Halloween 2012

Bookclub may have made my Halloween grinchy heart grow three times this year.  A year ago, a woman joined who is ALL about halloween.  She's one of those people who goes all out and spends a fortune in both money and time to decorate and celebrate this silly holiday.  We take turns hosting different months and as soon as we signed up for months, she hollered for October so that we could all enjoy her Halloween ambiance.

I made my usual spiel about how I don't usually dress up and don't care for the holiday but she said I had to come in costume.  I had planned on trying to find a giant pair of sunglasses or a purple wig, just for minimum effort, but when I was shopping on Amazon.com for Henry and Sam's costumes, I saw an "I Love Lucy" get up and thought, "Oh, that kind of looks like fun."  So, I bought it.

Bookclub was o.k.  My head itched all night wearing a wig and I honestly had more fun putting on my fake eyelashes than being at book club but I'm still glad I got the costume.  It's a keeper!

My kids were thrilled that I planned on dressing up.  We still didn't do jack-o-lanterns, crazy lunches or frosted pumpkin cookies and there were no Halloween decorations around our house of any kind.  I came to their school party on Friday and helped with their "healthy breakfast" classroom parties and went to the school Halloween carnival on Saturday night but didn't dress up for either.  They were too busy running around with their friends to notice anyway.  I don't know whether to be relieved, embarrassed or slightly sad that they don't seem to care at all about my lack of Halloween enthusiasm but it is nice to keep it simple.  In fact, I think it has helped me cope and come to terms with this weird tradition as an adult.



Sam and Henry's school celebrated in the morning with a student parade around the gym.



Sam loved his green man costume.  Everyone kept asking him what he was and he simply replied, "Just a green guy."





Henry was an adorable banana.  He didn't get the memo that the costume of the year was ninja.  There must have been at least a dozen there.





Healthy breakfast party.

Jay dressed up as an excavator this year.  He always goes big on his costumes and even rented a trench digger for full effect.  He stayed in character all day long, digging away, and was still at it when we got home from trick-or-treating at 7:30 pm!.  That guy sure is dedicated to Halloween!



Daniel got a turn on the machine.







Henry couldn't wait for 5:30 when it was time to leave.  We had to pick up Seth from basketball by 6 but I managed to get some pictures in front of the house before dark this year.  I'm learning.



I prefer non-scary/non-dead/non-gory costumes.  So far, no problems!



My little tigger!



He has no idea what is going on.  "What is that funny thing on your head, Mama?"



As soon as we got to the neighborhood we like to descend upon for trick-or-treating, he got grumpy and tired.



As boo-humbugy and resistent to celebrating a silly holiday for weeks and weeks, I do really enjoy watching my kids trick-or-treat.  It brings a smile to my face to hear them say the words and get excited about the fun size candy plunking into their pumpkins.



Everyone loved Sam's costume.  He got a TON of comments, mostly from adults, about how cool he looked.  Unfortunately, as soon as the sun set, he could not see.  At all.  He chose not to wear his glasses because they hurt his face when he wore them underneath the costume and the no glasses/covered face/dark sky made him nearly blind.  He told me he felt like what a moth feels like.  He could only see shapes of light.  He held onto my arm along the street and Seth would guide him up to the house but he was always relieved when someone had a big fire burning in their driveway or lots of lights on.  I was nervous about him tripping or hurting himself but once we got safely back to the car, I could laugh about how funny it was.  The sacrifices made for costumes!



Seth did not want to go trick-or-treating this year.  I put the wig and sunglasses in the car and let him choose to wear them and go with us or to stay in the car.  He went with us but was pretty grumpy.  He was either embarrassed about trick-or-treating with us or he was really tired and hungry after practice.  Still...he got free candy!



Come to my voice, Sam!



We lost him to sleep about half way through.  And we were only out for about 35 minutes.



Once home, I tried to get some more angles of his costume by putting him on the floor.



He was having none of it.



But some quick moving around gave me all the angles I needed:)  Then I picked him up and he got the snuggles he was seeking.



Such a funny pair of boys.  They traded and negotiated for about a half hour after dinner.  Sam is smart and makes some good trades for gluten-free candy in exchange for his twizzlers, kit kats, twixes and whoppers.



Happy Halloween!