ALL SAINTS DAY...AND A HALLOWEEN REPORT

Whew! Halloween came and went in a flash this year. I felt like I had enough time to prepare for it all, until the day before, about noon, when Andrew called and reminded me that it was just a little over 24 hrs. away. YIKES! So I rushed around trying to get the rest of the Halloween preparations done, as well as finish and send off 5 down-to-the-deadline swaps, and get other regular and semi-regular stuff done. Halloween went well, but was a little on the skimpy side this year as to my yard decorations and all that. I handed out Halloween pencils to 149 trick-or-treaters this year. Down from last year, but not too bad. The first ones arrived at 6pm and the last ones at 8:45 or so. There were three flat-bed trailer 'floats'. One with all the kids seated on orange lawn chairs, one really big one with hay bales, and my cousin's with orange rope lights strung up and plastic jack-o-lanterns hanging from it. But no 'Gator Caravan' this year. Oh, and about the pencils - only one group seemed disappointed in not getting candy, and almost half the kids were visibly and vocally excited with getting them. LOL - go figure!
So many of the parents that came by with their kids commented that there were so many fewer houses participating this year. From my vantage point sitting on my front driveway, on the corner of the block, I could only see one other house lighted and hosting trick-or-treaters. It's really kind of a sad indication of the change in the times and culture.
There was a plethora of pirates this year, and lots of princesses, witches and ninjas. We had two little kangaroos, a king, a cowboy, a couple of super-heros, lots of ghouls and ...accident(?) victims. The best costumes I saw were a big brother who was an Orkin man, and a little sister who was a really cute cockroach. LOL! The parents I noticed in costume were a pair who were a doctor and inmate, Minnie Mouse (shout out to Laura!) and some white-faced, black clothed ghouls (or whatever they were supposed to be). I wore my black capris with a oversized jack-o-lantern shirt, with my black crocks with the doo-dads on them, and had my hair in two lopsided pig-tails with a black and an orange scrunchie. It was too hot for the Halloween socks, and I never got my Halloween crown made. Darn! Hopefully next year. Now for photos:

Mathieu, as a bee-keeper, won first prize at the 4-H Halloween carnival in Beeville. Zachary, who is in that in-between age, went as Rambo...sort of. He borrowed my Desert Storm combat boots for the occassion. He's not mad in the photo, just doing his 'TOUGH' face. The beanie bunny rabbit in the photo is my doing. I have been hosting Floppity, from Sweden for a week and was obligated to take photos of her doing various things in South Texas, before sending her on to the next spot in her world tour.

This photo is from last Sunday's religious education class. Actually it is after classes. Most of the class time involved me giving a lesson to the whole assembled group - all age catagories. I used a pumpkin carving object lesson, including a pumpkin parable and lots of analogies and Bible teachings that go with it. Then at the end, we had each student put their name in for a drawing so that someone will get to take home the jack-o-lantern. Enrique won it, and so he and his younger brother came to pick it up when it was time to go home. Aren't they cute?

As extra busy as I have been lately, I've been forgetting to take photos of my crafty doings and swaps received. This is one of the two sets I made for the Dollhouse Miniature Swap on Swap-bot. I like them - for myself - but am really, really not pleased with how they look, to send to my swap partners. *Le Sigh* The things I received were so much better in design and quality than mine. But this was to the best of my ability, so I had to send them.

This very poor quality (sorry!) photo is of the three Dotee Dolls I made for the Swap-Bot swap of the same name. Mine are the dark green ones. The brightly colored one at the bottom left is the one I have received so far. Because of the leaves and shadows, you can't see her dangly string of beads below her that features a really cool parrot bead.

I guess that is all I have for today. Tonight is the All Saints Day Mass. By then, I hope to have my house a little less messy than it is now, and the garbage hauled to the dump. If I have time and am not too tired, I may work on some art swaps that are coming up, so I don't get caught in another time crunch like I did this week.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY: What was your Halloween like? How many trick-or-treaters did you have?