A Peek at Our Hallowtide

Happy Hallowtide! I love this time of year and I love celebrating the next three days. Here's a bit of a photo dump along with some of our plans. 

We have been pre-gaming for awhile, eating lots of popcorn mixed with candy corn, building fires in the fireplace, listening to my Halloween playlist, watching The Great Pumpkin, and more. 

Like decorating,

and carving jack o'lanterns

and fluffing the scarecrow after kids sit on its lap. And they always seem to sit on its lap while adults are always the ones who are startled by it.

Over the weekend the whole family went to a local park for a "Not So Scary" event so you get to see the kids in their costumes before the neighborhood. Lucky you. 

L and Ben's costumes go together and if you can figure them out then you're the best. Do you want a clue? Okay: Raggedy Man. 

It's a family tradition to have chili for dinner on Halloween, this year with cute little pumpkin biscuits on the side. After trick-or-treating we'll probably have popcorn and hot chocolate.

On All Saints Day the family will attend the All School Mass, where JF and all the first graders will dress as saints. It's the sweetest thing ever. They process in with Father and once Mass is done they each stand in front and give a little bio on the saint they are representing. Can you guess who JF will be?

Since the day is a Solemnity we'll be having a family favorite (and slightly labor intensive to make) meal for dinner: sweet and sour chicken. It has nothing to do with the theme except that everyone loves it. Dessert will be Halloween candy. :)

Last year I gathered all our saint peg dolls and lined them up on the buffet aka family altar but this year they're being loaned out to my friend Katie. We'll gather holy cards for this spot instead and pray a litany of family saints at bed time. 

In case you're in charge of your child's All Saints' Day snack here's a little something I made up last year. Each baggie had this little rhyme typed up and slipped inside. 

All Saints have symbols to help us connect: 

Animals for Francis, firewood for Bernadette. 

Green for St. Patrick, Yellow for Mary's Heavenly Crown.

Royal Purple for King Wenceslas, Food for St. Isidore who farmed the ground.

Tomorrow we'll pray for all the poor souls. 

Today we'll celebrate Saints who reached Heaven's goals.

animals = Teddy Grahams

firewood = pretzel sticks

green, yellow, and purple = Skittles

food = Motts fruit snacks

poor souls = marshmallows with faces made from edible markers

I have no idea if it helped the kids or not, but I sure thought it was cute. ;)

The Feast of All Souls is a busy day for our family, but an important one. In between parent teacher conferences and all the regular busyness of a school night we will be attending our parish's Mass of Remembrance. I want to take some time to remember and pray for our grandparents who have passed, along with all the souls in Purgatory. We may work through these little booklets my friend Katie made, too.

So that's our upcoming week! Tell me your plans!

October + Costumes + Help Me!

October is here! I hope it's been treating you well. I love this month and all the fun it brings.

This weekend we'll go to a pumpkin patch and - hopefully - carve some jack-o-lanterns. This month will include a trip to Wildlife Scary Park - which has become an annual tradition. My mom and mother-in-law come along with me and the kids and everyone has fun. Then we'll have Halloween! We are huge Halloween fans here. I totally get why some chose not to celebrate it, and if you want you can read my thoughts on it here.

 But if you don't mind, let's talk costumes for a second, can we?

L will be a Native American this Halloween. She will then don the outfit again for the annual 3rd grade Thanksgiving pageant and feast at her school. I'm also excited to have a St. Kateri Tekakwitha costume. Her costume is coming from Annery's Handmade Etsy Shop.  If you are also on the look-out for an American Indian costume Annie said they will be in her shop on Friday but there's also a pre-sale / auction at the Zelie & Co. Instagram account today! So you can go over and get one at a discounted cost. So end's that head's up. :)

Ben will be Batman. He picked out (affiliate link) this costume from Amazon. JF and Resa will both be Darth Vadar, wearing the costumes JF and Jofis got for their birthdays. (affiliate links) JP didn't want to be Darth Vadar but Resa is all about it, and honestly that delights my heart a bit. I bought all the costumes plenty big so the kids can wear warm clothes and coats underneath. October 31st is usually pretttty cold in these parts.

