Halloween

This has been the year of Harry Potter. Michael first picked up the Harry Potter series in October 2016 after his school did a Hogwarts night. He read the entire series within 6 months (finishing in March of 2017), and then he read the whole series again before October rolled around again. So, he read these seven huge books twice within a year. We visited Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in April, and it only seemed fitting that we do a Harry Potter Family theme for Halloween this year. Our very first family themed Halloween was also a Harry Potter theme, with Brian as Harry, me as Ginny, and Michael as Hedwig. 

This year, Brian and I decided we wanted to be the bad guys of Harry Potter, so Brian was Lucius Malfoy, I was Narcissa Malfoy, and Gabe was Draco Malfoy. 

And after taking a year's hiatus due to a little surgery last year, we resumed our neighborhood Halloween party. These guys won best costume. Brian is lightning and Stephanie is someone who got hit by lightening. Since they had a baby that was nursing, she came as a rainbow and was the cutest thing ever. 

 This is what my face looks like while washing black hair paint out of my hair!

Rachel played Ginny Weasley this time around. She got to dress up for her dance class, and I had to laugh that all the other girls were dressed up as frilly princesses and there was Rachel, so excited to be Ginny. I loved it!

Chelsea and Taryn came to visit on Friday, October 27. Chelsea had to work and couldn't come to Michael's baptism the next day, but she wanted to come wish him well, so she came the night before. Cal and Cassidy also came the night before to show there support. The 27th was our ward Halloween party, so Chelsea's kids and Taryn and David's kids dressed up for our ward party, and I took all their pictures. Here's Sarah as a corpse bride:

 Matthew as Gandolf:

 Amber as Belle:

 Aaron as a firefighter:

 Heather as a...a mediaeval princess?

 Chelsea's kids:

 Elijah as a train conductor:

For family home evening on the 30th, we carved our pumpkins. We were smart this year and only bought 3 pumpkins instead of five. 

  

 Gave has some seriously mad skills. His is the skull one.

 Michael, I'm sure you guessed, was Harry Potter. Here he is at his school Halloween parade:

And can I just say that I discovered printable fabric this year? How did I not know this existed before? It was amazing! I printed their Hogwarts insignias on the fabric and then ironed them onto their robes. So much easier than the first ones I made eight years ago!!

This year, I decided try making my grandma's famous caramel apples. She always makes caramel apples and passes them out to her trick-or-treaters. I was missing them this year. 

And here are our official Halloween pictures:

Rachel as Ginny:

Michael as Harry Potter:

Narcissa and Draco Malfoy:

The Malfoys, trying to look very serious and scary:

The Malfoys, Weasleys and Potters, laying aside their differences for one picture:

Can I take a minute and brag about Brian's staff/wand combo? I took a toy lizard, decapitated it, coated it in lots and lots of hot glue and sculpted it to look like a snake. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. And I'm pretty proud of Brian's jacket and vest, but boy was it a ton of work to sew!!! Brian as the death eater Lucious Malfoy:

Here's Brian, attempting to take a picture without smiling. He's really just too good of a smiler to do this very often:

See, we couldn't not smile:

Gabe as Draco Malfoy:

We had a delightful Halloween, and we are already brainstorming ideas for this upcoming fall (and have been for months). 

Michael's Baptism

One day near the very end of my mission, I was in Alabama and feeling a little down about how things had been. Of all the people that I had taught and that were baptized, not one had stayed active in the Church. As I was resisting the urge to feel bummed out about it, the urge to feel like a failure, my thoughts drifted far into the future and the children I hoped to have. I had the strongest feeling of peace come over me as I realized that my greatest mission would be to teach those sweet children the gospel and find so much joy in seeing those "investigators" not only be baptized, but grow in their love of the Lord Jesus Christ and in His restored gospel. 

On October 28, 2017, I got to see a part of my prophetic impression come to pass when Michael followed his Savior's example and was baptized and confirmed. (It was 7 months ago, and I'm still getting emotional about it.) It was an amazing day. 

