Buenos Dia de los Muertos!!!

We had such a great day today! We learned about the Day of the Dead and had the most wonderful party! We remembered Grandpa Ron Lugg, Grandma Verna Irwin, Gammy Betty McIntyre and our friend Karissa Ashley. Everything just seemed to fall into place for learning.

We colored sugar skull designs like they sell in Mexico and talked about Mexican use of color in art.

We made this family memory tree with traditional marigolds and skulls for our table. At dinner we all told memory stories about our loved ones.

We dressed skeletons in bright, fun colors as they do they for the celebration to remember the happy memories of loved ones.

I found these authentic papel picado at a local shop and they looked beautiful. Aggie pulled out her pink sombero from our Mexican vacation.

We went shopping at a local Mexican Supermarket and bought a full dinner with Carne Asada, tortillas, black beans, Mexican sodas, sweet bread and Mexican candy. It was so yummy!

Over Mexican coco we played Loteria (Mexican Bingo) with our bottle cap collection as the place covers. Aggie won and shouted out Loteria!

We also made traditional Pan de los Muertos in the shape of Skulls. We each made our own-Gwyn, Agatha, Adam and mine. We found the recipe online and a Mexican Neighbor stopped by and was so excited we were making it.

We had an amazing day remembering, praying, learning, and just having fun with The Day of the Dead! And we have a whole other day-tomorrow we are attending a learning day sponsored by the city on this holiday and a celebration tomorrow night sponsored by a local museum. So fun!

The History of the Jack-o-lantern

I love to play dress up and I love to dress up on Halloween. Can you tell? We had a great, quiet night at home eating chili, trick or treating the neighborhood, visiting with family, friends and neighbors. Gwyn was so fun when she caught on that people wer giving candy away!

I also love Jack-o-lanterns. We have a pumpkin party every year to carve with friends and today Aggie counted 72 jack-o-lantern decorations as we cleaned them up! For a homeschool project this year Aggie learned the history of the Jack-o-lantern and lo and behold it is Irish-yea McIntyre! Here is her report:

The Irish used to carry turnips carved out with faces on them on All Hallows Eve as lanterns. They went out on this night to beg for money and food because the next day was All Saints Day. People would give money because they were remembering their family who died. The Irish people came to America because of the potato famine and we changed turnips to pumpkins because America had alot of pumpkins at Harvest. The Irish told a story about a mean, mean man named Jack who did not share. He didn't love Jesus so he couldn't go to Heaven. The Devil felt sorry for him and gave him a hot coal that he put it in his pumpkin lantern to light up his way. Now we call then Jack-o-lanterns because of the story of Jack and the Irish!