We're baaa-aaaack!

'Round these parts, you know I skip every milestone but Halloween. UNLESS it's 2020. Then I don't even log into Scully Space. SO! Here's a quick recap from LAST year, when Covid zapped every ounce of Halloween energy I had--

We had nuthin'. No trick-or-treat. No creativity. No joy. Until I announced I'd bought full-sized candy bars, and the boys could get two each if they threw on SOME kind of costume. 

But this year was different. This year, we were BACK! Even the ghost was happy about it. 

We made hotdog mummies, and James quickly decided they're delicious, and we need to make these every year. (Eight, as it turned out, was not enough.)

And yippee yahoo, my veggie pumpkin came back, this year featuring extra cruciferous vegetables no one but me likes! 

James scrunched up his face and helpfully questioned, "Why does the pumpkin have hair, Mom?" 

Of course, he's always been a brat. 

But! He's also my most excited holiday helper, so let's dive into his costume reveal first! 

Obviously (and in case you can't read his belt buckle), he's the World's Strongest Man, a staple of any circus sideshow! 

The funniest part here is how much mental anguish I experienced while trying to construct that barbell. We have a set of those big bouncy balls with handles (You know what I mean, right? Kids sit on them and jump/bounce/race. What are they called??) that was my inspiration. I thought I could pop those onto a piece of PVC pipe and voila! Totally wasn't gonna work. I moved onto the idea of spraypainted styrofoam balls, but those get expensive! In the end, I decided it didn't need to be black and that a couple of punch balloons taped to either end of a broom handle would suffice. 

We could absolutely form James' hair into this split-bangs look, but I did need to splurge on a $5 handlebar mustache. 

The muscle shirt was already in our dress-up bin from Patrick's costume a few years back. The tank top is mine--HA! And here's an old laundry bag that said the price of admission is 25 cents OR candy. 

Are you dying at his handlebar smirk?! 

Next, and last since teens are nuthin but Halloween dream killers, is Matthew! 

Multiple people asked me if he was from Peaky Blinders to which I'd retort, HE'S FOUR and a paperboy!

...in Daniel Tiger slip-ons. (Artistic license)

We tried to emphasize the bag to drive home the not-gangster theme. 

I mean, he's basically a dead ringer, right? 

He has no idea what he's yelling here, but I love him for his commitment. 

Bet he coulda sold a half a zillion newspapers, too!

Out in the wild, Matthew found the whole ToT experiment to be a bit overwhelming. (This year was his first!) We made it through one half of one street before he wanted to be done. He ruled out houses that had scary costumes, scary decorations, scary pumpkins, barking dogs, and a couple of maybe-scary old ladies. He much preferred quiet decision-making with no human contact.

But he definitely yelled, "Fanks!" when he heard the prompt! 

This scene never gets old.

James opted to make the rounds with his 4th grade buds. Hilariously, he also declined to trade any candy with those buds, but safely back home, he delighted in sorting and counting his spoils.

That's 231.5 pieces of candy because SOMEone opened a fun size Starburst and gave this poor muffin only one chewy square!

Candy supplies started running low early. It was a bus-y night! And I couldn't be happier. 

Happy Halloween 2021!

The year of the spray painted hoop skirt

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??!

This was my favorite part. The Christmas tree's candy collector--

The haul may have been smaller this year...

...but that sure doesn't mean you can't make the most of trading...

...again and again and again! 

Here's hoping for 60 degrees, no rain and a light breeze in 2020! Happy Halloween! 

Annual check-in

Since I blog but once a year, here's your update: We did the unthinkable. We moved to a crazy old house that has zero trick-or-treat. Whaaaaaaaaaaat were we thinking?!?!?

Luckily, we live just 1.5 miles from our old 'hood, so we didn't have to cancel Halloween on account of our housing idiocy!

Then, Mother Nature stepped in. Yet again, she tried to rain on our Halloween parade, and she was rather successful..., but dangit! We persevered!

Now, to do something about the holiday apathy from THIS one:

He's all, What's this? Only your favorite holiday/day of the year? [yawn] Don't care.

Well, I didn't NEED him. 'Cause I found a hand-me-down yellow vest and a bucket hat that reminded me of a fisherman, so I had all the inspiration I needed! I cut up an old onesie and sewed it into a fish and then, with the Gorton's Fisherman in mind, I made one, grocery-store impulse purchase:

 Perfection! 

(They didn't fit.)

