So far, this has been a November much like many other Novembers; somewhat busy, but overall a nice breather between the pressure-cooker holidays that are Halloween and Christmas. The weather has turned fabulous, and the outdoor festivals are starting to proliferate, as is common during the Arizona winters. One of the big festivals in our part of Pima County is the annual (as of a few years ago) Sahuarita Pecan Festival, an event run by the local Green Valley Pecan Company, a large orchard not far from our home.
There's quite a lot to do and see at the festival; games, displays, merchant booths, tractor pulls, music, and lots of food (including pecans, of course!). It's your standard fall festival, with a nice nutty flavor. I have to admit I was never a huge fan of pecans growing up, but I have started to really enjoy eating them in a variety of dishes. Yummy, yummy pecans...
But I digress! Since it was a lovely Saturday in early November, I decided to take the girls to the Pecan Festival for a few hours to have some fun. Last year, Lorelai and I participated in the family "fun run" that is also a big part of the Pecan Festival. We really wanted to do the run again this year, but after our exhausting October, we didn't manage to get registered in time. Hopefully we can find another family fun run and do it later on in the year.
Despite not doing the run, we were still happy to bring the other girls along to the festival this time. We wanted to share the fun with everyone this year, and luckily everyone enjoyed themselves.
We spent almost all our time in the free kid's section of the festival. There were several activities for the kids to try, including some inflatable mazes...
...and slides (check out Celeste's face as she goes down the slide!).
One corner of the kid's area was a small enclosed area where several Arabian horses were being displayed. They were gorgeous horses and the girls were excited to meet one.
The Arabians were for petting only; however, in the other corner of the kids' area, there were some ponies available to ride on.
Right next door to the pony rides was a petting zoo, where Aurora ended up spending most of the morning. She loved following the ducks around, petting baby chicks, and staring in awe at the goats and the donkey.
A local Boy Scout troop had also set up a handmade "bridge" for the kids to walk across.
It took some time and some balance adjustments, but overall the girls handled it well.
There were a few more "hard-core" activities for kids to try, as well. Celeste and Lorelai were both enticed by the climbing wall. Lorelai ultimately decided against it however, when she realized just how high she would have to climb. Maybe she got a touch of vertigo? Celeste, however, was still game to try:
She was so excited she could barely restrain herself from squealing in glee. However, her hand-eye coordination proved to be her undoing on the wall:
Sadly, this picture shows the sum total of Celeste's ascension up the wall. She couldn't hang on; she had trouble gripping the handholds and was always scared to move her feet up the wall. She was a little discouraged when she came "back to earth" (which was just a few feet down), but I told her I was still proud of her for making the attempt. Maybe she will have more success in future years.
Lorelai was bound and determined to take a spin in the centrifuge ball that was located next to the climbing wall.
Unfortunately, since only two people fit into the ball at a time, she had to wait so long. Like, almost an hour. She was bored & frustrated, and the sun was in her eyes, and she complained a lot. I felt really bad for her, since her sisters got to run around and do several activities during this time, while Lorelai could only wait and wait and wait. But it was good to teach her a little patience, I think.
At last, though, her time arrived! And she almost chickened out.
Look at the fear in those eyes! She remained in her seat, though, and when the ball started spinning, she really enjoyed herself. All I could see was her white-blond hair flailing around in the air. And she never once screamed in terror, because to do so would be to incur Celeste's mocking.
Success! She was walking a little funny at the end, but overall Lorelai said it was worth the wait. The best part? A photographer from the local newspaper snapped a few pictures of her ride, and the following week, we found a picture of her in the paper! All we could see of her was the aforementioned flailing blond hair, but her name was in the photo caption! She gloated the whole rest of the day about her new-found fame.
By this time, we had to leave the festival and start heading back to the shuttle station, since I had another activity that afternoon. Due to nearby road construction, there was nowhere to park at the festival, so we had to ride a school bus over from the nearby high school. The girls, unsurprisingly, loved that.