Baby Tee will wear the same lion costume all of his siblings have worn before him, so that's easy. But I'm having trouble with Jofis.

Jofis wants to be a ghost and I'm wondering what's the best way to make a ghost costume for a three year old. Anyone have any ideas? I haven't loved anything I found on Amazon but maybe you know of an Etsy shop? Travis and I have talked about just cutting some holes in a white pillow case and buying him a white hoodie, but I don't know. What do you think.

Also, I need help with Ben's St. Benedict costume for the All Saints Day pageant at school. All I've got is that he wore a black habit. Any ideas?



Speaking of costumes, quick question: do you let your kids wear dress up clothes out in public? Resa, Tee and I went to Target the other day and Resa was wearing her Princess Anna dress. That's totally appropriate in my book and I'm wondering if anyone else is alright with being quirky like that.

Stranger Things Party

So after binge watching the first episodes of the new Netflix show Stranger Things I haven't been able to sleep. In my sleepless nights I have been planning a themed party based on the show. Part Halloween party, part '80's party. It will be awesome.

Costumes are called for, of course. Fortunately huge glasses were hip two years ago so it shouldn't be too hard to do that. Then just feather your bangs, wear stirrups on your leggings, and find a jean jacket. You'll look great.

Decorate with lots of Christmas lights and lamps. Maybe pin up the alphabet on your wall, too. Rotary phones, trucker hats, a "flying" Millennium Falcon, Dungeons and Dragons pieces, maybe a hatchet - those would all be great little touches, too.

Your 80's playlist should include The Clash, especially "Should I Stay or Should I Go." And that one needs to pop up multiple times, obviously.

Serve cans of Cola and beer, Nutty Bars, Bazooka, Pez, Smarties, Pringles, Nilla Wafers, apples, bananas, and trail mix - that way everyone has plenty of energy for their travels. ;)


Boom. Party plans: done. You're welcome.

The Rest of the Story & Pre-Gaming for Halloween

A few years ago, one of our children would awaken to someone calling their first name, telling us the voice sounded like a little girl’s. That same child would also run down the hall in the middle of the night, screaming, crying, heart pounding, terrified of something, something they couldn’t explain but it knew our child’s name. I had always believed in the “visible and invisible” but it was this experience that initiated my desire to understand the difference between the invisible good and the invisible bad.

The invisible evil—demons and Satan himself, prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls—are just as much a reality as our Guardian Angels and Saint Michael, who will defend us in battle and be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

Those words were written by me, and were published today for the Blessed Is She devotion. While I go into a bit more detail in the devotion several women have asked for the rest of the story: what did we do to help and protect our child in this situation. So here it is, the rest of the story:

Our home was blessed when we moved in but with this issue we wondered if it should be blessed again. We told a couple of priests about it (our pastor and a family friend) and asked for their thoughts on the issue. Then, armed with their advice; a respect for the situation; and formation we had received in spiritual warfare we proceeded:

When our child would hear the voice again or have a bad nightmare I would make the sign of the cross on the 4 corners of the child's bed, praying out loud, "In the Name of Jesus Christ, nothing evil can touch this bed." Then I would bless and mark my child with the sign of the cross and pray out loud, "This child belongs to Christ and in His Name nothing not of God can come near. No evil is allowed near my child, in the Name of Jesus Christ." I would pray the Guardian Angel prayer and the St. Michael prayer over the bed. I would entrust my kiddo to the care of the BVM and then I would go into the hallway and, again praying out loud, I would announce that only angels of God were allowed in my children's rooms, in our house, on our property, or anywhere near our house or family members. I used holy water and continued to pray in the Name of Christ that anything evil would leave immediately. I told satan and his demons to go back to Hell.

Travis did his own version of all this, too and after several incidents it stopped. Because I am my children's mother I have spiritual authority over them and knew that, while submitting to God and calling on His Name we would be safe. Also, because I had discussed it with priests beforehand I knew that what I was doing was safe and that we weren't working with something scarier or in need of "the big guns" aka an exorcist or even someone ordained. So what I was doing was in my job description, so to speak.

