More Halloween Costume Stories - what was the greatest Halloween Costume you ever wore?

Click to enlarge the image. These are from the October 2012 issue of Real Simple. Clicking on the Real Simple label at the bottom of this post, will bring up more of these stories. Clicking on the Halloween label will bring all things where I have mentioned Halloween. 

The story of the Halloween Costumes

We, my husband and I, are not big on Halloween. When middle left for college, we (husband, youngest, and I) decided to go dark on 10/31 each year. Outside lights off, no house lights showing from the front of the house. Really happy doing that. The doorbell is hard on me. We do not like giving kids candy. We do not like having candy in the house.

If we had grandkids, different story. If middle was home on 10/31, different story. Middle is big on Halloween. I am sure her kids will be too. Youngest would dress and participate if she had something to attend, just is not big on answering the door on Halloween.






The story of the costumes goes back many years.

I happened by a good quality costume rental place going out of business, many years ago. I bought cowgirl and Indian for middle.

Later, we found a 60's girl from a Goodwill. We added princess dresses. Penguin. Swiss Girl.





Then last spring I happened on a series of baby/toddler dinosaur costumes, in really great shape, like new, at different garage sales. Just a few dollars each.  I bought them. They washed beautifully.

This fall, looking for classroom stuff for middle, I happened on a house with five costumes hanging on a rack - dinosaur/dragon, bear, lion, tiger, frog. Toddler to younger grade school sizes. When I asked the garage sale guy he said they were gone, a woman had said she was coming back for all of them. I asked if she had paid. When he said "no", I left my name and number and said if she did not return, to call and I would be right over. She was a no show. When he called at 8:30pm, I went flying out the door with a hoodie over my pj's and youngest in tow. $6 each. Had never been worn. Really happy.

I found a Lady Bug at GoodWill a couple weeks ago. The costumes at GoodWill are usually very used looking. This one was like new.

I am picking ones where sweats/major clothes can be worn under them.

Over the weekend, our little 6 year old wore full clothes, and a raincoat under the tiger (same tiger costume pictured above) and was very happy. The costume showed, the raincoat was under, umbrella was over. Costume got a little wet, child stayed dry and happy.

When they got home, middle's boy set up a fan in the garage and put the tiger on the (pool duds) drying racks. He went out every so often and flipped the costume so all sides dried.







When middle saw all of them, each time I found them at sales, she was really pleased. The week of the baby/toddler dinosaurs, they were lined up, on hangers, in her closet drying. The week of the jungle animals, they were hanging in the kitchen.

Middle said - are you going to keep collecting?

I said yes.

She said -  so we will never have to do costumes? We will be able to say - go to grandma's and pick out what you would like?

Yep, that's the idea.

Very, very fun.

Gretchen's new book, on habits, is available for preorder

The names of the book is Better than Before.

It is available for preorder which really helps Gretchen.

I have been reading about Gretchen's thoughts on habits, for months, as she has been writing. Very good.

You know how I feel about habits - forming good ones to support our lives, nipping self destructive ones in the bud, setting up proactive ones for our families.

She is not a weightloss person, but all she writes is applicable to getting one's life together, and in my opinion, good health/weight/food conditions are part of a life well lived.

I added a lot of pictures/ideas on the quiet church bag topic

Here is the first post.


Things we learned (about the bag) -

Put a small pack of Kleenex in the bag.

Read the board books, at home, a lot, so the child knows them by heart and can "read" them at church as they flip the pages.

So, I think having books that are prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, like we discussed) is actually the best plan. I have those two, will be looking for more. ADDED LATER - I found some possibilities, pictures below. Please let me know if you find any others.

I think an I Spy church book would be really great. ADDED LATER - I think I actually found some, they are not board books, but they look like an educational version of I Spy for the bible. Pictures below.

The extra pages/scenes in the magnetic set are paper, and are meant to be placed against the inside of the tin to have things stick. (Not a fan of that concept) So, I am taking the pages to the hardware store to see if there is something (not sharp) metal that I can glue on the back. There are a lot of great animals in the set, four places to stick would be better.  ADDED LATER - nothing that would work at hardware store (and it is a huge one) so trying teacher supply store.

Lacing cards were big hit. Middle had to tie knots on one end of each string so they did not pull through the starting hole.

I also think the bags should not come out until a set time at Mass. Maybe it is after the Entrance/Greeting. It might be fun to have the kids watch for the priest and recognize them by name, and then get to open their bag. Maybe it is much later. But I think a delay and tying it into Mass would be smart.

I discovered, on Cafe Press, can search by the emblem/image/artwork and find all the products using it. So, I was able to find all three, on the style lunch box I loved.

