and I don't have pictures of each successive step. Creating the top hat involved  papier-mâché-ing the inside of an old stock pot, cutting the brim from a large cardboard box, attaching the two with  papier-mâché and then painting the whole thing black. But the paint we had didn't quite cove,r and when John got more it wasn't quite the same gloss, leaving an uneven finish. He was fretting over this before I reminded him, "You know, Frosty's hat rolled down the street before they put it on him so it was probably not pristine." Yes, this was the level of our pre-Christmas discourse.

The eyes were balls of aluminum foil covered in and attached with  papier-mâché.  The nose a rolled up cardboard piece. The mouth, a set of buttons. And voilà! A Christmas morning masterpiece!

John's hope was that the snowman would last at least the number of cumulative hours it took to create him, which he estimated at about 24--one full day of his life for a  papier-mâché snowman. As I write almost a month later, he is still standing and the only tragedy has been a nose amputation, which was my fault. 

One of the boys was lifting it over his head to get out and it started tipping forward. Afraid that it would smash to the ground, I put out my hand to catch it and ended up dislodging the nose. It's been taped back on, but looks a bit forlorn. There may be a nose transplant in our future. After all, Frosty himself did have "a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal!"

The boys have the day off from school for MLK Jr. Day (teachers have in-service training.) In the middle of a Harry Potter role play (Daniel actually got to be Ron this time instead of his usual Hedwig, the owl) "Harry" suggested a game of chess. Edward has only learned the game since Christmas, but he's been an eager student and does pretty well. Daniel has watched, but hasn't taken an active interest. He agreed to play but it soon became clear that Edward had forgotten how often he was allowed to "take back" a move as he was learning. He was actively encouraging Daniel, "Here, Daniel, your bishop can take my pawn right here." Only to smash said bishop with his own. I tried to explain why that was not fair, and I think he understood, but had no inclination to change his tactics. The game was set aside in favor of some electronic entertainment, but for just a little while, our boys looked like this.

Oh, and Edward gave himself a Harry Potter scar with (washable) marker this morning.

Daniel had a fabulous day turning 5. Several weeks ago, in need of a distraction to put an end to an uncontrollable bout of dinnertime sillies, I got a pad of paper and pen and asked the boys to describe the birthday cakes they wanted to have this year. Daniel was very specific about wanting a vanilla rectangle cake with chocolate frosting and green letters. Last year's Buzz Lightyear candle was to make a return as well as a number 5 candle. I think you can see he was pleased with how I executed his vision.

Opening presents was hilarious as he was so overcome with excitement he was heard to utter, "This is so great! Thank you!! What is it?"

He knew what this was and insisted on having his tabletop foosball assembled immediately, so John and Grandma got right to work.

Then Grandpa did the honors, supervising the first game. This is definitely a hit, but even though it's a two-player game, requires adult supervision to keep the competitive streaks in check. Also, to ensure a third party to rule on outraged calls of "Cheater McBeater!!"

Happy Birthday to our little rock star! (Who would object strenuously to the use of the word "little" in reference to any aspect of his being.)

Last night over Grandma's birthday cake, we were discussing Edward's snowman and how it's a good thing Santa didn't have to bring him since he's so big and bulky. I said he might have needed to call in an extra reindeer. "You know, Joe, one of the reserve reindeer." Edward just gave me a "whatever Mom" kind of look, but Daniel, who had already left the table but was lingering on the stairs waiting for Edward piped up: "What about New Jersey?"

What??
We asked for more information.

"New Jersey," he said. "You know, the famous reindeer who died when someone pulled off his antlers."

Um. O.K. We asked a lot of questions trying to determine if this was something he'd heard in a book at school or seen on TV. It appears that he has invented this tale out of whole cloth. And he has more details.

