Conversations I'm tired of having:

If you're online a lot, there's a lot of conversations that just go round and round, without resolution because we are all inherently stubborn. Here's an example: 

Christians who don't "do" Halloween. 

I'm not talking about "celebrating". I'm talking about the contingent of people, probably all Christians, who refuse to acknowledge Halloween. 

Now, you will never find a bigger party pooper than me. I don't like Costumed Events, as we can call them. I am not creative. I'm not confident of my appearance or decision when it comes to choosing costumes. I have dressed up like four times in my adult life. Halloween at school is my least favorite thing. In fact, I loved my one district that just refused to do it: Halloween was for at home, not at school. But that's a whole separate conversation. 

I'm talking about the parents who take their last stand believing that doing Halloween as a family is evil. They believe they are opening the doors to hell by attending a trunk or treat or letting their kids dress up as Spiderman and Elsa. Like just the very act of acknowledging Halloween is sinful and a testament to the depravity of our fallen world or whatever. 

And I get that. 

Many even choose to do Reformation Day instead and, honestly, if I knew anything about Reformation Day, I might do the same. 

But here's the thing: refusing to let your kids dress up in a costume or pass out candy to friends isn't going to move the needle in your parenting journey. It's going to likely just create a weird divide you have to explain to your small child.

I went through this too, thinking that I wasn't going to do Halloween with my kids. See, because I don't care about Halloween one way or the other, it would've been really easy to be like We're not doing Halloween. But when did I care about Halloween? When I was a kid. I dressed up in costumes and went to parties and trick-or-treated for years....and I am not a devil worshipper as an adult. If we're being generous, I'm totally indifferent on Halloween. So taking a walk on the side of reality would let us see that Halloween is simply a fun tradition for kids. I'm not looking at it deeper than that. 

If your neighborhood has all those weird scary decorations, eh. I don't like that. But carving pumpkins and corn mazes and costumes and trick-or-treating are core childhood memories. I remember Halloween parties my mom did when I was a kid. I remember parties and parades at school. I remember trick-or-treating. I remember all my costumes. It's really fun for kids. 

Over the last few years, my kids have done parties at school and we did trunk-or-treat at Scott's unit. This year, with no school and no unit, I took them to Boo at the Zoo with friends and we'll trick-or-treat in the neighborhood on Friday. 

Here's my plan: for years, we've had no trick-or-treaters because we've lived in the country. This year, I'm going to just leave a container of treat bags on the porch with a sign and the light on. They can take one, they can take them all, I don't care. I'm assuming we'll just walk the block. 

But what I've wanted to do for years was to hand out gospel tracts. I've just never had a chance. This year, I started thinking about the best way to facilitate that. I started looking online for something I could print out and put in a treat bag. Nothing. Nothing that was free was cute. Anything cute had to be ordered from Etsy or something. No thanks. I had an idea, based on something I heard on a podcast years ago. So I made my own. 

I put this file into my Teachers Pay Teachers for anyone to download for free, mostly because I was so annoyed that I couldn't find what I wanted online. I want it available to everyone if you want something to hand out as well! 

It's not fancy or long, but it's super basic and that's what the point is: the less the wording, the more likely it will be read. 

Of all the things to make your last stand on as a parent, I just don't think taking the Christian position of "Halloween is all bad and we refuse to acknowledge it" is the best use of your time. 

The hill I chose last night, for example, was to make Wells stay up late cleaning his room because his little friends came over and destroyed the place. And then he created this out of pipe cleaners:

We have bigger problems, as parents, than costumes on Halloween. 

#Orange #Halloween Buffalo Chicken Dip

I'm just putting a few descriptors in the title because this would be perfect for a themed dinner this week. Some people feel really passionately about daylight savings time. That doesn't bother me either way. I, instead, feel really passionate about the day-placement of Halloween. Halloween should be on the last Friday of October, not on the 31st. The unpredictability of what day it'll land on and downright cruelness of it happening on a Tuesday is almost too much to bear. 

As for us, there are very few things I insist on for each holiday as the kids get older (well, as Wells gets older...Sutton doesn't understand holidays yet). 

For Halloween: one trip to a pumpkin patch, one experience of painting or carving pumpkins, one baking project, and one trunk-or-treat. We knocked all that out either this weekend or before this weekend, which means I can pretend Halloween already happened. We do have school parties/parades on Tuesday, which is fine I guess because the costumes get another wear but in no universe am I taking small children trick-or-treating in the dark and cold on a school night. This brings me back to the Friday thing. The idea of multiple trick/trunk-or-treats, multiple parties, multiple parades spaced out over two weeks...again, too much to bear. 

If you are trying to make your random Tuesday more festive, I bet you already have these ingredients in the fridge. 