AND

I found some additional books for consideration.

NOT board books, and I have not seen them, but looks like the I Spy concept I was pondering.

Kids Quiet Bag for Church turned into my GO TO gift for Baptisms

Here is the second post on the quiet church bag topic.






I must like having "go to gifts" for set occasions. Actually I guess it is more accurate to say - I love having a great idea for a gift and then being able to fine tune it and give a variation of this gift each time this occasion arises.






I have mentioned my current favorite for weddings is a pitcher. They are very rarely given/thought of any more and I think much appreciated.

My "go to" for baby shower/new baby is swaddling blankets which I make out of flannel. Again, not likely to get duplicates and much needed for a baby.

Our favorite for confirmations is a (15") beaded cross. We love these. We do not make, we buy.

Our standard for high school graduation recently has been letters hand painted by middle. We have given lots of these. (If we are invited to baby shower, we give the blanket. If we are sending new baby gift to the same family, we do letters.)

I still do not have a set gift idea for First Communion. So if you have ideas, I would welcome them.





I now have a set gift for Baptisms - Church Quiet Bag. And I love it. Very original and not likely to be duplicates. I put a note (below) with it explaining to save for preschool years. Sometimes there are grandma/first grandchild baby showers and one of these bags would be a really, good idea.

I mentioned this quiet bag for church way back here, asking for ideas. I got great ones.  Thank you. Which lead me to do a little web searching.

Remember, my goal was to only include church related things. And I tried for Catholic too.

Since I have been garage sale-ing, this has been especially fun.





This bag had a bit of an evolution, here is my thought process -

This (below) ended up being my inspiration piece. I did not buy it. Although one could, use it as it is, or add to it. It is a very reasonable price.  The bag I bought is the next picture. My bag is bigger. And my bag being bigger lead to different bags.

Love the illustration on this bag (below). Can't beat the price. I kept this one for myself. Very roomy. Too roomy in fact. Which lead to me buying the next bag(s) as my gift(s). In fact, I ordered three.

These are lunch bags. I thought I was going to like the brown handled ones best. But these were made to roll the top edge over a couple times to secure the Velcro. This is just awkward. I ended up taking them apart, attaching the velcro at the bag's top edge, and moving the handle higher. Yes, a lot of messing around. I did it for the two brown handled bags I had already ordered, below. Not ordering any more of this style. It is the third picture (below) that I love.

I had also ordered this third bag, because I loved the picture. I did not think I would like the style of the bag, but I really  did. Very good handle for little hands. There is velcro at the top to hold everything in the bag. The bag is actually very roomy.  I ended up using this bag as my Baptism gift  this past weekend. My RCIA sponsor's daughter had a baby over the summer. We (husband, middle, middle's boy, and I) went to the Baptism and then back to their house for an Open House. 

This is the first thing I put in my gift bag this weekend -

 I do not think any of my kids had these type of magnet sets, so it was a totally new to me idea from the comments on my original post. The tin box is 6" x 8 1/2" x 1" so it is a very nice size for a church bag.

I also put this lacing set in my gift bag this weekend -

Ordered these lacing shapes (Noah's Ark theme, so still church related). This was in comments too, I think. And also in my inspiration bag. I think I was picturing heavy felt, for some reason, looking at the Amazon listing. It is very nice, durable, strong, firm plastic. Very easy to hold and lace. The aglets (or eiglets) are nice and long, for easy stringing. Really nice set.

 I also put this little set of books in my gift.

Other books sets I have ordered and now have on hand for Baptism Church Quiet Bags -

These (below) are all board books. I found them at used book stores and garage sales. These are in my bag (that I am keeping, now you know why I kept the big bag).

These first two are most definitely Catholic. 

Second set of two clearly Catholic also.

Patricia Pingry has some really excellent board books. These are not Catholic books (per se) but I really like what she does.

 These two are also not Catholic. Youngest went through them at the bookstore and said that there was nothing in them that was confusing, and we loved some of the pictures. So we were very pleased to add them to our little collection.

These are just sort of universal themes. And they 'go' with my Noah's Ark magnet set.  

I can see having several sets of themed stuff which is switched out regularly to keep the bag fresh and interesting. I would not load my bag with all of these things at the same time, but mix them regularly.





I have my eye on these last three magnet sets (below). I think they would be great additions. I am making note of them here. BUT I think they are too big to fit in the lunch size bags. They would have to go in the big bag. -

To give you an idea of the (larger) proportion of the bag I kept for myself -

These are the items I included in the Baptism gift this weekend, I just put them in the smaller lunch bag with the exact same picture. And there was plenty of room in that bag for a lot more things.