I say that because I really do believe that satan is real and he is trying to get at us and so I don't want anyone to think I  took this lightly or that I am offering advice for what you should do. Just as you have authority over your children, your pastor has authority over you and so do talk to him if something creepy / supernatural is happening in your home.

Now, you can read the rest of today's Blessed Is She devotion here. In fact, I think you should. Once I saw the following tweet from Pope Francis I thought, "The Holy Spirit has a message for today."

You can read about a couple other run-ins I've had with the supernatural in this post, The Seen and the Unseen and St. Michael the Archangel.


And now for the second half of this post: a little bit of pre-gaming for Halloween.

In case you're scratching your head wondering why - after the experiences described above - I would celebrate Halloween in our home I share this excerpt with you, taken from a post I wrote a few years back:

Somewhere between the occult and harvest parties lies what Halloween could and should be...

We’re Catholics, folks. We own weird, bizarre, and even slightly creepy. We reverence bone-y relics, we do exorcisms, we have holy cards of St. Peregrine showing off his cancerous leg. We look death and evil squarely in the eyes and say, “Oh, it’s you” and roll over on our beds to go back to sleep. We do this because we know that Christ has conquered death. Mary’s heel is squashing the serpent’s head. St. Michael has satan in chains, ready to cast him into Hell.

You can read the rest here: Halloween in Our Home.

Queen Elsa, a pirate, a princess, a little lion man, and No Noggin say Hello from the Troll Bridge.

And just for good measure, here's my Halloween playlist:



HAPPY HALLOWTIDE, EVERYONE!

All Saints' Day Party ReCap

This was the second year I was able to help plan and host the All Saints' Day party at my former parish. This year we had a slightly different menu, all new games, and some slightly different decorations. 

Here, take a look. 

All the kids in the CCD classes were personally invited and given little flier invites to take home to their parents.

There were several bulletin announcements in the preceding weeks, including this one: 

The party was hosted and sponsored by the parish's moms' group and our local fast food Italian restaurant supplied free sandwiches. (We love you, Michael's Italian Feast!)

The menu included: 

St. Martha’s Sub Sandwiches (3 trays donated by Michael’s)
St. Francis’ Animal Crackers (Teddy Grahms and animal crackers served with purple frosting)
St. Luke’s Relics (white chocolate covered pretzel sticks with mini marshmallows on the end)
St. Isadore the Farmer’s Veggie Tray (with ranch dressing)
St. Damien Molokai’s Hawaiian Fruit Salad
St. Nicholas’ Pickles
St. Juan Diego’s Chips and Salsa

The morning of the party we decorated. I grabbed some Mason jars, candles, and religious art from our house, another mom brought in so many pumpkins from her garden, and we dug into the stash from last year's party. 

The Mary and Eve print is from Our Lady of the Mississippi sisters. The skull has been used in a pirate party, Halloween decorations, and now the All Saints' Day party. It was definitely worth the $2 I paid for it. 

This year, along with pumpkins for centerpieces, we also used some pretty fall flowers in Mason jars. It was a great touch. The tables also had Hershey Kisses, Menus, and Finding Truth in Halloween booklets.

Games:

1 - David and Goliath - throw duct tape stones at Goliath's head = favorite game of the night. I found the inspiration at Shower of Roses.

2 - St. Isadore the Farmer's Produce Toss - like Bozo's bucket game (Do you guys know Bozo the Clown or do I just sound weird?)

3 - St. Thomas Aquinas' Trivia Game - I used the questions from Catholic Culture.

4 - St. Louis' Bouncy Castle - this was owned by one of the women from the moms' group and was a huge hit for the little kids.

More Games:
1 - St. Christopher's Foot Race - the kids jumped over the "river" and then had to run around the potted plant and back to the river, all while carrying a baby doll.
2 - Menu Matching Game - These were on the tables and parents worked on them with their kids as they waited for everyone to file in and the party to begin. On the left is an image of the saint with their feast day and on the right is the food on the menu for the evening. Then the kids had to match them up. While dinner was finishing up I took to the stage and went over all the answers, giving quick explanations on why the saint was connected to the food. Food + fun + families together + catechizing = winning
3 - Heavenly Crown craft station
4 - JPII's Soccer Shoot Out

Obligatory picture of my super cute St. Joan of Arc:

Ben was St. Michael, L was St. Bernadette, JF was Venerable Fulton Sheen, and JP was wearing his Batman jammies.

