Halloween

This Halloween started out sadly. This morning I got an email that one friend just died of cancer, and Wander also attended the funeral of another friend who died of cancer.

However, for the girls, it was still Halloween, and that meant dress-up, candy, and scary decorations. Sparkle enjoys spooky decorations, but is okay without them. Glitter, on the other hand, is terrified of Halloween decorations. She won't even walk past them and makes Wander carry her by them on their nightly walks. One day when riding her tricycle full steam ahead, she suddenly found herself in front of a mildly decorated yard and burst into tears. Not wanting to terrify his little girl, Wander chose to not decorate out house this year. Instead we just carved pumpkins a few days before the big day.



Then Wander set up the pumpkins in our driveway.


As for the dress-up, the girls had a hard time deciding what to be: ballerinas, or fairy princesses. The past few years they have been fairy princesses. However, this year Sparkle had her ballet costume from her spring recital. Glitter didn't have a tutu, but she was satisfied to simply wear her black leotard and pink tights from dance class.



A glow-stick fit nicely around each girl's bun, making them more visible as darkness fell.


Of course, the candy was the most important part of Halloween for the kids. Glitter asked, why couldn't we "have Halloween with candy spread all around, and we get to pick up the candy, and no skeletons?" I asked her if the candy should be spread out in little plastic eggs, to which she vigorously agreed. Wander burst out laughing. "Sure," he told her, "but we call that 'Easter' and it happens in the spring," he told her.


The trick-or-treating started early this year, and lasted longer than usual. We had superheros, soldiers, princesses, ninja, and storybook characters trooping through the neighborhood for three hours. Wander herded the girls through the neighbors and I stayed at home to pass out candy. After the girls had done their rounds, they hung out with me to help pass out candy. I think they liked that as much as getting their own candy. Glitter would grab two fistfuls of candy to drop in kids' bags, and then Sparkle would want to give them candy too. Good thing I had bought three really big bags of candy.

Renaissance Festival School Days

Wednesday we attended the Renaissance Festival School Days. Although we've attended RenFest for several years, this was our first time to go on school days.

At school days we found the grounds crowded as usual, but instead of mostly adults and some younger kids, this time it was crowds of middle and high school kids, sprinkled with family groups. Early elementary age kids were almost always parts of homeschooled families, often with toddlers and strollers along.

There were still people in costume, but far fewer than normal. We dressed Sparkle and Glitter in their RenFest princess dresses, and I braided their hair into "crowns." However, Wander and I wore "time traveler" clothes ourselves. The booth outside the festival for renting costumes was closed. The sparsity of people in costume was both a plus and a minus. On the minus side, there weren't as many neat costumes to see to put one in a festive mood. On the plus side, the eyes weren't affronted by things you'd really rather not see (or prefer your children to not see).



Most of the regular shows, especially the more bawdy ones, were missing. Some of them were still on, and we enjoyed seeing some magnificent birds in "Birds of Prey." The show was especially neat for Sparkle and Glitter as Wander is reading them "My Side of the Mountain," and the main character has a falcon. However, most of the stages were given over to school choirs, bands, and theatre troupes for a performing arts festival / competition. Some of these groups are really good.

In addition to shows, there were the usual demonstrations. Sparkle got to be an assistant at one booth. She donned a printer's smock and hat and got to run the printing press. It was really neat seeing the mechanics of how it worked. This was Sparkle's favorite part of the faire.


One of Wanders favorite parts of the faire is the shops. However, for obvious reasons, no knives or blades were sold during school days. Indeed, shops that specialize in those things were completely closed, and other shops set up tables of wares that blocked access deeper into the stores. Pretty smart, considering that kids have curious hands but not much money to spend.

The part of the faire that attracted kids' money the most was the games and rides. Glitter's favorite part of the fair was riding the carousel. She knew just the animal she wanted to ride - the green frog with a purple coat.


Surprisingly, the one aspect of the faire guaranteed to take your money was actually much cheaper on school days: the food. There were fewer choices (no beer!) but turkey legs and other such staples were brought down to $4 each so that all the "main dishes" were the same price. Plus, we were allowed to bring in our own food, which meant that we could snack the girls at will without tracking down a roaming pretzel or popcorn vendor.



All in all, we had a marvelous time, and are looking forward to returning next year.

All Saints Party

Last Sunday was our homeschool group's All Saints Party. A member family that lives on a not-too-distant farm hosts the party. This was our second year attending, and had a fabulous time again.

Sparkle dressed up as Saint Therese, the Little Flower, from her Little Flowers class. I gave Sparkle a short biography of Saint Therese to read, and she was entranced by the idea of Therese's older sister Pauline becoming Therese's "little mother" when their own mother died. Sparkle wanted me to dress up as Pauline, but I didn't have time to sew another costume for myself. Glitter, wanting to be like her big sister in all things, was also Saint Therese.



The party is out in the country.


Here are the girls with their roses. (The accessories are sometimes the best way to identify the saint.)


The highlight of the party is the parade of saints.


For the games that the families set up for the kids, I lucked out and another family asked us to join up with them. Working together with the other family was nice because that way we were able to take turns guiding the little ones through the various booths. Plus, the other family set up everything about the game, including some great prizes. I just had to print up some holy cards and help out with the booth. It was a cute St. Peter's fishing game, and the kids loved it. Several kids came back to play again and again, even though they only got a prize the first time.



One of the funnest parts of the party was the hay ride to feed the cows. Wander took the girls while I was working the game, but when I was free, I hopped on for a ride. Wander and the girls waved to me as we drove by. The cows were amazing. They had huge horns. I was still wary of the cow in our neighborhood that tried to eat Sparkle's dress a few years ago, so I kept my distance.



All too soon the sun set, and it was time to go home. We are truly blessed with some wonderful friends in our group to put in all the effort to make the party such a success.

homonyms

Sparkle has a new found passion for homonyms - words that sound the same, but mean different things and are spelled differently.

Here are some of her favorites:
pour / poor
hear / here
horse / hoarse
which / witch
write / right
hair / hare
night / knight
tail / tale

I think that her interest in homonyms comes from poetry and spelling.

Glitterism, Concert, Treasure

We're driving back from the Halloween concert and Glitter starts counting. She starts strong and makes it up into the thirties: 30, 31, 32, 33. But when she gets to the end of the decade, she gets stuck in a time warp: 39, 30, 31, 32. The cycle repeats a few times. She just can't seem to get to 40. Instead she starts skipping numbers, hoping that will get her to the next decade faster: 32, 35, 37. But a little pause for thought at 39 does her in, and she's back at 30 again. Finally, she just calmly gives up. "That's enough thirties," she proclaims, and stops counting. The rest of us in the car agree, "yup, that's enough thirties."

BTW, the Halloween concert was great but *crowded.* There were swarms of kids, many in costume. Some of the costumes were scary and Sparkle momentarily freaked out when a goblin walked between her and the rest of the family. We let the girls each get a piece of free candy but skipped the rest of the madness to find seats on the hill.

The biggest highlight of the night was the 14 karat gold, diamond ring that Sparkle found in the grass as we were packing up to go. People had been gradually leaving for the last half hour, and the hill was a mess of people moving in all different directions. No-one was frantically searching the grass, so we brought the ring to the information booth lost and found. At first Sparkle thought it was a toy and wanted to keep it, but when we explained that it was a really expensive ring and meant a lot to someone, she was proud of doing the right thing. I hope that the ring gets back to its rightful owner. It was gorgeous.