7 Quick Takes Friday: Now that the blogging challenge is over, Halloween, our little saint on All Saints Day, and looking ahead to Thanksgiving

~1~

After blogging every day during October, you might think I would have loads of free time. I should at least have taken up crocheting or screen painting—or caught up on some sleep. Sadly, no.

I really enjoyed the daily blogging challenge, and I would definitely do it again. I loved that I started every day without a concrete topic, and then I had to discover it during the day. I don't think I was blogging alone. I really felt that St. Therese was prodding me from time to time, and I started seeing God's hand in ways I don't always.

So it was a wonderful experience for me—and I hope for you. But I hope you'll forgive me if I don't blog every day in November.

~2~

Halloween was the loveliest fall evening, not so chilly that we had to insist on jackets over the costumes—an appalling idea that only unimaginative grownups who worry about pneumonia would ever insist on.

Our boys were Endermen from Minecraft, which meant they dressed like this.

So trick-or-treating was a breeze except for those clunky boxes on their heads. So they had no peripheral vision and maybe not much regular vision. Daniel ditched it after posing on our front porch, so I came back and left it in the trunk of our car after the first few houses.

Leo wore his longer, but I finally insisted that he let us carry it because of all the steps and crooked sidewalks. Candy is important, but avoiding an ER visit on Halloween night is also nice.

Our Endermen decided they were ninjas instead, running around in their black suits. They were almost impossible to see in the dark.

At one house, the woman who answered the door said, "What are you dressed as?" and Daniel said, "We're Endermen, but we lost our heads."

"Well," she said, "you look like you have heads to me!"

Which they do. They also have lots of candy—enough to last at least until St. Nicholas Day.

~3~

Do you let your children play with their food? Our boys love to make up imaginary games where the vegetables are the bad guys and the noodles are fences or weapons and sometimes the pieces of meat are the good guys.

If we are having a family dinner, we don't let them play games, but when they are eating breakfast and John and I are rushing around getting things ready for the day, anything goes. And their games get quite creative.

Last night the boys beat us to the dinner table, and when I walked over, I realized they had built a lasagna bridge.

~4~

Daniel and his classmates dressed as saints for the All Saints Day Mass at school, and he wanted to be St. Michael.

We borrowed a tunic, a cape, and some armor from a friend, and I ordered a pair of wings. They were out of stock, so I ordered another pair, which came. I packed everything up and sent it to school for him to change into just before Mass.

When I spotted him before Mass, he looked so handsome, but he was not wearing the wings.

See? Here's the back.

I didn't want to say, "Where are your wings?" because I didn't want him to decide he couldn't go marching in with the other saints without wings. So I just smiled, took his picture, and sent him on his way. But at the end of the day, I asked casually what happened to his wings.

"I didn't want to wear them," he said.

Huh. Well, who am I to argue with an archangel? Especially an archangel who gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.

~5~

Do you have your Thanksgiving turkey yet? I spotted this one at Dunkin Donuts, and I was really tempted—but I'm more in the mood for pumpkin pie.

~6~

I did, however, pick up these placemats for the children—and grownups—to color at Thanksgiving. I cannot figure out why we didn't have things like that when I was a child, groaning inside as the adults talked about boring things like 401Ks.

Oh, and I still prefer Thanksgiving word searches to conversations about 401Ks.

~7~

November is National Adoption Month, so I may write about adoption over the next few weeks. If you have a topic or a question you'd like me to explore, please send it along. 

Here's one to tide you over, "Why did we decide to adopt?"

As it turns out, my mother's favorite blog post ever was also written in November, and it's about the bridesmaid dress I wore for my sister Treasa's wedding.

Read more quick takes on Kelly's blog, This Ain't the Lyceum.

11/3/2016 11:07:34 PMBy Rita Buettner

Source: 7 Quick Takes Friday: Now that the blogging challenge is over, Halloween, our little saint on All Saints Day, and looking ahead to Thanksgiving