But on our way out, we stopped by the rope-making booth, one of Lorelai's favorite places from the previous year's festival!
It was really neat to see how rope is made, and Celeste and Aurora each got their own section of rope to play with however they wished. We briefly considered stopping for some free ice cream on the way back to the shuttle (ice cream topped with pecans, no less!), but they ran out just as we walked up to the booth. It was probably a sign from above that we didn't need the extra sugar.
So the girls had to settle for hugs from this giant, sort of creepy squirrel, who was apparently the mascot of the festival. The girls weren't really sure of him at first, but he turned out to be harmless.
So that was about it for our day! I attended a friend's wedding shower for a friend that afternoon, and the kids stayed inside and relaxed after being out in the sun all morning (and getting somewhat rosy-cheeked in the process). The Pecan Festival probably won't be our last outdoor event this winter, but it was a nice way to start the season of nice weather in Arizona.
Now that our family's Halloween costumes were all designed, and now that all our pumpkins were purchased, it was time to get our Halloween "groove" on, by attending several parties & events (not counting the ones I've already blogged about. Good heavens, the end of October is so busy!)
I've already blogged about the girls' costumes, so no need to rehash that. Nathan decided to forgo dressing up this year (as he usually does, but no big deal). As for myself, I had two "quasi-costumes" this year, that I wore to different events. The first was my "nerd" costume, in which I threw on a little of everything genre-related that I had laying around.
The cape was from Salt Lake City Comic Con, which my mother had attended earlier this year. Thanks Mom!
I even made myself a "totally legit" Comic Con badge! I only wore the Iron Man mask on the top of my head, though; it's kind of hard to breathe in that thing.
We took our costumes on their "maiden voyage" on Friday the 24th, when we had multiple Halloween parties to attend. First, we all stopped by my friend Cindy's house; she had planned a "carnival-style" party for kids (although adults were also welcome, either in or out of costume!).
The party was lots of fun; it had lots of games, booths, & activities. One of the young women from our LDS ward even made balloon animals for everyone.
The kids all loved showing off their costumes, and admiring all their friends' costumes too.
Aurora with some of her buddies: Taylor (on left) and Ava (center)
In fact, there was a costume contest at the party as well...and Lorelai's Ninja Turtle costume won best costume in the girl's category! She got a little basket full of goodies and prizes, and she was very excited. I was happy for her, and also a teeny bit proud of my sweet-costume making skills.
Here's Lorelai with her friend Conner, who won best costume in the boy category. He came dressed as Baymax from Disney's latest animated movie Big Hero 6
I suspect Cindy being a fellow Ninja Turtles fan (she dressed as a turtle for Halloween herself!) helped Lorelai's chances, but who were we to complain about that?
Celeste was only able to stay at "Ms. Cindy's" party for a few minutes; after that, she zoomed off with her friend Cambry to their Girl Scout Halloween party across town.
I wasn't able to attend the party myself, but Celeste raved about it afterwards (she got a ton of food). Cambry's mother Marissa was kind enough to lend me this picture of the party. I thought it was kind of adorable that the "girliest" of my daughters was the only girl at that party dressed up as a "tough" character...she was a ninja surrounded by princesses! But they all looked very cute anyway.
After picking Celeste up from her party, we ran several errands around town, then went home and frantically scrubbed everyone's hair (too much hair dye this Halloween week, yech!).
The following Monday, we spent our family home evening night by driving around looking at spookily decorated Halloween houses. One house in particular, in a neighborhood north of us, had a full light & sound show set up; we watched for several minutes as the front-yard displays blinked and flashed in time with Danny Elfman music. It was great fun. Then, the following night, we decided to finally carve those pumpkins we'd spent the last couple of weeks picking up:
Not our most creative work, but not bad! I have come to the conclusion that I'm not a genius pumpkin-carver, but as long as they have a well-defined face and the kids are happy with the way it looks, I consider it a job well done.