This year we once again recreated a cemetery on the stage area. All the kids (and some of the parents!) came up, one at a time, and shared what saint they were dressed as, and the older kids included a short bio. As each "saint" left the stage we'd all say, "St. So and So, Pray for us!" The kids were adorable and some of the costumes were really clever!

This year I was able to make some new tombstones out of ceiling tiles we ripped out of our basement. I wanted them to redeem the creepy tombstones that are so prominent at Halloween and to remind us of what we believe as Catholics. Inspired by some great suggestions from my readers, the tombstones ended up with some really beautiful wording. So thanks, you guys!

Lastly, the parish hall has a large tv that hangs on the wall. Last year we covered it up but this year we used it. I made a pretty simple slideshow with different saints that scrolled through the whole evening. Next year I'll add more slides to it since I ran out of time to add all the saints I would have liked. I uploaded it to YouTube so please feel free to use it if you'd like!




And here's some links that I found helpful as I planned:

Fr. Robert Barron's homily on All Souls' Day and the Mystery of Immortality podcast

Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast "Where Is Your Sting?: Forever Young... blessing or burden?"

Also from Fr. John and now Father Nathan, Catholic Stuff You Should Know podcast "The Apostolic Pardon: The Ultimate Gift!"

You can see what last year's party was like here: All Saints' Halloween Party Recap.


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Happy Halloween

First and foremost, Happy All Hallow's Eve! I hope you have a warm, dry, fun night. 

We've been enjoying our Midwestern Autumn. It's all the things that Pinterest tells you it is: apples, hoodies, boots, pumpkins, football, bonfires, s'mores, falling leaves. 

We've been doing fun fall things too. Like roasting hotdogs and marshmallows at my parents' home and going to Wildlife Scary Park for some trick-or-treating, hayrack rides, and spooky fun with the kids. 

Captain Orangebeard the Pirate, Elsa, Jake the Neverland Pirate, and Rapunzel - acting like trolls.

Jake and Grandma on the train.

Captain Orangebeard and Rapunzel, afraid of the spooky sounds in the woods. 

I loved all the fires throughout the park, many of them with straw bales so families could sit, warm up, and rest. 

Tonight we'll have a hearty potato soup and then head out for some trick-or-treating. We always visit my grandparents and parents, and this year my mother-in-law will be joining us, which will be a lot of fun. 

Then, at the end of the night, when the kids are in bed, I think I'm going to poor myself a drink (maybe a hot chocolate with a taste of something. I'll snuggle down under my blanket and probably watch the second Hunger Games movie on Netflix. Tomorrow will be a big day with our parish's All Saints' Day party and I'll want to relax. What about you? 

Happy Hallowtide, everyone!

If you're new here, stick around! You can follow A Knotted Life on Bloglovin' or Feedly.

Plus, I'd love to connect with you. You can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. I hope to "meet" you soon!

What do you want on your tombstone?

The All Saints' Halloween party is coming up at my old parish and this year the moms' group is giving back, reinvesting in the parish that has built them up, cared for them, and provided for them. The group is doing this by planning and hosting the event on November 1st. Since I'm still an active member of the moms' group there (it's so, so wonderful) I'm helping with the party plans.

The goal of the party is this:
for the ultra sanitized Harvest Party and the horribly secularized and even evil Halloween* to meet in the middle and be Catholic. I want it to look like a Halloween party at first glance but to be filled with opportunities for parents and kids to have fun and learn about their faith - to give parents an opportunity to teach their kids about their faith in a way that's not lame or dorky but fun.

