Ninja Insanity 2012

Despite my lack of posts over the past few years, one constant is my annual tradition of posting about our Halloween.  That's more than a little odd, since we are devout followers of Christ, and this is a Christian blog.  But we shun its satanic undertones, and instead use it as an opportunity to dress up (which we love doing, anyway) and host like-minded friends and family at our house.

We usually do something creative with our pumpkins, and I often go the extra mile to turn mine into a piece of art.  Unfortunately, we were totally uninspired last year (yeah, I'm actually a whole year behind!).  We had decided to just put them out as-is and try to come up with something cool for next year.  But while I was at work, my wife and son decided that really wouldn't do, so they stuck faces onto the pumpkins, for a comical effect.

We also could not decide what costumes to wear.  Kylen wanted something with lots of weapons, while Farrah was torn between Lord of the Rings and Legend of Zelda characters.  She wanted us all to match, but she also wanted our son to be happy with the choice.  In the end, he opted for being a ninja... FOR THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW!!!!  Ugh!  What's the matter with the boy???  So we caved.  Farrah got a ninja outfit that matched his.

I combined my Wraith King of Agmar robe with my Street Fighter pants from 2011, and custom-made wooden sandals, to become a fearsome samurai.  The bulk of my costume work was sewing together a sache and making the sandals, which were surprisingly comfortable.

So, what did we do THIS year??? Check out my wife's latest posts!

Be Careful Little Eyes...

Happy New Year, dear Readers! This is by far the longest time that I've been away (only three posts on this blog in 2011), but I hope to be a bit more active in 2012. This is my primary ministry, after all. Before I get to the meat of this post, a few updates....

We've been very blessed this past year with health, great friendships, continuing work, good finances, a nice vacation, and achievements for all of us. I'll probably touch on some of these things in the coming months, but needless to say, blogging has not been among them much. For better or worse, I've let blogging slip below my radar, and I hope that I can improve on that this year, without sacrificing my other responsibilities.

So what's up with Halloween? Wasn't that like almost three months ago? I always do a Halloween post on this or one of my other blogs, mainly to showcase our pumpkin carving. So what if I'm a little behind? ;)

Our theme this time was the kids' song, "Be Careful Little Eyes". I totally did not have that song in mind when I felt inspired to carve a fancy eye on my pumpkin. Farrah immediately thought of the song and suggested she do the feet and Kylen do the hands.

Here is kylen working on his masterpiece. Farrah got a mixer-like attachment to my power drill, which worked very well at scraping out the pumpkin's insides.

Here I am, hard at work on my pumpkin. This was also the first year I successfully employed a Dremel tool to do the fine scraping work. I bought it last year, but did not have time to figure it out. Worked like a charm this time around!

Here is the final result. For several years now, we've been using an old set of C9 Christmas bulbs instead of candles. It keeps the pumpkins fresh longer and even allows us to use different colors. For examples of our past work, click on the "Halloween" tag in the tag cloud to the right.

Then, of course, there is the dressing up! Farrah wanted to be an elf archer (think: female version of Legolas, from "Lord of the Rings"), but we didn't feel like taking the trouble of attaching her pointy ears. Maybe next time. :) We went to Cabela's to pick out a bow, which was the perfect excuse to get one that would also suit Kylen. He loved his first experience with archery, and we spent hours in our unfinished basement, putting holes in stuff.

While looking for costumes at a local shop (boy, could I blog about the spiritual meaning behind the inappropriate costumes that permeate costume shops!), we saw the Street Fighter karate costume. Since that's my favorite game of all time, it was a no-brainer.

Kylen just wanted to be a black ninja (don't ask me why that's totally different from the white ninja costume he wore last year). We had fun fighting each other and laughing at Farrah trying to look threatening with her bow. CUTE thing!

Much of my time this year has been occupied with working on various utility programs. One such example is the sound player I wrote just for Halloween. Why couldn't I just use Windows Media Player, you ask? Because that would have been way too easy, of course! I placed speakers in our pumpkins, just outside our front door, and connected them to my laptop, so I could play the kids' song. I also had our web cam pointed at our front walk, so I could see when kids were coming up the steps and play some nifty little sayings having to do with eyes, hands, and feet.

Yes, I am a geek!

It was fun dressing up to greet the trick-or-treaters, but when things started dying down, we decided to take off the sweaty costumes. No sooner did we get our everyday duds back on, that Farrah's sister, whom we hadn't seen in a year, stopped by with her husband, kids, and LARGE neighbor family. It was fun seeing her two little boys in their Spiderman costumes; they've grown so much!

Finally, as a perfect finish to our evening, our dear friends, the McD's surprised us, wearing full chimney sweep duds (a la Bert from 1964's Mary Poppins). They sang a nice little tune and then joined us inside for fellowship and real-sugar Cokes, bottled in Mexico.