From left to right: Celeste's, Lorelai's, and Aurora's jack o'lanterns
The following night (October 29th) was our LDS ward's annual Halloween get-together. Formany yearsnow, the activity has been mostly kid-centered, with small carnival games followed by a trunk or treat. This year, though, our ward finally changed things up a bit (thank goodness! Nathan and I have grown weary of the noisy carnival games year after year). Instead of the games, our ward had a chili cook-off dinner, so everyone would at least get some nutritious food inside them before filling up on candy. It made the activity a little more "all-inclusive."
And there was a flash mob set to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," so that was another delightful new addition. Our bishop even got up and strutted his stuff!
I spent much of that afternoon decorating our car's trunk (it was festooned with spiderwebs and glowing spider "egg sacs,")...and of course I forgot to take a picture of it. Oh well, it still looked cooler than it ever has before! There was actually a prize awarded this year for most creative trunk, but I never stood a chance...there are many families in the ward a lot more creative than I am. I was still pleased with my final product, though; I even took the "egg sacs" I'd made and hung them in our front yard afterwards, to add to our home's Halloween creepiness.
You can...kind of(?) see those egg sacs hanging from the roof. Kind of.
There were still more Halloween hijinks on Thursday; Aurora's preschool class held their Halloween party, and everyone came in costume! The kids all sang us a few songs and showed off their hand-made masks.
They also built cute little "Halloween houses"; they were a spooky version of the graham-cracker "gingerbread houses" kids build at Christmas time.
Aurora loved her Halloween house so much, she just leaned into it and started munching away!
Show Mommy how the piggies eat
Other than that, the only Halloween-themed activities that day revolved around our getting the house ready for our own Halloween party, which was to be held the next afternoon. We stayed home and watched a Halloween movie (Coraline, already a family favorite after just discovering it last year). While watching, we put together some small Halloween crafts, and set up the house to receive our guests the following afternoon.
Before we could have a party at our house, though, the kids had a half-day at school on Halloween. That meant it was time for the annual Halloween parade, when the girls got to show off their costumes to all the other kids. They were all very excited.
Aurora got to march in the parade a bit with her sisters
After this half-day, we had a little time to crash at home; then, it was time to make final preparations for our party!
There ended up being a lot more food than this
For many years, I'd hoped to throw a huge Halloween party at our house. When I was eight or nine years old, my parents threw a huge Halloween party; we made a haunted house in our basement, served a ton of food, and built many happy memories (like some of our friends running from the house screaming; it was awesome!). Anyway, since Halloween fell on a Friday this year, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to invite a large crowd, serve tons of food, and have a bunch of games & activities.
But I ended up scaling back on that idea, for several reasons. First and most important, the death ofmy father-in-law left our family exhausted emotionally and physically; I just wasn't up to throwing a gigantic party. Secondly, it seemed like a lot of other people had the same idea we had! There were a lot of parties going on that night, throughout the whole neighborhood. In addition, the local high school had its Homecoming game on Halloween night, so there were even more teens than usual out and about. It was a very happening Halloween night, and my party was just a drop in the bucket.
So, I ended up scaling it down somewhat and making it a simple "pre-trick-or-treat potluck." I still made some food (and provided the yummy "witches' brew" punch in the pictures above), but everyone else brought goodies too. The older kids got to watch the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas upstairs, the adults ate food and visited downstairs, and the young kids got to make a simple Halloween craft and run about underfoot.
Not as many people came as I had originally expected, but we still had a good crowd, and they brought great food! It turned out to be more enjoyable than it might have been, had I stressed out over the planning of a bigger party. It took me most of the next day to clean, but it was worth it.
Finally...after all the build-up over the last week...and after all our party guests had left...it was go time!
Booyakasha! (That's the new Turtles' battle cry)
And by "go," I mean "trick-or-treat time." As you can see, I went as a "ninja turtle (sort of)" for Halloween. True, Lorelai and I both went as Michelangelo...but he's my favorite Turtle, and I wasn't about to get a different Turtle's T-shirt just so Lorelai and I could be coordinated for one night!