• New Jersey is so strong he can pull an ox with a wooden wagon carrying four people
• New Jersey was 102 when he died but he's 106 now. (note: I think that's just the way he indicates that the death occurred 4 years ago. When we talk about Will, we say he would be eight now even though he was a baby when he died.)
• New Jersey was de-antlered by Eli--not the one in my class, but just someone with that same name (note: Daniel has had some trouble with his classmate Eli's aggressive behavior including a pretty brutal scratching incident just before the winter break.)

Stay tuned for further details in the evolving story of New Jersey the famous reindeer.

It is only fitting that I waited until the day after we took down our tree to share our "Deck the Halls" pictures.  It's been almost a month since we started our decorating--the day after John's birthday. He says it's not necessary to wait, but in an era when Christmas decorations seem to go up before Halloween, I think it's a nice way to keep a bit of a lid on it.

We started with Will's tree--star ornaments per Edward's request. In addition to those we always give to our immediate family, we also got to give a few away to friends this year who we didn't know eight years ago, but who have heard Will's story and seemed touched to be included in this tradition of keeping his memory.

We put our tree up about 10 days before Christmas, leaving it in its stand to warm while we went to celebrate with John's extended family in Chariton. I thought having this to look forward to might be a nice reward for a long day of driving, but I think I probably should have made it its own occasion as we might all have been a little too tired/crabby for such festivity.

The tree was a bit bottom heavy, as usual, but I really wouldn't have it any other way. (Also, it wasn't leaning. I think I must have been holding the camera askew.)

And finally, a blast from the past this year as Edward's religious education class discussed St. Nicholas during their class the night of his feast day, Dec. 5. The teachers had the kids take their shoes off and line them up in a corner and while they were distracted with the evening's activities, St. Nicholas "came" and left a treat in each shoe. The teachers then explained that St. Nicholas would come to their house if they left their shoes out overnight. WHAT!? Of course, I am fully aware of this tradition, having grown up in St. Nicholas parish, and left my shoes out as a child. But we've never incorporated it as a family since Dec. 5 is John's birthday and we kind of have enough going on in December. I thought it was decidedly UNhelpful to share this with the kids at 6:30 on the night St. Nicholas is supposed to travel! Luckily, I had already purchased two Angry Birds ornaments as Christmas presents for the boys and I happened to have a bag of holiday Reece's peanut butter cups in the cupboard.

In hindsight I'm glad Edward brought this story home. It didn't take much to make them quite giddy with excitement.

And P.S. both of these pairs of shoes (purchased only at the beginning of the school year) have had to be retired in recent weeks. Boo for Skechers, which are apparently THE shoes to have in first grade. Daniel's (on the left) soles wore completely through, and the velcro closure on Edward's (right) stopped sticking. Daniel's were purchased at Penny's, which graciously accepted the return (I'd saved the receipt in the shoebox) and exchanged them for a different brand. Edward's were from Famous Footwear, which would not take a return, but suggested contacting Skechers directly. I emailed my complaint and received a prompt but unhelpful response--I am more than welcome to mail the shoes (at my expense) to Skechers in California and wait 4-6 weeks while they decide whether they are at fault for the failure. If so, they'd send a new pair, but if not, I'd just be out of luck, having sunk another 10 bucks or so into the cause. I decided to scrap it and just order a pair of Nikes, which should be here by the end of the week. Luckily, Edward had a pair of shoes in reserve, as Famous Footwear was having a buy one/get one sale when we shopped.

We kicked off the family Christmas celebrations with a trip to Chariton in mid-December to gather with John's mom's side of the family. A good time was had by all as we shared a meal, 

played some games, 

Hullabaloo!

opened presents, 

Lego!

and then moved the party to the nursing home to enjoyed some desserts with Great-Grandma.

Edward and Nick fashion footwear

We were only sorry to miss John's cousin Luke and family, but they were eagerly awaiting the newest member of their family (born 12/29!) and unable to travel so close to the due date. Hmmm...sounds familiar!

