When we first started going to our little church [1] (which is uncomfortable about being called a church but coming up with a different term is hard), the other parents told me how important the "archway" ceremony was to the kids. We make an archway across the aisle with our arms and sing, and the children walk underneath and down the stairs to religious education. It must be true, because LouLou is in the other room making little toilet paper ghosts and singing to herself:

Go now in peace, go now in peace
May the spirit of love surround you
Everywhere, everywhere you may go!

It's making me smile.

I will be SO glad when Halloween is over. The kids are driving us, well, bats! Josie found out this year that traditionally people made their costumes, rather than buying them. Well! then we had to make costumes this year, too. I think I gave birth to a traditionalist. She assembled both her and Lou's costumes out of our extensive dress-up collection. The only thing we bought was make-up.

LouLou is going as the Halloween Fairy [1], dolled up in every fairy-like item we have, and Josie is going as a ghost. She's wearing a white shirt, the white pinafore from her pioneer dress, and a white veil over her head. Someone asked her if she was a particular ghost; she looked down at her pinafore, looked up with that "bright idea" look she gets, and said "yeah! I must be the ghost of Laura Ingalls Wilder!" (That's for you, Phelan [2]. )

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