Here's what our house looked like on Halloween night, just in time for trick-or-treaters
Our own neighborhood was a little on the quiet side, but we drove around and explored several neighborhoods throughout the evening. The neighborhood north of us had constructed a "haunted bridge" (really a walkway over a wash). The homeowners covered the whole thing with tarp, installed a bunch of scary hanging monsters and strobe lights, and let kids wander through for free. My girls must have run across the haunted bridge a dozen times, giggling all the while.
Later that night, when trick-or-treating was done (and Aurora had been taken home and put to bed), Lorelai, Celeste, and myself headed out to check out a few of the most spooky houses in our town. One home even had a full "haunted" house set up (complete with strobe lights, full decor, and plenty of costumed actors), with donations for the Make A Wish Foundation being accepted in lieu of an entrance fee.
All through October, Lorelai had been begging me to go to a real haunted house...as in, a professionally run haunted house, featuring real actors and sets, and real scares! Besides sounding very expensive (some of those haunted houses cost a pretty penny), I was unconvinced my sweet, still-young daughters could handle that kind of adrenaline rush. I know this sounds odd, but I'm actually glad some houses went all-out on their Halloween decorations. It gave my daughters an opportunity to test their mettle in a place closer to home, less threatening, and cheaper. It also gave me a chance to observe how they react to scary, haunted-house type stuff. Perhaps when they're teenagers, I'll consider letting them have a go at a professional haunted house...until then, I hope these "little" scares will satisfy their adrenaline cravings.
That Make A Wish haunted house I mentioned? They ran through it five times each. By the end, all the costumed "creeps" inside were high-fiving them and the girls were giggling with delight. In another neighborhood, they were mesmerized by a haunted garage, which featured talking body bags, leaping spiders, and all manner of gory decor. They stayed and watched it for about 15 minutes; they were fascinated by it, even if they were scared.
I don't know what to think about my girls' taste for the gruesome...does it mean I'm making them numb to spiritual things? Am I encouraging them in cultivating unhealthy appetites? Is it just a phase they are going through? Maybe it's too early to tell. However, seeing them brave their way through a haunted house, then go back for more, tells me that at least my girls like to face their fears and do their best to overcome them. Maybe that is ultimately a good thing; hopefully they can take that skill and apply it outside of a Halloween setting. I hope I can encourage them in that.
You may not realize this about me, but I am a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Like, way more of a fan than any grown mature woman should be. I faithfully watched the 80s/90s cartoon for many years in my youth. I drew ninja turtles in my notebooks. I *may* have written fan-fiction about the Turtles in years past. I watched all the live-action movies from the 90s many, many times (in fact, they were one of my first rentals from Netflix, back when we started our service a decade ago!). I also watched quite a bit of the 2003 cartoon reboot, although not as faithfully as the original cartoon (I was a "responsible" adult by then and didn't have as much time for Saturday morning cartoons).
from moviepilot.com
Why do I love the Turtles so much? Heck if I know, but I have a few guesses. I have a bit of a soft spot for martial arts shows (I went through a Jackie Chan phase in high school, for instance), and I love seeing cool ninja action...especially in a goofy sci-fi setting, since I also love goofy sci-fi. I always enjoyed the self-aware weirdness of the Ninja Turtles cartoons; the original cartoon, in particular, was fully aware of its wacky, off-the-wall premise, and it embraced its own silliness. It was one of the first shows I ever watched that often "broke the fourth wall" to make fun of itself, and I really enjoy that sort of self-deprecating, "meta" sense of humor. And at the end of the day, the Turtles themselves (when done right) are cool characters, who are fun to watch and root for. They have a nice brotherly bond that manages to ground all the goofiness in something more meaningful.
I haven't paid much attention to the Turtle franchise in many years, since my girls were babies. But then, in a hotel one night, I caught an episode of the Turtle's newest incarnation: a computer-animated series shown on Nickelodeon. I was mildly interested, but not very. I found the new animation style unattractive & off-putting, and I thought some of the changes made to the plot & characters were odd (for example, the Turtles' friend April O'Neill has been "de-aged" into a teenager in this version, which makes for some startling romantic tension). Mostly, I thought my "girly girls" wouldn't really be interested in a sci-fi martial arts action show.
