Like many families during Covid-19 times, we decided to do some movie marathoning as a family over the last few months. The kids are still relatively young, so they haven't seen many of the movies Zak and I knew as kids.
Mr C and Miss V loved watching the Lego Star Wars shows on Disney+, so over two or three weeks we absorbed all nine of the Star Wars movies, as well as the Mandalorian. Over the summer, as I walked the kids to pickup the school lunch sacks, we would talk about Halloween costumes. Miss V was considering R2-D2, and Mr C was thinking Yoda. There was much usage of the Force throughout our house.
Next, we started Harry Potter. The kids had found some walk-throughs of the Lego Harry Potter video game, which cover books one to four. The video gamer guessed that the later books were dark enough that they chose not to do Lego games of those. As we watched the movies a little at a time, the kids began casting spells. I cannot count the number of times I have been disarmed with an "Expelliarmus!" spell. It also meant my chopsticks left the silverware drawer, and began appearing all over the house as wands. Halloween costumes switched to Harry Potter themes. As the movies got darker, I tried to explain the events to the kids. I noticed that rather than focusing on the movies, the kids were pretending to be wizards, and not exactly paying attention. I'm ok with that.
Miss V has told me for a couple of years now that she doesn't like chapter books, although we've read and listened to several together, including the Ramona Quimby books. She started reading the shorter, simpler chapter books, but didn't even want to touch anything that had too many words and not enough pictures. Enter in Harry Potter. I had purchased the first two books at a thrift store last year thinking they would't be touched for a few more years. Miss V decided she'd give them a go. She's already done with the first, and well on her way through the second book. When she couldn't find the Chamber of Secrets the other day, she decided to read "Sideways Stories from Wayside School," that I had tried to read with her last year. It's happened! She's willing to read chapter books on her own!
Mr C's response after finding out that Miss V wanted to be Harry definitely made me smile. He wanted to be with Harry, so he chose to be Harry's pet owl, Hedwig. I thought about buying wings and a hat, and then realized those would be about $45. JoAnn's it is. While perusing the store for solid white fleece or a feather-like pattern, I found some fuzzy, white, textured upholstery fabric with not much left on the bolt. I was able to get what I guessed I needed, and they threw in the last half-yard for free.
Zak joked about buying a giant googly eye and going as Mad-Eye Moody, so I went with it. As the true villain of the Harry Potter series, I felt Dolores Umbridge must also be represented. Pink dresses for me were a little easier to find at the local thrift stores, but an appropriate and plus-sized trench coat for Zak was harder to locate. I ended up spending more on his, but let's just say that walking behind that handsome man in a dramatic trench was my pleasure. Seriously, he looks so cool!
Most of our weekends lately have been spent at Mom Porter's house, and we were relieved to trick-or-treat in the small town rather than the city with ever-increasing viral cases. We looped around the wrap-around porch, knocking on the front, back, and bedroom doors since we only planned to go to a few other houses. Zak's brother, Cohen, dressed up as Star Lord from "Guardians of the Galaxy," and joined to for our brief trick-or-treating adventure. Since Great-Grandma Manwill wills two lots east of Grandma Porter, we got to see her waddle in her "I'm a Penguin," costume, which we all loved.
