halloween

so... i am usually about 3 (or more) weeks behind my real life on the blog. i hope to change that someday.. i would love to get caught up and operate more in real time. someday. BUT... due to high demand... well pretty much from my 5 friends that read this :) we will skip ahead and dive right in to halloween 2010.

i may have not gotten to carving pumpkins this year... i know. lame. but in my age induced wisdom i am realizing i can't always do everything and the world will not end if i don't.  so may i introduce a new tradition... virtual pumpkin carving.
no mess all memories.

no. i am against virtual almost everything. there is nothing that can take the place of carving that baby up and getting the goop from head to toe... we will be carving turkeys into ours this year and doing thanksgiving pumpkins this year. why not? :)
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i like halloween.
i like the costumes and pumpkins.
i like seeing all the kids running on the sidewalks tripping over their one size too large princess dresses and pirate swords. 
i like that perfect autumn light that hits the trees at 6:00 in the evening just as all the littles are grabbing their candy sacks and gearing up for the big haul.
i like those first moments as all the families are spilling out of their houses, getting ready to begin the trek around the blocks... looking around and soaking in all the costumes and the laughter and the joy.
i like halloween.

there is magic there. there are memories making their way into little minds and setting up shop right next to christmas stockings and losing your first tooth. i'm tellin ya... magic.

no.. i don't like carcasses. i don't like kids costumes that look like they have axes coming out of their foreheads. i don't like nasty, terror, horror inducing things in general... there are more of those things at halloween... true. but like mr. bishop allen sings in this song... things are what you make of them. i believe that. i make halloween about fun. and childhood. and friends. and our neighborhood. and magic. and lo and behold... that is what it becomes. things are what you make of them.

we always do a family costume.. at this time in our life i have to come up with and create the costumes pretty much by myself anyway. i figure we may as well go together. so yes... nate and i dress up. so yes we are THOSE parents. i used to pretend it was for the children... but let's be serious... they don't care. it's for me. and nate loves me... so he dresses up for me too. :) i am not sure where the idea of family costumes came from... i think truly by accident. i am going to dig back through the archives and try to pull out some pics from past halloweens since i wasn't blogging.. or scrapbooking.. or pretty much doing anything besides taking pictures and then letting them fall into the abyss never to be heard from or seen again. sadness. but let's just say the wizard of oz is the most recent in a long line of family costumes that one day my children age 13- 18 will say 'seriously mom? how embarrassing.' until they have children and continue the costume tradition.:)

so the night before we went to a costume party and nate, luci and i won for best couple costume. we did not win the twister competition. a party can not get much better than costumes and twister. don't you think? ;) i borrowed some maternity pants from our gracious hostess and brought my best stuff to the floor....

 but how can you compete with people willing to go this far? there were a few awkward moments for sure...

 by the end of the night poor toto had lost a leg and just wanted to be put to bed.:)

halloween came as it should... with a cold front that blew in threatening all my work with questions like

'how can a tin man wear a coat?

but by afternoon the edge of the wind had been softened by sun and we braved the nip in the air with anticipation of what lay ahead.

grayson had his first experience with full facepaint. he was equal parts giddy, ecstatic and confused. i was completely terrified. he kept touching his face and then trying to touch me, the rug, the couch etc. he kept saying 'feel my face it sticky. it getting hard. see touch.' i kept saying 'grayson please NOOO! the paint has to stay on your face!and daddy why do you have this camera so close to my face???'

his costume consisted of one piece of poster board i found in the back of a closet from who knows what.. some silver spray paint and the rings were connected with that metal jewelry twine stuff. i for one couldn't get enough of him in his little ari donated peter pan leggings. oh man do i have it coming when he's old enough... ;) this was a somewhat ridiculous costume choice for grayson for many reasons.
1. it was somewhat confining.
2. it was kind of delicate.... thus the duct tape that i carried everywhere with us and you see more and more of it on him as the night goes on
3. the aforementioned wet face paint.
but oh my goodness if he wasn't the cutest little tin man that ever walked this earth. i could eat him up sometimes. :)

ari's lion costume was a crocheted hat from target that i looped yarn all over... so if we ever get tired of it as a lion mane (like that could happen) it can go back to being just a hat-- as soon as i sew back on her tail puff to the top. :) the tail is rolled up masking tape with a scrap piece of fur i had rolled over it and her beanie puff on top. her 'skin' is just long underwear from target  as well as the dollar spot mask which we scored the day before in lieu of facepaint. her comment after seeing the pictures was
 "i can't believe that's me! i look like a REAL lion!!

luci's costume was 50 cents... total. :) it consisted of one unfortunate goodwill donor bear who died so that an awesome puppy costume could live. i was actually a little disturbed cutting him up. i think i have a few emotion transference issues. i had to keep saying... he is just pretend. he is not real .. in my head. hey don't judge me... i am a vegetarian. i'm sensitive. :) 

 she was scrumpalicious. :)

enough of the chat chat as ari says... let's get to the candy round up. every halloween i fall in love with my neighborhood all over again. we live in the oldest part of town and i just adore it. these great old houses speak my language. i couldn't live anywhere else in town... i really couldn't. these kids took to the streets like they owned them.

uh oh--- watch yourself! lion's gettin' frisky! :)

the tin man struggled with stairs at every house we went to. he couldn't really bend. between being lifted up and down stairs and momma's roll of duct tape we survived the whole outing. amazing.

i love this picture... they're all

" what? we're a bird and a tin man.. and???

it's all in the swagger... "

we got back to the house in time to start a big pot of chili ... and as the smell filled the kitchen, friends gathered after their night out in costume, children wearing the straggling remnants of their disheveled characters and sucker sticks hanging from their mouths raced to doors to pass out candy and explain to little cats, knights and ghosts who we had been that night.

i am tellin ya... magic. and apparently i was so overcome with the magic that i forgot to get out the camera and didn't get any pictures of the fairy, the butterfly, the pirate, the mustached baby or her mustached parents... or any of the parents. but you can imagine... toddlers screeching, running, candy being compared and snuck into mouths that had already had their fill. friends laughing and filling bowls with a second helping of warmth that comes from the inside out.

halloween- check.

but all good things end. and there are plenty of good days left to be had that don't include costumes and candy. i found daddy like this sunday night after having left him 'reading' to the children...my poor scarecrow is just plum tuckered out i would say...

and now to pull ourselves out from our halloween hangover. pumpkins smashed in the streets... reeses peanut butter cups with your morning coffee...

my birthday, anniversary, thanksgiving... november comes in on a post sugar low but she holds her own and by the end she introduces winter and ushers in that silent wonder. welcome november. welcome.