EASY Buffalo Chicken Dip

1 cup cooked, shredded chicken (I used rotisserie from the store but you could do a chicken breast in a slow cooker with some ranch seasoning sprinkled on it.)

1 block (8 oz) cream cheese, softened (I used neufchatel.) 

1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce

1/2 cup sour cream 

1/2 cup ranch dressing (I am anti HV ranch in liquid form. I used CFA ranch dressing.)

1/2 cup shredded cheddar for the top (optional)

Using a hand-mixer, blend everything together until creamy and combined. Spread into a dish, sprinkle the cheddar cheese on the top, and bake for 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees, until bubbly. Broil the top if you want some texture/color.

Serve with tortilla chips, carrots, and celery. 

Halloween-ish 2022

I'm not a Halloween person. Figuring out and putting a costume together is my nightmare. Halloween doesn't need to be scary; that's scary enough for me. Kids love it though. We did a costume when Wells was about 3 months old, I bought one in 2019 because I thought it was cute, and we skipped a costume in 2020 because we had just moved and we lived in the country and he didn't know any better. Last year, we did a trunk or treat for the first time ever. This year, we went back. These are at Scott's work, so the effort part is minimal for me. Half the effort of Halloween is finding out where and when to go. Wells doesn't do Halloween at school. Pretending "Halloween" is the day of trunk-or-treat has been really great the last two years. 

With all that in mind, I don't go all-out for Halloween. It's an -ish holiday around here. In fact, Wells was a ghost last year and wanted to be a ghost again this year. Done. I asked him if the baby should be a pumpkin or a bat. He said pumpkin. Done and done. 

Obviously, of course, trunk or treat was around naptime. 

I washed the ghost costume and put it away for next year. He might be too tall though, so I don't think I'll get three years out of it. We'll save it for Sutton. 

3 on Friday + Halloween and funnies

1. Halloween.

And blurry because he wouldn't stop moving:

2. Padded fireplace. I saw a friend's dangerous stone fireplace, which is very similar to ours, covered with these foam pads. I had a set I bought last winter when Wells was first learning to push himself up to sitting and I didn't know what to expect. I used that mat for all of 3 weeks before I realized it was a waste of time/space. It's been sitting in the basement, piled up ever since, and I couldn't even give it away because these things aren't *that* expensive and everyone seems to have a set.
So, I chopped it up to fit our stone fireplace ledge. And then I taped the fireplace doors shut because his favorite this to do is climb up there and open the doors. It doesn't fit seamlessly but it'll do the job. My friend's fit better at her house because they have carpet. It doesn't go quite as snugly against a wood floor. But his play yard is still up against it so it works for us.

3. Wild Fable leggings. I grabbed a black pair at Target two weeks ago while visiting family, and they are perfect. The right thickness, high-waisted (but they don't strangle you), and ankle-length. I ordered a gray camo pair online when I couldn't find them at my local Target the other day. And they're only $14! I'd like to meet the fool (IRL) who pays $100 for a pair of leggings.


Funny things.

This. The "industrial farmhouse" trend is hopefully a decorating style that goes away quickly. The only thing that bothers me more than industrial farmhouse is mid-century furniture.

And this is slightly amusing to me: Scott took a picture of me operating the dump trailer, while unloading a bunch of construction debris a few weeks ago. Proof that I do work, I suppose. 

I haven't used that since Colorado...probably two years ago. 

So, who is decorating for Christmas this weekend?

Linking up for Friday Favorites!

Friday Favorites

1. Not dressing up for Halloween. Sometimes I have to think broadly to find some favorites from the week, but this is easy. I never hated Halloween and I think it's a great holiday for kids actually...it lets them be creative, there's cute games and movies that go along with it, and they can celebrate it with their friends. It's very much a kid-friendly holiday. HOWEVER...it wasn't until I started teaching in Colorado that, all of a sudden, teachers had to participate. I never dressed up in Alaska (if I did, it was a cowboy hat or a tiara or something) and in Missouri, they didn't do Halloween at my school.
In Colorado, each team of teachers had to have a theme for their costumes and they were judged on it. This gave me crippling anxiety...I don't know why. Each year, my coworker bought or made my costume for me and I just paid her for it. Minions, Power Rangers, Pac Man. It's a complete WASTE of a school week, to be honest, if Halloween falls in the middle of the week. If teachers complain about kids being "off", they totally did this to themselves. If anything, make it a 1 hour party in the afternoon and keep the rest of the day the same. But in my last building, the entire day was devoted to parades and parties and an assembly. What. a waste.

Whew. It's kind of nice that I can say this now.

Halloween is the worst, an article. If you care to read.

2. However, dressing up Wells was fun. The dogs decided to not cooperate, but oh well. I've never successfully gotten them to wear a costume so this year was no different.

3. As Wells gets heavier, so does the carseat. I found this video on how to carry a carseat without, essentially, killing your arm. It does work.

