Saturday, October 30, 2010

Keep "Hallow" in Halloween

OK, I know I posted on Friday that I would have a busy weekend and no time to post, but I just found this great post on Lacy's blog at Catholic Icing called Keep "Hallow" in Halloween that includes a  Pumpkin Prayer while carving your pumpkin. 

We just carved and decorated our pumpkins tonight with our family and I didn't see the prayer in time to use this year, but I will be sure to look back on this blog post next year and say the Pumpkin Prayer with my family. Thanks Lacy for the inspirational post to encourage me to keep "Hallow" in Halloween with my family!
Here's some close up photos of our pumpkins on our porch.  We cut out a vampire look for the "Daddy" pumpkin and for the "Mommy" and 4 "cupcake" pumpkins we used Mr. Potato Head pieces that I got free last year from our local craft store:







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Friday, October 29, 2010

Happy All Hallows Eve and My Blog's Been Featured!

I'm a few days early wishing everyone a Happy All Hallows Eve or Halloween, but this weekend's schedule is another hectic one for our family so I don't think I will be able to do a post on Saturday or Sunday.

This weekend our family will be squeezing in a birthday party, pancake breakfast at a local restaurant for a fund raiser, my husband and I will be speaking to 15 engaged couples about Natural Family Planning, 3 soccer games, a soccer party, a neighborhood Halloween party, Mass, getting baked ziti downtown for our homeschool's feed the homeless service project and making preparations for costumes, candy, and our annual All Saint's Day party on Monday with our homeschool group! Oh and somewhere I have to fit in planning lessons!   Whew!  There seems to be not enough hours in the day to fit it all in so blogging over this weekend is going to be especially difficult.

My children are very excited to celebrate Halloween and All Saint's Day on Nov. 1.  I know many families choose not to go out Trick-or-Treating or "celebrate" Halloween, rather they think it's best for their families to focus entirely on All Saint's Day or celebrate Fall Festivals.

I found some great articles on the internet that address what Halloween is really about.  One such article is Halloween: The Real Story! and another one is How Halloween Can Be Redeemed .

I especially agree with the two opening paragraphs in "How Halloween Can Be Redeemed" :

"Halloween has grown into a major secular holiday in American culture. But for those who don’t value devotion to the saints, the Eve has become "hollow" instead of "hallow." The purpose behind it has been lost—like celebrating New Year’s Eve without a New Year’s Day. Take away the saints and our beliefs about the dignity and destiny of human beings, and the only thing left is pre-Christian superstition regarding the dead.
Among many Christians, there has been concern that things have gotten out of hand. After all, doesn’t Halloween glorify evil? Is it right to send our children out as devils and vampires, or is it better to emphasize the saints, whose nearly forgotten feast day is the reason for Halloween? Hallow is the same word for "holy" that we find in the Lord’s Prayer, and e’en is a contraction of "evening." The word Halloween itself is a shortened form of "All Hallows Eve," the day before All Saints Day. In this Update we’ll consider how Catholics can "redeem" Halloween. This holiday, properly understood and celebrated with all of its fun trappings, can be a way for us to deepen our understanding of our faith. The key to this understanding is close at hand for Catholics in our love of the communion of saints."
My family enjoys all the festivities surrounding this holiday and focuses on All Saint's Day.  My children love to dress up and candy so Halloween is an exciting time for them.  They also enjoy learning about the lives of the saints and dressing up as their favorite saints.  This year our children will be St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Luke, St. Cecilia, and Mother Teresa ( I think).  You may or may not agree with how we celebrate All Hallows Eve and All Saint's Day, but this is a special time for our family and for our faith.  I hope that the links I have shared on this post will be insightful and useful.

I  am also excited to share with you that Heather at Mommy Only Has Two Hands has featured me and my blog today on her Feature Friday post.  I was chosen based on the comments that I have left on her blog and through Random.org.    Because I have been featured, Heather has given me this cute button to put on my blog which I have placed on my right sidebar just under my blog button code:


Be sure to visit Heather at Mommy Only Has Two Hands and leave her comments on her great posts.  You may be selected for one of her Feature Friday posts also. She has a beautiful blog, her son is adorable, and I love her Fall banner at the top of her blog!  Thanks Heather!

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Star Wars Birthday Party

 
My son just turned 9 and he wanted a Star Wars themed birthday party.  Star Wars is something I know very little about.  I don't know if I have ever seen any Star Wars movie all the way through (shame on me!)  because I'm not all that interested in it, although I appreciate the creative storyline and characters. I must say I learned quite a bit about Star Wars this past week from my son by asking some simple questions over and over again, "Is he good or bad?" and "Is that ship a good one or bad one?"

To set the tone for the party, I found the wording of a woman's creative Star Wars invitation on the internet and just changed the name and address information, added some clipart and printed out  invitations from my computer.  All the parents thought I had come up with the wording and I told them that the internet has everything on it, including the perfect script for a Star Wars invitation! If you would like me to send you the script of the invitation via email, please Contact Me HERE.

My wonderful husband said he would help me make the cake and plan the party with me and that is what he did! In fact, he did most of the work! 

My son said he wanted a Millenium Falcon (that's a good ship) cake so I went on the internet and found the blog, Chefdruck Musings,  for tips and inspiration. Then my hubby got to work by cutting out a cardboard outline of the ship and baking 2 Funfetti 9x13 cakes:

 My son was so excited about his cake he stayed up with us to help!