The next weekend, we traveled to Evanston to celebrate with my family the Saturday before Christmas. What do you do when it's the dead of winter and you have 14 people ranging in age from 3 to 67 in need of entertainment? Well, if you happen to be a Geraghty, you go bowling!

Showing the kids how it's done.

It was the first time bowling for our kids and my sisters'. We had two lanes and employed the gutter bumpers on both to minimize the youthful frustration. 

Turned out, we all benefited, because basically, we all stink at bowling. 

Action!

Both Daniel and one of his cousins (Katherine?) managed to throw the ball in such a way as to send it OVER the bumper and into the gutter.  Only four members of our party even broke 100. 

But we had fun together and that's what counts.

Per tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa's house with plenty of presents and a delicious ham dinner. The boys were totally wired, but found this reindeer doorknob hanger craft strangely soothing.

Then we moved on to presents and all bets were off. We try to have them not open packages simultaneously so that we can all see all the presents being opened. There was just too much giddy anticipation this year and the system broke down quickly. They did managed to open together two shared gifts from Grandma and Grandapa--a set of backyard soccer goals and an "indoor camping" playset.

roasting marshmallows and hot dogs in Grandma and Grandpa's family room

Other highlights were Angry Birds hats and dinosaur- and gorilla-foot slippers. (Sadly, the dinosaur foot slippers were defective--back-of-heel seams split the first night--and were returned to Old Navy, which is no longer selling them. A similar item is on its way to us via Zappos.com.)

sitting on hands in attempt to keep from ripping all packages at once

There was a last-minute rush at bedtime to put out cookies and milk for Santa (they must have read this in a storybook.) And then I inadvertently got them all wound up again by reading "A Visit From St. Nick" with some slight deviations from the original. ("Not a creature was stirring, not even an elephant." "I sprang from my bed to say, 'Hey, quiet down out there!'" etc.) Brought down the house with my ending: "And I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight, 'Next year get your own presents!'" Gales of giggles. There were several encore presentations requested in the ensuing days.

The boys dutifully waited until 7 a.m. to wake us up to behold the beauty of Santa's visit. There was a LeapPad for Daniel and a Nintendo DS for Edward, plus a game for each.

They would have spent the whole day like this. But there was also Lego to put together. Edward spent most of the afternoon in his room alternating between Super Mario and Lego construction (Forest Police Station from Grandma and Grandpa.)

And of course, there was the cleverly-named Mr. Snowman. John spent every night of the week leading up to Christmas in the basement finishing this project. It was a hit! Definitely too big and bulky for Santa's sleigh (plus Santa's workshop annex is too accessible to prying eyes.) And John has already declared victory that the snowman lasted longer than the number of hours it took him to create. That doesn't mean there won't be tears if/when he meets his demise.

We all got dressed and went to Mass at 10:30 (I'm still not strong enough for the effort it would take to get us all through the Christmas Eve children's service.) But after we got home, Edward declared, "It's my birthday, so I'm putting my pajamas back on." Daniel followed suit so even when Grandma and Grandpa came for dinner and cake, the boys remained pajama-clad.

I did manage a birthday picture in real clothes. This shirt is the size seven version of the one he wore for his first birthday/Christmas. I found it at a consignment shop last year and scooped it up. Happy Birthday to our big guy!

After lunch, Edward was working on the puzzles from his "children's worship" bulletin from church this morning. A code was presented as the way to find the answer to the question, "Where was Jesus" (when he got separated from his parents after traveling to Jerusalem for Passover.) Daniel, across the hall in the bathroom, piped up, "In His Father's house!" (wait a beat) "And I don't mean Joseph." Guess he was paying attention to the story!

And speaking of stories, here is Daniel with his first book. We've had several conversations recently about how long it takes to write a book because we've been listening to the Harry Potter series in the car. I've been trying to explain that kids who were reading them when they first came out had to wait months and years for the next installment. Daniel presented this with a flourish, "I'm a book author!"



