Pre-Halloween Post

At some point...junior high or high school...the grown-ups around me decided that Halloween was bad. Until that point (according to my childhood memories) churches were "ok" with kids dressing up in costumes and eating candy and calling it...Halloween. However, at some point we no longer had Halloween parties but Harvest Festivals...where the kids still dressed up and ate a lot of candy. Ummm...

Now as an adult, I get the "issue" of the darkness that surrounds this holiday. But...as an adult, I LOVE the creativity that surrounds it, and that is what I choose to embrace. Whether it's painting a sweatsuit to look like Aubie (a tiger), taping black construction paper dots on a white turtleneck and black paper ears to a headband to make a Dalmatian...or challenging my strength and patience to carve a pumpkin...or trying out new recipes...or just getting to pretend that you are some one or something that you will likely never be...I really enjoy it.


But...back to the afore mentioned "darkness"...what is UP with the girl kid costumes? After brainstorming, we (Porter, Betsy and I) determined that everyone would be a pirate this year, and that I would make them a boat. (With the creative genius of friends, the boat will attach to the wagon and trick or treating will be a breeze!) But...what does this costume say to you? This one was better but I figure Jamie would prefer to fight the skirt "split up to here" later in life than sooner. And look what they've done to poor Alice in Wonderland! Ok...I will stop. You get the point. Pictures of my rough and tumble, and hopefully non-attractive to the creepy people of the world, pirates to come.


I originally started this post so I could share some pictures of our creative and fun adventures from last night. After enjoying some amazing soup and dips, the men watched a pre-Halloween nightmare of an Auburn game and the women and kids painted pumpkins...and ourselves. So much fun! I really do love this stuff!

Mrs. Heather was SO patient with Porter all night and served as her painting assistant.

Check out Mrs. Anna's talents! She can paint and hold Betsy's pumpkin at the same time!

Mrs. Allyson successfully supervised the creation of a bat or spider.

I supervised Jack's "ghost" pumpkin...which he promptly peeled a good bit of the paint off of today.

These three below are from this morning. Betsy and Jack were proud to show off their pumpkin friends! Betsy made a spider and Jack a ghost. (The first picture of Jack...this is what happens if you ask him to smile. In the second...he is saying, "boo!")