We want things to be a little different this year so the kids who came in the past won't think it's the same old thing. We're not throwing everything out, just rotating some out, some in, and lining up some other things to be rotated out next year. This year I think we may have a bouncy house shaped like a castle for the little kids. Maybe it'll be St. King Wenceslas' castle. One of the women in the group suggested crowns for all the saints, which I think would be a great craft station. We're going to have a soccer game in honor of our athletic JPII and in my dreams we'd have rock climbing wall for Pier Giorgio.

You can see all the games, food, and decorations we had at last year's party if you're looking for some ideas, but I'd also like your help. Do you know of any cute games or craft stations? What about food with saint tie-ins? Like St. Francis' animal crackers and that sort of thing.

Also, tell me what you'd want on your tombstone.

I had the idea of making a cemetery for the guests to walk through as they entered the party. Instead of the evil and scary tombstones I wanted these to be old looking, yes, but also Christian and, more importantly, to have saint names on them. So Teresa of Calcutta, Fulton Sheen, Maximilian Kolbe, Edith Stein, and so on.

Another woman in the group dislikes that idea and thinks it will make the party guests focus on death and not on the eternal life that the saints are enjoying. She would prefer a graveyard with puny names.

And the third option, of course, is that it's just a bad idea and we shouldn't have a cemetery at all.

What do you think? What do you vote for? If you were coming to the party what would you prefer?
Thanks for your help.


*I'm not saying that every Halloween celebration is evil. We do Halloween with decorations, trick-or-treating, kid appropriate but spooky stories and tv specials. Just so you know, I am not anti Halloween. Not at all!


If you're new here, stick around! You can follow A Knotted Life on Bloglovin' or Feedly.
Plus, I'd love to connect with you. You can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. I hope to "meet" you soon!

Autumn in my home - a blog hop

When it comes to decorating for Autumn I have two rules.
#1 - Nothing Fallish before September 1st.
#2 - Nothing Halloween before October 1st.

I regularly break both those rules.

I don't know about you, but I love seeing how other people decorate for special occasions. It can say so much about one's style, sense of humor, and beliefs. I always appreciate seeing the thoughtful and fun ways people mark the seasons and celebrations in their homes.

That's why I asked a handful of my favorite bloggers if they would join me for a blog hop. Today we're each showing off our Autumn decorations. Get yourself a pumpkin spice anything, get comfortable, and enjoy!

Here's a look at my home during September, October, and November.

September
My husband is a physics teacher in an area public school and two of my children attend parochial school with one more in the Early Childhood Education classroom at the local public school. After a long summer, September really is "the most wonderful time of the year."

A little more about our mantel.

I made this wreath for less than $10 from items in the WalMart craft section. I love way the colors pop against our front door. 

A little vignette on the front porch.

 

October
Many of September's decorations remain but the mantel gets a new treatment and many more items come out of storage.

The white board in the back is actually one of the ceiling tiles we ripped out of our basement. 

The tombstone I made for my parish's All Saints' Halloween party.

The ghost carrying the pumpkin was my mom's and I have always loved it. She gave it to me a few years ago and it's one of my favorite things.

I made this wreath a few years ago but added the bird this year.

A little bit of autumn on every shelf.

The chalkboard is back in the playroom.

Halloween and Fall books in the book basket.

Halloween tree and skull.

Even the owl lamp is dressing up for Halloween.

I found the print on Pinterest.

November
Once again I reuse a lot of the same decorations. My door wreath and the leaves on the mirror remain. Other items get moved around a bit and overall it feels a lot more simple than Halloween and October.

Early in November the kids and I make turkey handprint crafts with a list of all the things they're grateful for. The pictures hang in the house through November and I keep them with the decorations so each year I can reminisce a little as I pull them out of the box.

So that's my house all autumn long but I'm not the only one showing off my decorations. There's a whole group of us doing a Blog Hop today.Check out all these other lovely ladies and all their fabulous decorations.

Mama Needs Coffee
House for Five
Fountains of Home
Team Whitaker
This Ain't the Lyceum
Two O's + More
Surviving Our Blessings
Better Than Eden
Svellerella
Clan Donaldson


If you're new here, stick around! You can follow A Knotted Life on Bloglovin' or Feedly.
Plus, I'd love to connect with you. You can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. I hope to "meet" you soon!