Edited to add: I was sure Edward had also "written" his first book around this age, but couldn't find the video. Finally found it last night (1/7) while browsing the blog archives to fill out a birthday information sheet for Daniel's school. (It asks for a few accomplishments from each year of life that the teachers can read to the class as part of the celebration.) The video is at the end of the blog post and starts with Daniel singing before transitioning to Edward's book.

Merry Christmas from the Kenyons!

We'll have more stories and photos to share before the end of the year (I promise!) but as of 8:53 p.m. on Christmas night, there is only the sound of heads hitting pillows. A beautiful, but exhausting Christmas/birthday celebration.

The excitement of Christmas has the boys on edge, and it has made for some tense moments where they just can't bring themselves to behave. This morning, Daniel was playing with his new remote control car, and sent it down the stairs. This is something he was told numerous times yesterday not to do, with the warning that he would lose the car for the day if he didn't obey. So, the car went down the stairs and then went to the basement. He told Mary that if he didn't get the car back, he was going to take all of his pajamas and clothes and leave (bonus points for preparing for night... something I never did when I threatened to run away).

He stomped upstairs, then came back down and said he needed the blue bag and a suitcase, which were the things we used when we packed for our trip to Evanston over the weekend. I gave him the blue bag. He came back down a bit later and issued one last ultimatum. Give him back the toy, or he would run away. I told him goodbye. He went upstairs and banged around for a while, then came back down and, on the verge of tears, said that he didn't really want to go. I pulled him onto my lap and told him I was glad about that. I figured he was near tears because of the thought of leaving, but instead it was more practical: He had taken all of his pajamas, underpants and socks out of his dresser, and was having a difficult time getting them back in the right spots. 

I went up and everything from that drawer was out and on his floor. We got it all put back. As we came back downstairs, he said, "Dad, as I was packing the blue bag, I thought to myself, do I want to leave and make Dad, Mom and Edward sad, or do I want to stay and make them happy? I decided to make you happy."

Did you hear that? It's the sound of a huge sigh of relief--two actually. Edward has been skillfully steered away from the monstrosity he expected Santa to produce for him.

Sunday night while lying with Ed as he settled to sleep, John got him talking about being excited to go back to school to see his friends. This led to Edward admitting that he doesn't always understand what his friends are talking about because many have video games that he's not familiar with. I'm surprised that the HUGE light bulb that went on over John's head didn't jar Ed from his pre-sleep.

John waited a few beats and then Edward said, "Will you get me one of those?" John advised that he could put it on his Christmas or birthday wish list. "OK, I'll ask Santa...oh, wait. I'm already asking Santa for my big snowman. Well, maybe I'll ask Grandma and Grandpa." Ha! Nice try, kid. John let him know that this type of gift was more than he could ask for from someone else, but suggested that he could change his request to Santa if he wanted to.

Then he bolted downstairs to work with me on a plan to infiltrate Edward's subconscious.

Turned out, there really wasn't any plotting necessary. All John had to do was ask this morning at breakfast, "Hey, Edward, do you think maybe you'd want to build your own snowman, and I'll help you, and then you can ask Santa for a DS?" (a hand-held video game toy)

"Yeah!!! Can we start right now."

Well, no. We're not getting into snowless snowman construction at 7:30 on a school morning. But we're looking ahead to some weekend construction.

In the meantime, John has found some info online on papier mache, specifically, how to create a giant jack-o-lantern (oversize garbage bag stuffed with newspaper,) which, if not decorated for Halloween, might make the perfect bottom snowball for a snowman large enough to climb into.

John and I actually spent the two hours we had free while my parents took the boys to their hotel to swim on Saturday afternoon wandering around three different hardware/home improvement stores seeking inspiration. We came up with a few possibilities, but it still was going to be a Herculean effort, and there was no telling whether, in the end, our vision would match Edward's. We were afraid of putting in all the time, effort, and expense of making this thing and having him come down on Christmas morning and wail, "That's not what I meant!"