"Hey, Matthew! You look so cute! Can you hold this fishing pole??"

Oh. Okay.

He had a little bucket that said, "Worms [written in worms, of course] or candy." However, since he's in his brother's boots that are exactly six sizes too large, I took about 152 photos of him looking unsteady (seasick, maybe?) and miserable (character commitment, prolly).

But then--aha!--he discovered he could flick that fish around and almost nearly smile...until the ribbon slipped right off the end of the stick.

End Matthew's Halloween 2018 scene.

Full disclosure: We posed for these photos on October 30 because the forecast for the 31st was a washout. When we got to the fateful night, young Matthew put his snotty head on my shoulder around 6 p.m. and opted for PJs over fishing gear. :(

Maybe next year!

Meanwhile, Elliott, the big adult, wasn't much better. He wasn't sick, but he claimed he was "too old" for ToTing and "no one wears costumes," so he went to some dumb teen party to, I don't know, eat pizza and roll his eyes, I think.

So THANK GOD I have 83 additional children on whom I can still hang all my Halloween hopes! Let's hear it for the real stars of Halloween 2018!

Dutifully, these two thoughtfully designed their pumpkins...that we never actually carved. But it was SUPERhard to get motivated for that undertaking when we knew we'd have zero trick-or-treaters! (File that with my carrot pumpkin and Matthew in the "Maybe Next Year" column.)

More importantly, James knew JUST what he wanted to be! A Lego guy (or minifig, as the Lego nerds call 'em)!

Well, you can certainly buy this or a zillion other Lego costumes, but why on Earth would I do that when a Costco pretzel barrel was just BEGGING to be transformed?!

I cut off the bottom, cut out eye holes and sketched the face in Sharpie. Did you know spray paint doesn't really cover Sharpie?? And that when you just keep spraying more to cover your permanent marker-sketching, the paint drips instead? And then when you wipe the excess, you glance up at Patrick whose horrified face clearly articulates: Why are you ruining Halloween, mother, why?

His face didn't get better when I tried to find Lego hands that'd work. Out of desperation, I went with these: 

Yeah.

We pulled out a size 16 jacket, stuffed a box inside of it and voila! James, the Lego minifig, was born:

Turns out, it's really hard to come up with different poses when you're supposed to be a little plastic doll with limited movements...

But James was delighted that his head would do the smiling for him! For his all-important candy collector, we glued some bricks onto a bag.

Heck if some dummies didn't ask him if he was a Minion...

HOW many clues do you need?? WORK with me, people!

Now, Patrick.

Maybe I told you his big idea from last year: Drew Drechsel, his most favorite competitor from his most favorite show, American Ninja Warrior.

Hmmm. Seems easy.

Last year, I talked him out of it, in favor of a pretty spectacular scarecrow (conveniently located one post down!). But this year, he remained steadfast in his wish. I decided it was up to me to make his Halloween dream come true!

I got an orange tank top and a Sharpie:

(As a quick aside, a girl approached Patrick and asked about his shirt. He told her his mom made it, and she complimented him because the Chinese characters were actually done correctly! Hot diggity!)

Clearly, most people would need more help. His bag had to step up its game and help others figure out what the heck his costume was all about. It took some serious time!  

More details. Patrick has always been our skin-and-bones kid... Soooooo, you say you wanna be a muscle-bound, tank-topped gym owner who competes on national TV? Ummmmm... How about a muscle shirt for warmth on an October night?!

Success!

My favorite part was debating what, if anything, he should wear under the muscles. Mom won and forced him to wear a t-shirt underneath. When I further suggested tucking the whole thing in, he strongly questioned me. "Uh, 'cause it's your skin?"

Oh. Yeah. That makes sense!

Why do the candy collectors often become my favorite part?

Anyway, Elliott went to his party. Matthew happily went to bed. Patrick went off ToTing with his buddies. So, I was left with Jimbo!

Luckily, his partner in crime (a conservationist, obviously) could join us! We got a late start, it was pitch-black and steadily drizzling-to-raining, and James wore head-to-toe impracticality.

He couldn't really see out of his inadequate eye holes. His stupid, spray-painted mittens gave him the dexterity of a vending machine claw. And his paper bag with water-soluble glue turned out to not be the best choice in the rain... HA!

But! We. had. fun.

And when we gathered at our crazy old house for the sorting aftermath (and a beer), James lost another tooth! So! Turns out we DID have jack-o-lanterns in 2018!

Another memorable Halloween in the books!