 Michael just came up behind me while I'm typing this and said, "Is that me? *sigh* I loved that day."

Michael and I played a duet on the piano as part of the program, and I loved playing the song "Baptism" with him over and over while we prepared in the weeks leading up to his baptism. It was one of my favorite primary songs. 

 Brian baptized and confirmed Michael. It was a sweet, sweet day.  As in every baptism, the Spirit of the Lord was there, sealing the day with His approval. I had a hard time witnessing the baptsim through my tears. Afterwards, we went back to our house and had brunch, and, of course, took family pictures.

With his grandparents:

 Four generations:

 My parents and grandparents:

 With my parents:

 With Brian's parents:

 And with our little family:

 He has such a strong group of men preparing the way for him and setting such good examples for how he ought to be.

 The priesthood bearers who were in the circle when he was confirmed.

Brian baptized Michael, and his grandfathers Kirt and Kirk served as witnesses.

I made Michael a special book for his baptism day, and his aunts, uncles and cousins sent me notes to include. As part of his book, I included a statement by Pres. Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the First Presidency. He said, "We see baptism as the starting point in our journey of discipleship. Our daily walk with Jesus Christ leads to peace and purpose in this life and profound joy and eternal salvation in the world to come." I am so grateful for the wonderful people we have in our life. I'm so happy happy that Michael has three sets of amazing grandparents to get to know and who play an active role in his life. He's also blessed to have an adopted set of grandparents in Kansas, who, although of a different faith, sent him a beautiful statue of the angel Michael to show their support and love for him on his special day. Michael treasures his statue, and he treasures the words of love from everyone. My heart is so full of joy for all those who help love and teach our amazing son. Surely with all this support, he will continue to grow in his love for the Lord and have an incredible life.

I'm so proud of Michael and for the amazing young man he is. It is one of the great privileges in my life to be his mom.

Michael's Birthday Party

I was going to simplify this year and hire out a birthday party for Michael. Then, I asked Michael what he wanted to do for his birthday party and without hesitating, he said, "Harry Potter, of course." Of course! After scouring Pinterest for ideas, we got to work. Brian figured out how to taper dowels and shape them without a lathe:

Our basement exploded with various hot glue projects, including embellishing wands and making floating candles out of toilet paper rolls.

While we were making wands, we decided to go ahead and make our character wands for Halloween  (Spoiler! we did a Harry Potter theme). The hardest was making a snake-head wand/cane combo for Brian. Eventually, we used this lizard and built him up some more with hot glue:

We had a lot of fun making wands!

The party snuck up on us, and then we were frantically trying to get our invitations sent. I did not use much creativity here. I basically copied someone else's letter word for word. I didn't mess around too much with formatting or anything. It was the least amount of effort put into an invitation, at least graphic wise. We tried to make a wax seal by melting a crayon, but turns out crayons aren't good for that kind of thing. We ended up using these gold stickers and melted the wax onto the sticker to make it look more like a wax seal. 

The invitations were, of course, delivered via owl. 

We finally got the floating candles ready in the dining hall:

And then it was time for the party! First thing was to go to Diagon Alley where each kid was fitted for their wand by Mr. Ollivander, and then they also picked up their cauldrons.

Then, they were off to Hogwarts, where they were sorted into houses:

We made felt ties for each kid as well, but I forgot to take a picture of them. 

Next was the potions class where everyone mades some liquid luck. The best part was that they had to squeeze the bat spleens (gushers) into their little cauldrons.

We had a short quidditch match and then headed upstairs for opening presents.

And I almost forgot about my Voldemort piñata that I made. I was really proud of it--my first piñata!

Until the first kid took a swing at it and it instantly broke.

We're sticking with the story that the kid was just a very powerful wizard and not that it was a super weak-sauce piñata. 

All in all, I think the whole party was a success!