Fast-forward a year and a half. My girls are a little bit older and more interested in finding new shows to watch. At the same time, I have more time to myself during the day since the girls are gone at school much of the time. On a whim, I decided to check out the DVDs of the Nickelodeon Ninja Turtle show from our local library. I can't help myself, I guess. And what do you know...I was pleasantly surprised by how clever & fun this new show is. It did take me a while to get used to the animation style (which still looks pretty cheap at times). However, I soon got over the design aesthetic when I realized how great the voice actors were...and how well the show understood and developed all the characters...and how funny the jokes often were. I also enjoyed the ongoing plot arcs, something the original series never had. It's a very lighthearted show most of the time, but the action scenes can be surprisingly intense, and it's not afraid to "get dark" when the situation calls for it. It's far from a perfect show, but it's a show that caters well to both kids and their geeky parents (many of whom are previous-generation fans like myself).
Here's what the Turtles & April O'Neill look like in the new show; from thecredhulk.com
And to my delight, my girls ate this show up. After sitting through a couple of straight years of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (to be fair, not a terrible show), Littlest Pet Shop, Ever After High, Barbie, and the like, watching a "boy cartoon" (especially one with half a brain) was a blessed relief for my sanity (I'm kind of a tomboy, in case you couldn't tell). Who knew my girls would like a show with ninjas fighting human ninjas, robot ninjas, mutants, and alien invaders? Best yet, I could watch the show with them and enjoy it! Another thing the Nickelodeon incarnation has going for it is a (slightly) more prominent cast of female characters. There is also more romance in the show; more than one turtle has a "crush" on a female character, and my girls love the dimension that adds to the show. The romance (usually) doesn't overwhelm the plot, but it's enough for my romantically minded girls to appreciate it.
So, long story short, I now have a house full of Ninja Turtle fans. Hooray! Even Nathan says he wouldn't mind watching the show someday. Good thing, since I plan on buying all the available DVDs for the kids this Christmas. I've already gotten Season One, with Season Two on the way at the end of the month.
And to tie this all back to my family, I was very surprised that all my girls chose to be characters from Ninja Turtles this Halloween. After the movie Frozen was such a big hit last fall, I thought for sure one of my princess-loving girls would want to dress up as Elsa or Anna (heaven knows, the rest of America seemed to have that idea; I saw little Elsa's and Anna's everywhere this Halloween!). But good on my girls for wanting to be something different!
The only problem: I'd vowed to make all my girls' Halloween costumes this year. Last year, I bought Lorelai & Celeste their costumes from Party City, and it put me back more than a few dollars. I'd vowed not to do the same thing two years in a row, and I assumed they'd want to be a witch...or a princess...or a mummy (as Lorelai had originally claimed), which involved toilet paper or some equally cheap fabric. Imagine my dismay when they said they wanted to be ninja turtles...I initially worried that my sewing/crafty skills were not up to this challenge.
Luckily, my job was made easier by a few things. First, only Lorelai actually wanted to be a turtle. She chose Michelangelo...hooray! Mikey was always my favorite. Celeste and Aurora both chose female characters from the show. Celeste chose Karai, Shredder's adopted daughter with a mysterious past (who also happens to be an awesome ninja). Aurora wanted to be April O'Neill, who is also in training to be a ninja (at least in the current Nick cartoon).
Another thing that made me breathe easier was that Jasmine, a friend of mine (who is a better seamstress than I am) had made her daughter Alissa a turtle costume for Halloween last year...and she'd made a stuffed "turtle shell" that Lorelai was able to borrow. The shell was the part of the costume I'd been the most worried about, so that was a huge load off my mind.
