Scully Space: November 2019

The lead-up to Halloween 2019 was spectacular.

Throughout all of October, our wooded lot was extra bright and showy. But, as you might recall, ain't nobody Trick or Treating on our street.

Luckily, one of the teachers at Pete's school lives in the middle of nowhere and hosted a haunted hayride evening. I had the chance to make my carrot pumpkin!

Needing no caption at all, these four skeletons were ready for the hayride festivities--

The hayride was all through this amazing property, which the people obviously bought for Halloween purposes. See all the stuff hanging in the trees, and James looking like he's scared out of his wits?

We roasted our own hot dogs and marshmallows because it was Halloween Prep Perfection!

...except Elliott. He's now 42 and too old for hayrides, costumes, general joy and frivolity. So, here's a singular shot of him before a formal board meeting*.

*The briefcase is actually a clarinet, and this photo was just before a band concert. But the age bit is still pretty believable, right?

Anyway, the real reason we're all here...………..THE COSTUUUUUUUUMES!

So, here's Patrick's inspiration--

Blindfolds aside, these are cubers at a cubing competition. (Google "World Cube Association" if you want to be blown away by this underworld and just how many competitions take place all across the globe all. the. time.)

Patrick wanted that whole look, and he was willing to work for it.

If Halloween prep doesn't strongly resemble a Costco run, are you even doing it right??

We had A LOT of logistics to figure out, and Patrick devoted two days of self-guided learning to working on this thing! We used sturdy cardboard with multiple reinforcements, wooden dowels, carved floral foam (look out, knuckles!!), duct tape, packing tape, electrical tape, and Gorilla tape. It was A PROCESS.

If you don't speak Cube--dummy--this is the StackMat he made with foam, felt, paint pens. (It's a timer that starts as soon as you lift your hands to solve your cube.)

The whole thing was belted to him to be hands-free, but, ya know. Best laid plans and all that. Here, I asked him to pretend he just broke the world record--

I forgot a close-up of his bag, which included a cube logo we had to sew on. Just LOOK how impressed his best buddy was!

Maybe it was because he looked at the forecast. This year, we basically tried to stay upright in a hurricane. ToT 2019 featured gusts up to 50 mph (and a bonus real-feel temp of 27!). Most of the planning and hard work was NO MATCH for the wind. Patrick told people he was a magician. 😁

So, onto Matthew for his very first ToT outing!

He found a baseball jersey in the dress-up bin and was ALL about being a baseball player for Halloween! We found a toy batting helmet (obviously I made a quick Hawks logo to go with the jersey), and he was SOLD!!! SO excited!

...until it was time to wear it.

HIS IDEA. This was all HIS IDEA. And wooooo-eeee, look at those daggers!

The helmet was definitely out, so we grabbed a baseball cap on the way out the door and used this sweet baseball bucket with a ribbon handle for candy collectin'.

Matthew found the whole exercise very confusing. A couple of times he tried to leave candy in people's bowls. And he never heard instructions, like how many to grab. If they said, "pick one," he'd snag three. If they said, "take a handful," he'd delicately pick one. But the child was frozen and miserable. He insisted on me carrying him and scream-cried every time a wind gust took his hat. He smiled only after completing 16 minutes of ToT. We returned to a friends' house to warm up (read: run out the clock), and they magically found an old ABCs toy in storage! Look who LOVES Halloween!

So, we end with my favorite.

James decided long ago and never wavered. He wanted to be a Christmas tree!

It seemed so obvious to me, so I bought a kid's hoop skirt and spray painted it dark green.

I found pipe cleaners that looked like tiny tree branches (attached in a necklace and bent around elastic hair ties at his wrists and elbows) and a string of battery-powered lights. To a friend's outgrown hot pink headband, I sewed a cheapy tree-topper (and then added electrical tape for good measure). We safety-pinned ornaments and bead strings all over, and TA-DA!

With miserable Matthew in my arms, I snagged this photo of the wind. It was SO wicked. But! James' best bud from preschool reprised her role as ToT buddy, so we made the rounds for another year! (Could this have been our fourth consecutive year together?!)

Back at our unintended home base house--thanks again, friends!!!--James found an empty corner where the Christmas tree was obviously destined to stand! At this point, every string was tangled, and half the ornaments had fallen out of their hangers. Does this face look like it cares??!