So what's the spiritual takeaway? Does there have to be one? When posting about Satan worshippers' favorite day, there better be one! As I've posted years ago, we completely avoid the scary elements and choose instead to use the day as an opportunity to dress up in fun costumes and try to focus the attention to Christ, instead. You can do this wherever you go, as long as you do not partake of the unclean thing. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world. It's the only way to effectively witness.

Pumpkin Carving

Does this picture ring any bells? Just look to the right, if you want a hint. So, what am I doing posting about pumpkin carving? Don't I know that Halloween is the biggest satanic day of the year??? It is, for a lot of people, unfortunately. But we can use it as a force for good, or at least a little harmless fun, if handled the right way.

The debate about how Christians should treat Halloween (no pun intended!) continues. Farrah's dad, for example, is on the end of the spectrum that is totally against having anything to do with Halloween. No costumes, no pumpkins, no candy, no nothing. Give the devil no quarter (or M&Ms, for that matter). On the other end of the spectrum are those who celebrate it full-tilt, even though they know of its pagan, death-related origins.

Without straying off the main point of my post, I'll just state that my wife, son, and I just enjoy dressing up as superheroes, knights, fairies, etc..., carving pumpkins, and handing out candy. Not only don't we do any scary stuff, but we try to use the event as an opportunity to witness for the Lord. The primary way we witness on Oct. 31 is through our pumpkin carving. In fact, just today, my wife ran across a beautiful analogy between pumpkin carving and salvation! Be sure to check it out!

So enough background already. I thought I would show you a gallery of past carvings that our little family has done. We're no Michaelangelo or Rodin, but we're learning.

Pre-Digital Age

I believe we started carving pumpkins together in 2002, when Kylen was almost 3 years old. Of course, he wasn't old enough at first, or really interested, so our first efforts were strictly products of two grown-ups. Please forgive the bad quality of these photos, but I was lazy and just took digital pictures of the originals, while they were still in their albums! You may flog me when ready.

2005

With Kylen nearly 6, he was finally ready to really carve something, all by himself! You can see the cute result below. No, not the baby! The wolf-like creature! I think it may have been supposed to be a bear. Didn't he do a great job, though?

The baby is actually my wife's, who actually stuck a plastic binkie with rapidly flashing lights into its mouth. Unfortunately, late October weather is cold enough, over at our place, to kill most any small battery.

As for me, I decided to get brave and feed my superhero obsession, by carving Superman's insignia. To avoid fully cutting out the diamond shape that surrounds the S, I engulfed it in flames. In the end, it gave it a nice effect.

For lights, we finally settled on using a string of red C9 Christmas lights. We've used them every year since.

2006

Farrah and I were inspired to again carve something about the Lord. We stayed simple, but powerful... just like the Gospel itself!

If I remember correctly, I was trying too hard to give Kylen tips on how to draw on his pumpkin (I'm an incurable perfectionist). He got really upset and decided to just draw something on it, without carving anything. That's why the middle pumpkin has no lights. I'd like to say that I've learned from the experience, but Farrah and Kylen may disagree with my assessment.



2007

Ah, this was the Year of Green Lantern. After endless hours scouring the Internet for an adult-size Green Lantern costume (found one!), I just had to carve his logo on my pumpkin! Again, the rays of "light" prevent the logo from becoming fully separated. And, it just worked out that I had just gotten some red-and-green C9 Christmas lights, the previous year. The green ones gave it the perfect finishing touch.

Kylen carved a castle. His skills definitely improved, although he wasn't sure how to do that skinny roof, between the towers.

Farrah stuck with simple-but-powerful. How totally awesome (perfectly planned!) that such simple symbols as a cross and a heart can convey such a powerful message!


2008

And here we are, caught up to the present. Kylen's carving skills (see rightmost pumpkin) have skyrocketed. He did it all by himself! Although you cannot see it, there is lettering that says, "Jesus loves you."

Farrah read a little about making more delicate designs, by scraping off layers of the shell, allowing light to shine brighter, through the thinner areas. I let her be the guinea pig, because I was busy preparing for my homeschool co-op computer class. The middle pumpkin is hers, and you can see a close-up, further down. She did a great job!

I decided to get way brave, and actually try a real photo. I thought the one of Kylen as a baby, with the Bible, which I use on this blog, would be perfect. I opened it in Paint Shop Pro and reduced the number of colors to three: black, gray, and white (see bottom picture). I don't know if the pros actually project the picture onto the pumpkin, to make it easier, but I just drew it directly. Carving... err, scraping it wasn't too bad, though I had to use a melon baller and a paring knife, to augment my poorly designed plastic pumpkin scraper. And although I drew Kylen's right eye correctly, I accidentally scraped off its bottom part. Oops!