From that point on, much of my October consisted of buying up costume supplies. Some of the "supplies" were regular articles of clothing, and some supplies were from Hobby Lobby & other craft store, including colored duct tape, felt, and fabric glue. In the end, I'm not sure I ended up spending a whole lot less this year than last year; but at least I had fun putting the costumes together.
Here's Lorelai's Michelangelo costume, complete with "extreme" hero pose. After getting hold of the shell, this costume actually turned out to be pretty easy to put together. I bought a green sweatshirt and green sweatpants, and then "padded" the elbows, knees, wrists & ankles with brown duct tape. I made the plastron (a turtle's "breastplate") out of a larger piece of yellow felt that I cut out and embellished somewhat, then glued to the shirt. I made the orange mask out of felt as well; cutting the eyeholes out turned out to be the hardest part of the whole costume.
I completed the look with some plastic nunchakus from Walmart, as well as some green hairspray. Originally, Lorelai wanted to shave her head, and paint herself completely green. Yikes...that's commitment! Luckily we talked her out of it and she settled for the hairspray. I hadn't anticipated her fair blond hair retaining so much of the color, though...as of today (6 days after Halloween) her hair still has a distinct greenish tinge. Lorelai actually likes the green though...I suspect it makes her feel "punk."
Celeste's costume ended up being a little more complicated than I anticipated. Here's what Karai looks like on the Nick show:
From TMNTpedia.com
Obviously, I wasn't going to bob her hair and dye it (I actually tried two different "yellow" hairspray cans for Celeste, and neither of them showed up well on her hair). I ended up putting her hair in a tight bun and calling it a day.
It was easy enough to find black leggings & a black long-sleeved shirt; that could have been automatic "ninja garb," but Karai has silver armor all over the top of her leotard. I ended up cutting out almost two dozen pieces of gray felt & "armoring" Celeste's top and bottom. When all was said and done, she had some trouble bending her arms. I didn't want to look for black flip-flops at this point in the year, so Celeste just wore black socks & black Sunday shoes to complete the look.
After that, we borrowed a plastic "ninja sword" from a friend, and I copied Karai's severe eye makeup by looking at pictures online. I thought my sweet girly girl actually looked pretty bad-ass, when all was said and done. The only drawback to her costume? Not everyone has seen the new Ninja Turtle cartoon, and so most people don't know who Karai is. Poor Celeste kept having to explain her costume to everyone, and she was complaining about that after a while. Otherwise, she seemed pretty happy with her look.
Aurora's April O'Neill costume was probably the simplest to assemble, since only one article of clothing needed any modification. I was able to find a black long-sleeved shirt and black leggings easily; I borrowed some old jean shorts from Aurora's drawer; I found the right color of T-shirt and some cute black boots at a discount clothes store; and I even found a yellow headband in our drawer upstairs! After that, all I needed to do was add striping and a large number "5" to the yellow T-shirt.
I also needed to make "April" a fan. In the new cartoon, April is not just a teenager...she is also a novice ninja-in-training. She chooses this fan as her weapon. It's a metal fan with a sharp edge, but it also happens to have a pretty design in the middle. Here's what it looks like in the show:
from de.tmnt.wikia.com
It was easy to find the right piece of old cardboard and paint it:
Aurora thought the fan looked awesome, and spent the next week or two "attacking" people with it.
I was getting kind of jealous of the girls' "ninja" costumes, so for my birthday, I decided to treat myself and buy a couple of Ninja Turtle-themed T-shirts...thus proclaiming to the world that I am a gigantic nerd (as if there was any doubt). The first shirt I wore as part of my "nerd" costume, that I wore to our church trunk-or-treat and to another party:
Me, embracing the weird
The second shirt was more obviously a "turtle" shirt, so I wore that one for Halloween itself, so I could best match the girls when we went trick-or-treating:
Don't we all look awesome? I'm not sure I'll be able to make costumes every Halloween, but I'm glad I had the chance to make some costumes for a property I love anyway; it got me more invested in their outcome. All the girls were happy with their looks, and in the end that was the most important thing. Next blog post, we'll show them off in action!
