Last year when studying French Sun King in history, we had a masquerade ball. This year we happened to make paper-mache masks for a history project and decided to have another masquerade ball along with a poetry performance night and dessert buffet.

The kids all memorized poems, and even Micah wanted to get up and recite. Micah recited by standing on stage and breathing in and out very loudly a few times. It was very entertaining. Both Isaiah and Anna had started feeling badly in the afternoon, but they put their best performance forward, and we were impressed with how well they did, even when feeling poorly.

After the poems we had some dancing, which was hard to do with masks on! Then we enjoyed our dessert buffet with all our can et doughnuts, chocolate chip cookies, and popcorn balls.

I am going to take a moment to add a bit of “reality” into this post, lest some go away thinking how amazing we are and how easy everything is. These fun events we have are a lot of work. I often am frustrated with the complaining and lack of effort and everything that falls on my shoulders. Sometimes I wonder, “Is all this work even worth it?” When the event comes, our kids enjoy it, but I’m often frazzled by all the preparations. But it is worth it to me because we’re making memories and learning that things take effort and careful planning if we want to do well. Sure – it would be much easier and more restful for me to skip these kind of things, but I hope that someday our kids will look back on these nights with fond memories and joy.