We used an empty applesauce container for the cockpit on the side of the ship.

Here is a close-up of the cockpit and we put a Luke Skywalker LEGO figure in it before icing the cake.

My husband iced the Millenium Falcon cake with store bought cream cheese icing  and then we mixed in Wilton's black coloring to get the gray color.

Millenium Falcon cake that our son helped decorate with LEGO pieces on the top.  The black circles are small soft Oreo cookies.   Surrounding the cake are chocolate TIE-Fighter (bad ship) cupcakes.

Since we had white Funfetti cake for the Millenium Falcon, I also made chocolate cupcakes, colored the icing gray and used clipart from my computer to print out TIE-Fighter pictures and attached them to toothpicks.  This has always been my favorite way to decorate cupcakes!  It's easy and cheap to print out images and tape them to toothpicks!


When all our guests arrived, my hubby gathered all 15 boys to begin the Jedi In-Training challenges.  My husband listed all the activities on a sheet of paper and went over the challenges and rules before they began.
I can't figure out how to link the  "The Jedi Council Needs YOU! trials here so if you would like me to send you the list via email please Contact Me and I will send you the file.  

My husband entertained our Jedi's in-training for well over an hour with the 6 trials.

The last challenge was to defeat Boba Fett because he wanted to capture Hans Solo.  So the boys used stun grenades (black water balloons) to try to bring Boba Fett down.  Here is my hubby dressed up as Boba Fett which the boys LOVED and they LOVED bombing him with stun grenades!
Boba Fett had his own weapons hidden under his cloaks as he fires with his water gun in this photo.

In the end, Boba Fett was taken down and never reached Hans Solo!  The Jedi's in-training are now JEDIs!

To congratulate the Jedi's on a job well done, each one received a Star Wars bag that I made for them.
I got the Star Wars clipart from the internet and glued it on the bag.  I crossed out "In-Training" in red marker  since the Jedi successfully completed all 6 trials.  Then I put in a can of silly string, some of the "astroids" that they found on the hunt, which were lollipops wrapped in aluminum foil, and a Mega GLOstick light that I found at Costco, but you can also find them on Amazon.  I also had Star Wars trivia pages in the bag.

My husband was so involved with planning and facilitating the party and having so much fun with the boys that the moms and dads in attendance asked him if he had fun celebrating his 9th birthday over again! With his hard work and our teamwork we were able to have a fun Star Wars party for my son and  friends!

May the force be with you!

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Friday, October 22, 2010

(Organization) System Saturday-Cleaning Out the Fridge-Oh Joy!

OK so tonight I tackled a project I have been putting off for a loooooong time because of lack of time and motivation...cleaning the inside of my fridge and freezer!  My hubby kept gently reminding me that a clean fridge will do my body some good (and I always kept thinking that he could do his body some good by cleaning it out for me! Hee! Hee! )  But, I finally told myself that one way to motivate myself to start the clean out was to take a before photo of my fridge.  Here it is:

It's difficult to see from this photo how disorganized and dirty my fridge was...


And then when it was all done and sparkling clean I took this After photo:

Of course, it's difficult to tell from these photos the transformation, but believe me all the spills, crumbs, and old food is out of the fridge and it looks oh so lovely :)

So are you like me?  Do you put off fridge cleaning or are you a monthly cleaner that gets the job done on a more consistent schedule?

I am blessed to be able to go shopping for food and fill up my clean fridge now!  Happy cleaning!

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Thursday, October 21, 2010

Incredible Video! Great Chinese State Circus - Swan Lake

My Dad sent me this video through email and my children and I have seen it a few times so I thought I would share it here on my blog.  It is 4:30 minutes long and the dancers are beautiful and their skill, balance, and strength is incredible!  I hope you enjoy this as much as we have! 



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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Wordless Wednesday - Cool Geometric Pattern on Firehouse

While we were on our memorable and eventful family camping trip last weekend, I snapped a picture of this cool geometric pattern that was on the side of Fire & Rescue building in Little Switzerland, NC.  It was fun to find this colorful pattern and take a picture while in our car.  It was not fun to hear the moans and groans from my hubby and children as they complained about me always making Dad stop the car to take pictures :) 



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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Happy Birthday to our Cute Cupcake #2!

9 years ago today, our bouncing baby boy blessed our family, friends, and all those he meets with his adorable personality, beautiful smile, his dark curly hair, and above all the special way he nurtures and loves all of God's creations!  I found some of my favorite pictures of our son from the past when flipping through our photo albums:
 
He loves his Mommy! 

He loves to smile and laugh, but he sometimes says he doesn't love his curly hair :(

He loves nature, being outside, and dirt!

He loves his sisters!

He loves playing/watching sports, especially soccer and football!

He loves special outings with Dad!  Go NC State Wolfpack!

Happy 9th Birthday to our cute Cupcake #2!  You continue to bless our lives richly!  We love you!

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I'm Tracy. I love my faith, family and on most days, homeschooling my 5 blessings. When I'm not busy baking cakes for my family or making memories in real life or dreaming I had a housekeeper or professional chef, I enjoy documenting a slice of Smith life in blog land.

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