Oh, and he did bust me on the "Santa doesn't do electronic toys" comment regarding the snowman, but we decided that because the DS is so common (apparently every one of his friends has one) that Santa could figure it out. "Or," says Edward. "He could just go to the store and buy one." Yeah, that Santa...always looking for the easy way out.

I mentioned in the Halloween post that Edward (and to a lesser degree) Daniel fashioned their own Halloween costumes from various amalgamations of their dress-up inventory. In some cases they had to fashion accessories or other authenticity-related items from scraps of paper or ribbon. I loved this creativity and vision. I loved that they did not involve me except to ask for more tape (I finally just gave them their own roll--you would have thought it was pure gold.)

Last week we got to meet up with some friends from out of town just before they left to head back home. They brought a gift for the boys--a science kit with a series of experiments starting with acids/bases and working up to creating a volcano. After an initial disappointment that we couldn't just get right to exploding a volcano, the boys and John set about systematically working through the experiments. They (all) were captivated.

I love this. I really do. I love the curiosity, the delight, the questioning, the quest to find the answer, the imagination. It is truly wonderful to observe, and I know it will serve them well going forward.

However, it may not serve ME very well come Christmas. You see, with all this imagination and inventiveness, Edward has come up with a very specific and complex request for Santa this year. He will not be deterred by our assurance that no such item exists in this world, because "Well, Santa's elves can just make it in the workshop."

Oy.

The item is a toy snowman, large enough for a child to climb into and hide/play in. This snowman will have a hinged door in the back through which the child may crawl as well as a hinged top hat which the child may doff from inside the snowman, standing on a stool. This is slightly scaled back based on my informing him (out of self defense!) that Santa does not do electronic toys (though he could totally bust me on this since last year's haul included walkie talkies.) The original imagined prototype had interior buttons that the child could push to automate the hat-doffing and/or arm waving, and/or snowman talking.

So now, I throw myself on the mercy of the blog and BEG for ideas of how to pull this off. Keep in mind that this is a boy who cut out a paper star and taped it to his shirt to become a sheriff and who willingly, excitedly accepted a dry-cleaner hanger bent into an arc with a string tied from end to end as a bow with "arrows" being the removable cardboard bottom of said hanger. That is to say, it does not have to be a masterful work of art. But it must be big, it must be white and it must have a hinged top hat. And it must be in our living room on Christmas morning.

Last year's Santa test was a breeze compared to this.

This year's Halloween can be summed up in a single word: overload. We started with trick-or-treat at my office on Friday afternoon, followed immediately by two community Halloween events/parties for the kids. For this occasion, we had a pirate and a cowboy.

As mentioned in the previous post, the next two nights included trick-or-treat events in Wisconsin. We took Monday off, but were back at it Tuesday with pumpkin carving with Grandma and Grandpa. It had been many years since they last participated in this form of artistry, which was good, because it meant they'd forgotten (suppressed the memory of?) how messy and disgusting it is. But I was SO glad for their help. My kitchen was a big mess, but without their support we might have had to cordon it off as a biohazard. They were also good at watching for little eager-to-help fingers getting to close to my carving knife.

We ended up with two relatively respectable attempts to carve the images they saw in their creative minds. I was not up to the challenge of eyebrows, mustaches and beards, but they were satisfied to sketch these in with a Sharpie.

Note that Edward's has glasses

Later that night, John finally returned, fell into an exhausted but grateful-to-be-in-his-own-bed sleep and was thus able to power through the entire next day at work followed by an hour and 20 minutes of neighborhood trick-or-treating. 

A vampire and a ninja

It was the longest we've ever been out and the farthest from home we've ever ventured on this night. We went with some friends who live on the next block down the hill. Our customary routes really only intersected on our block, so we ended up covering the majority of both our individual routes, which resulted in a mammoth candy intake.

A lesson in sorting and early graphing

And all of this was preceded by costume parades at both boys' schools (Daniel's at 1:30; Edward's at 2. Not as tight a schedule as it may seem given that Daniel's parade lasted about 15 seconds.)