4. We went out for wings last night and I'd show you a picture but we have this rule about no phones out at restaurants and I made Scott put his away. But the wings were good and Wells enjoyed watching ESPN from the hanging TV. We'll go back.

5. On Wednesday, I had to choose between creating something for Teachers Pay Teachers and doing Pilates during naptime. I chose to create. This is a fiction book review project. It's based off of something that I used to do with my class, but very user/student-friendly and one of those things you just can't go wrong with, because it's all included in the packet. All that's missing is the book!

I'm going to have to start publishing these Friday Favorites posts on Thursday nights, because otherwise, they're getting out there kind of late.

Stuff and Things 11/2

+November 2nd is a weird day for me. It's the day Scott left for Afghanistan back in 2009 and was the icy plunge into it's-time-to-grow-up for me. That was a hard four months (I laugh now...four months). Also that was pre-blog, so no link.

#TBT...right before he left for that deployment...like October 24ish, 2009?

+I renewed the RAV4 registration last week. Two months late, so there was a late fee. Also, I had no orders, LES, or POA. I just paid full price. WHATEVER. I don't even care. The idea of getting all that paperwork together and going back to the DMV (on a school day at 4pm) was more daunting than paying the extra money. When you're an active duty soldier, you get a discount if you provide alllll the documentation. Well, Scott is in Wyoming. I am here. It's a Colorado vehicle and I just needed to get this done because, again, it was due in August. And without those Colorado orders (uh, he's in Wyoming now), we have no claim to Colorado, as we are Alaska residents (though maybe since we have a house here...? I don't know.)

And since he worked so hard to fix the RAV4 over the weekend with the intent of actually driving it, it needed to be legal.

+Halloween was...passable.

For the second time in three years, my coworker bought/made my costume for me. I literally just won't do it and she figured this out long ago. Last year, I ordered my own Power Rangers tshirt from Amazon so she didn't have to do that.

+I have this theory that people in Colorado are bit wimpy. You see, on the east coast, people are used to winter and they just kind of sludge through it. It's wet and humid snow, and muddy and gross but whatever. In Alaska, they relish it. They literally live for it so complaining, I learned, doesn't get you far. Here, people are very die-hard Colorado. They want the badge of honor that goes with living in Colorado and they assume that makes them tough. When it snows and when it's cold, they say, "What are you going to do? It's #ColoradoLife". However, when it does snow and when it is cold, they get very "Nooooo, it's cold" or "Nooooo, not snow" and the interstate will shut down and school will be canceled and life does not go on as normal when it snows or is cold. People lose it and are really bad at things relating to winter. Recess gets canceled if it's below 25 degrees (with the windchill...which means it can really be 35 degrees and recess will be cancelled). It's an absolute conundrum of a place. From what I've gathered, the people who live in Laramie are more like the people who live in Alaska. They love the cold weather and deal with it. I have no guesses about which place is best, really, but this is just something I think about a lot, since I've dealt with winter in four different states now.

+I went to Target yesterday for pens and protein powder. I also wanted some Thanksgiving stickers but they don't sell those...they only sell Christmas ones after Halloween, apparently. Also, I asked the cashier how early everyone had to show up in order to get the Christmas stuff out (because it was ALL out at the Target) and she said 5:00am.

+And, lastly, for any weekend t.v. watching you might be interested in, I recommended some shows on Tuesday but I just watched Simply Complicated, the Demi Lovato documentary last night and it was shockingly good. I'll recommend it for sure. I couldn't find it anywhere else, so I watched it on Youtube.

Linking up with Kristen!

Stuff and Things 10/29

+Scout's better!  Now, provided Jett doesn't try to kill him again...

In the aftermath of last week's trauma, Scott and I exchanged many text messages.  In one, I tried to defend Jett by saying he was "sweet" and "loyal".  Scott responded with "idiot" and "baby".  Both of which are true.  I took Jett to training on Sunday and it was a disaster.  I threatened his life so many times.  He doesn't care.  Sometimes Scott and I look at each other and say I can't believe we paid for him. 

+I finished waxing the basement floor.  This is the half I was responsible for.  It does not look quite as good as Scott's half.  He can come home and fix it.  I'm just overjoyed to have a finished floor.  We're putting a living area on the other side of the basement with a screen and projector (we've already had the furniture and projector for a few years, so it's not an expense..just a matter of setting it all up).

I don't know what to do with this side yet.  That's the laundry room behind Jett, the guest bedroom behind the closed door, and the currently unfinished guest bathroom off to the right. Suggestions?

+I don't do Halloween.  Actually, having to plan, procure, and wear a costume is one of the most stressful things in the world to me. More on this tomorrow (maybe), but my co-worker actually went out and got me what I needed for our "team costume". She realized I wasn't going to participate otherwise.

I think you'll be able to guess at this...

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