And two more items (below) I noticed. Not for my Church Bags, but as good gift ideas for small children for religious events.

Rosary

A nicer copy is here.

Netflix has really changed how we watch things, even on regular TV

Oldest and I were talking yesterday (phone, he is in grad school on east coast).

Several years ago the girls and I started watching Fringe. Cannot remember if it was DVD's through Netflix or the library or if it was on demand or what. I think it was a very long time ago.

And we loved it. We only got a season or two into the series when oldest said the series went downhill for the rest of the seasons. So we stopped watching.

Yesterday oldest said he had downtime over the weekend and was watching Fringe. I think he said he started back at the beginning. And he said he stood corrected. He said watching it all together, it was most excellent and the plot line was creative, tight, sophisticated. He said little things were all woven together, all the way through the seasons, which he missed the first time watching one episode a week, and only watching part way through the series.

He said it ranked between Stargate and Star Trek, both beloved at our house.

In having this discussion we talked about how we really cannot stand to watch a series, one episode a week, any more. We like to emerse ourselves in a series and watch only that series, from start to finish.

For things like American Idol, America's Got Talent, The Voice - I let them pile on the DVR and we watch Netflix style.

So we might watch all of the chair turn auditions, back to back over several days, during The Voice season. And then let the face to face part of the competition accumulate and watch all of it, consecutively.

Sing-off which is a very short accapella competition, the girls and I recorded all of it and watched Netflix style when we all had free time.

I blink (special button on remote that skips a set amount, I keep it set at 1 minute) through the commercials for all recorded shows. So I NEVER see any commercials.

I increased our Netflix subscription from 2 to 4. So four TV's, anywhere in country, can be on our subscription at the same time.

Neither oldest nor middle has cable TV, they only watch Netfix or on line.

And we only have ONE TV hooked up to cable at home these days.

Youngest has Netflix running on her laptop as background while she does certain kinds of homework.

All three of those kids have a tough academic year. I want them to be able to get on, when they need to get on.

Plus, middle and her boy watch a lot (Dexter and Twighlight Zone series currently, I am going to tell them to try Fringe next) as date night when they are together. They live in same college town, but do not have much free time because of full class loads. When they have time to watch, together, I want them to be able to get on easily.

Husband watches on Eliptical daily.

And I watch in streaks - when I am in my little room under the stairs sewing, which is kind of like a background/company thing, or when I REALLY can't sleep, I watch on my iPad in bed. Normally I only watch TV, with my husband, in the evenings. Those other two are exceptions.

TV is a release, relaxation thing for all of us. And as long as everyone is getting what they are supposed to be doing, done, I have no issues with it, personally.

"He believes people are generally better off choosing to be part of a lesser known organization where they have a greater chance of standing out."

My brother is listening or reading David and Goliath right now.

I got a text from him yesterday saying the book talks about what I have always said about not letting a kid go to a college where they just barely get in and are at the bottom of the class.

I found this in my email inbox this morning. (I put the text from the link in comments, in case the link disappears over time).

My card box

I looked back a couple years and did not see a picture of my card box posted. I can't remember what year I did this, so it might be a repeat.



We keep empty bins in the attic. I am talking about plastic storage bins with lids. Our life with bins changes. Sometimes bins are still good, but are no longer needed or have been replaced. I KEEP those outdated bins, because they almost always come in handy again.



My cards were stored in a bin, in no particular order up until a few years ago. Just piled in a bin. If you needed a card, you had to dig. Envelopes had gotten separated from their matching card. A mess.

One day I decided the "no order" part was really bugging me, probably after I bought a card only to discover later that I had one for the same occasion.



I would not say I use cards a lot. But I do use them on occasion.

I might have bought a storage bin to reorganize the cards, but I think I actually found the perfect one in the attic.

I also already had the hanging file folders.

I remember sitting upstairs, watching TV one night, sorting cards, finding matching envelopes, and making my box.

You can tell we are Catholic from this box. Of the seven sacraments, I have file folders for four.

Seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders.

Interesting fact - Last Rites has been replaced as Anointing of the Sick. I do have sympathy cards, but I didn't count that as part of my four.




Every card in the box is with its matching envelope. The envelope file has extra envelopes.



Everyone in my house now uses this file box. It lives in the cupboards in our computer room. Extremely handy.




If I buy a cards, in advance, for a specific person/event, I use a bulldog clip to attach it to the right page on my big calendar that hangs on the refrigerator. Right now there are two birthday cards there, for upcoming months.




I also bulldog clip tickets to calendar pages. We go to a lot of events. A lot of tickets come through this house. If anyone needs them, that is where they always are.