Check out the policeman behind  Snow White

 Edward's costume was perfect for school as he was able to wear it all day and just add the hat and glasses when it was time for the parade. He was very happy to stay out of the chaos that was the bathroom changing area (even if he was a little disappointed that not everyone knew who he was. Do you?)

Waldo!

 After school, the PTO put on a Halloween party/dance for the kids. I was lucky to be assigned to the clean-up brigade, so Daniel and I stayed away until the last 15 minutes or so.

So, to sum up, we went trick-or-treating four times. The kids each wore four different costumes over the course of the extended celebration (Daniel: pirate, ninja, knight, policeman; Edward: cowboy, ninja, Waldo, vampire.) But they put together all of their own costumes from pieces in our dress-up collection. The only thing I had to buy was the Waldo hat and that involved a five-minute Amazon.com search and two clicks to purchase--pretty much exactly the energy I wish to expend on this particular celebration.

I mentioned that the boys and I took a trip to Milwaukee while John was away. We had SO much fun and it really helped distract us from the disappointment of John not coming home as scheduled. It was the weekend before Halloween and plenty of seasonal fun to be had. We arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday (had to delay our departure from Iowa City until after Edward's final soccer game of the season.) After an early dinner, we headed out to the Milwaukee County Zoo for "Boo at the Zoo."

Same as above, but closer and no flash

This is a pretty representative photo of the evening--dashing from exhibit to exhibit in search of animals (a few were not sleeping) and trick-or-treats.

This is not a great picture of the kids (except Maggie!) but check out that pumpkin sculpture behind them. It was an undersea theme and yes, that is an octopus carved from a pumpkin.

There were also some more traditional jack-o-lanterns and plenty of festive spirit. A great night out and not even too cold!

The next day we met for Mass and the boys were very impressed with Uncle Chris's musical skillz. Which is not to say that they were extremely well-behaved, but what can you do? Chris stayed at church to get some work done and Ann and I took the kids to Discovery World, which we'd first visited during our brief stop-over last December. It's a great science/exploration museum for kids of all ages. We liked it so much we got a membership (reciprocal benefits will give us free entry to a number of other museums in our travels.)

The power of levers!

After that, it was home for some down time watching a movie while waiting to trick-or-treat.

 Yes, you read that right, a second big night of trick-or-treating, courtesy of a weird Wisconsin tradition of holding the event on the Sunday before Halloween. This time around, Ed stuck with his ninja costume and Daniel switched to a knight. Maggie was a bookworm, Katherine a witch and Abby a zebra.

We collected treats for a few blocks and then came home to lay by a nice cozy fire.

The boys and I went back to the hotel for a swim in a warm, but surprisingly deep pool. Even the shallow end only gave Daniel enough room for a few steps before it went over his head. They're both passable swimmers, but it made me quite nervous being the only adult.

We fell into an exhausted sleep, blissfully unaware that in a few hours travel chaos would ensue. The next morning, as I was on the phone with the travel agent, the boys impressed the Denny's waitress by inhaling their pancake/bacon/sausage breakfasts in about 5 minutes flat. From there it was on to the Betty Brinn Children's Museum for a morning of play with Aunt Karen who joined us from Cedarburg. The kids had a blast--here are a few examples from the 50 states exhibit.

Building the St. Louis Arch

Using foot power to make the geyser gush (loud!)

Riding a burro in the Grand Canyon (hope to visit for real someday!)

It wasn't until after three hours at the museum and an hour at lunch that the travel agent was final able to confirm John's ticket home for the next day. At one point, it looked like he'd only be able to get as far as Chicago, so I started thinking maybe we'd head to my parents' house (they were in AZ) for the night and then wait to pick up John the next day. That would have meant a late night for all, so I'm glad it didn't come to that.

We headed back to Iowa City (listening to the first Harry Potter book as we drove) and spent one more night and day on our own.