Carpe the hell out of this diem.

Courtesy of Pinterest.

We usually shy away from filling our agenda on Sundays. It's a day of rest (and football) so we stay pretty close to home.

Tonight was a little different. We made plans to attend the annual event called the All Souls Procession. This parade is inspired by the celebration of Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The parade is really a celebration of the lives of those who have passed. Everyone dresses up as skeletons, brides, and grooms. The parade has evolved into a production complete with giant puppets and constructed floats. Anyone can participate in this parade, anyone can walk. The running theme is a skeleton face so whether you're watching the parade or walking in the parade, it's fun to participate by wearing a skeleton face.

So we had planned to go and as the day drifted by and the temperatures dropped, it became less and less attractive of an idea. I was looking to back out. I was hoping my friend would call and cancel and give me an out.

She didn't. So I reluctantly started to get the kids ready. As I started the process of changing clothes, gathering shoes and the like, I started to think about how Christian was actually in an okay mood. He just might be up for going. The weather was actually not that cold and we could bundle the kids up. We could actually do this and have fun. It's not every day we can all do something like this together. Christian isn't always in the mood, especially in the evenings, to go out and get a heaping dose of sensory overload. I started to remember that often it's too hot for Christian to do a lot outside. And soon, it will be too cold, and Christian is not down with cold anything.

I continued to think about how we never know what will happen tomorrow. We pray Christian won't get sick because that most definitely means all of us are pretty much home bound. So why not take every opportunity to do something outside of the four walls of our house and bring Christian along? Why not take advantage of Christian's good mood? We have plenty of weekends where we can be lazy, do nothing, hang out, watch football, do laundry. Let's take the opportunity.

That's when, courtesy of Pinterest, I thought it...

We're gonna carpe the hell out of this diem.

So we did! And we did it with skeleton faces!

She kind of looks like a panda here but she really was a cute little skeleton.

Scaaaary!

Christian enjoying the parade.

Scenes from the procession...

Look! It's Ben's Bells! It was one of my favorite parts of the procession.

Mommy and Lola checking it out.

And, it's dark, but this was my other favorite part of the night - the UofA marching band and cheerleaders. They were all in skeleton face paint!

I'm so glad we decided to carpe the hell out of this diem (or this evening, rather). Christian did amazingly well! He whined a little on the trip over to watch the procession but once he was surrounded by all the music, drums, and people I didn't hear a peep. I think he really enjoyed the drumming and activity all around. He was mesmerized and people kept walking by taking pictures of him in his little skeleton makeup face. He was quite the attraction.

And how could he not be?