Since this is the week of Halloween I have been thinking a lot of past experiences that we had with our children.

In the picture above you will see Danny with Matt in the background. I had seen an idea in a family circle magazine about taking an old sheet and ripping it up and dressing your child as a mummy. I thought it was a really cute and inexpensive idea.

If I remember correctly Danny’s mummy costume was an old sheet that I ripped up plus another grayish purple cloth I ripped up too to give him some color. The one thing I did not even think of when wrapping him was to put shorts on over his underwear before I wrapped him.

We went along our merry way that night and with each venture in and out of the car, Danny’s wrappings became looser and looser.

We always went to Granny Poston’s, my Aunt Leretha’s, my co-workers, and finally stopped at several church friend’s homes as we returned to our house.

The last house we stopped at that night was a dear church friend’s home and Danny refused to get out of the car as he was getting more and more embarrassed as his underwear was starting to show as his wrappings were separating. I could see his frustration and let him stay in the car but then my friend with her camera in hand called from her porch for him to come on in so she could get a picture. He obliged her without complaining any more. Below is that picture:

Almost every article my kids have ever written about me includes the statement that …. Mom always made homemade Halloween costumes….

I have to chuckle to myself every time I read one of those statements. As I stated in my last blog, God gifted me to be taught to sew at a young age. I made the Halloween costumes because we were poor and it was cheaper for me to do that. You say, well those plastic outfits are cheap…. but when you are really poor even cheap is too expensive. Plus, I used to keep a costume barrel in my basement just full of costumes through the years and we could whip something together really quick if need be!

Mark worked second shift a lot of years on Halloween so it was left for me to make the rounds with the kids so I made sure that I did. We would usually leave home before it was even dark and go to Granny Poston’s first as she got in the bed early. Our second stop was usually my Aunt Leretha’s and she would usually have some kind of supper cooked there which really helped me out and kept the kids from getting sick on all that candy. We were usually back home pretty early so we could all get cleaned up and get in bed.

I think back on those days and it would have been so much easier for us to just stay home or for me to send the kids with someone else but that was memory making times and I wanted that for my kids.

Now that Danny has passed away I am really thankful that I have tons and tons of special memories with him and his siblings. It really means so much.

My grandma Hodges used to always tell me that she was like a squirrel and she would hoard up her memories just like a squirrel hoards up nuts and she would say when she got lonely she would pull out those memories and chew on them for a while. I guess I have been doing that very thing tonight as I remember Danny and this night to remember😊