Best Halloween Costume Ever!

First let me preface this by saying, I would NEVER let my kid do this. Maybe. But last Friday at the Halloween parade at school I saw a boy in his Halloween costume and I can only thank the universe that I was not drinking a diet Coke when he came walking by or I would have spit it out on him. His costume was the BEST!. Don't tell my kids I said that.

I wonder how long it will take for his hair to grow back?

Speaking of the best. At one of the class parties the served some great spooky treats:

Of course Halloween would not be complete if I didn't give a shout out to this year's pumpkin that Brett carved...

If you are a fan of Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, you will of course recognize that it is a very good likeness of the character Finn. However, if have never watched the show you might make the mistake of insulting Brett and saying something like this, "oh I once made a Dora pumpkin." Brett didn't appreciate that comment and wanted to throw the pumpkin out after hearing it. I tried to soothe his injured pride but alas his male ego suffered a terrible blow that I am afraid has been irreparably damaged. Why couldn't Finn be more manly... then this tragedy could have been avoided.

Despite the lack of head-shaving in our family, my boys still looked great for Halloween.

Their treat bags are now filled to overflowing and if you can believe it my fridge already has two pages full of Christmas requests... from one kid. I guess I had better hit the stores.

You Know it's October When...

You know it's October when..

* the leaves are changing color and falling off the trees

* the Halloween decorations are in the stores (and in some stores the Christmas decorations are starting to come out...yikes!)

* summer tans are already fading or in my case the winter white is already here

*you are wearing winter clothes but your kids still insist on wearing shorts and flip flops

* you have already returned at least one Halloween costume to the store because your child changed his/her mind

* your kids have asked a million times how many days until Halloween

* you are already wishing it was summer again

That Time of Year Again?

I can't believe that September is almost over which means October is almost here and you know what that means.... Halloween. Yes, I have already purchased the Halloween candy (and hidden it not from my kids but from my husband!)

My five-year old decided months ago that he was going to be a knight due to the fact that the school mascot is a Knight and he has seen the life-size statue of the knight in the entry-way of his brother's school for a year now. Good advertisement. Thanks to Target I now have his costume.

Wannabe is still fascinated with all things Star Wars and keeps switching what Stars Wars character he is going to be every few seconds. I'm hoping to borrow my mother-in-law's Darth Vader costume. The kids love wearing all the costumes she has at the house. They play pretend in them, run around in them and play video games in them...
Sheriff seems to always want to be a ninja every Halloween but perhaps he'll choose something different if I can play some subliminal tapes when he's sleeping over the next couple of weeks.

As for myself... I never know what to be. The store costumes for women are never appropriate so you have to come up with something on your own and I'm just not that creative.

Brett has some options though... he could be a cowboy...

or a twilight character.

With all of the costume deciding I can't forget to choose a new creepy recipe to make.
I wonder which one it will be... Maybe spooky eyeball tacos?

Halloween At Last!!!!

No I'm not talking about Halloween 2009! I'm talking about my long-awaited Halloween pictures for this year (because I know you have been DYING to see them right?).  Now that my camera/computer problems are a thing of the past I finally have my Halloween pictures on my Mac.  Yeah!!!!!!!

I can't believe that my boys are growing so fast.  Most of them are significantly taller this year than last (my three-year old being the exception).  They all chose what they wanted to be this year although some boys changed their minds a couple of times until settling on a final choice.  The end result:  

As Halloween can get expensive you may be wondering how much I spent.  Let me break it down for you.  Brett's costume (can you really call it a costume? hahaha!!!!) ... mask= $1.00

Joe Montana football player (borrowed from Grandma) cost = $0.00

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume- already had it but needed nunchucks cost for nunchucks= $1.99

Batman costume - already had it, cost = $0.00

Jerry Rice (hope I spelled his name right) costume (also borrowed from Grandma) 

cost = $0.00

Total costs= $2.99

Halloween candy on the other hand...... well..... we won't go there will we.

We begin trick or treating in an orderly fashion at first...

but once the boys see candy it is like a shark frenzy sets in... didn't your mother teach you manners???? Oh wait! I'm their mother.  Moving on....

Can you guys even see????

Night sets in and we have done our rounds so we head for home to fill up treat bags.  

That should keep us stocked for Family night, lunch boxes and week-end treats for quite some time.  Thanks to all my neighbors for a great Halloween!!!

Cautiously Optimistic

Today I had a bobbing planet on the bottom of my screen with some Apple updates and I noticed that two were related to iPhoto.  I figured... hey... why not download them and see if it miraculously resolves my problem (one of them had Camera Raw in the title so I had my fingers crossed).  Lo and behold I have been able to upload the photos from my 4MB card that I have been dying to load and I took a few more pictures to be sure it wasn't a card issue and it loaded again!!!! It's an iPhoto miracle!!!  I still need to do the whole song and dance of transferring Halloween pictures from my downstairs computer to my Mac and edit them but here are some of my pictures from October 31st...

First I had to get to the school for the Halloween Parade.  It was a really long wait before kids in costumes came along.  But that's okay.  It gave me time to take in the pre-parade show...

My pictures are better... no MY pictures are better!!!

Some parade observers were more awake than others...(I'm referring to the little guy only!!)

Some parade observers even dressed up in costumes themselves...

And some were still looking at their pictures 10 minutes later.... (gotcha ladies hahahahaha!!!!)

Due to the poor lighting I won't show you my parade photos... they're shameful.  Instead we'll move along to later in the day when I helped out in my 8 year old's class party.

I'm not quite sure about these expressions my neighbor has on his face during the pictionary game.  Perhaps he was hoping to be picked and wasn't or perhaps he was just being silly with his friend next to him.  Anyways,  I took these during the haunted pictionary game...

 

Later that day my 3 and 4 year-old and I went to pick the older boys up from school.

The big boys looked great in their costumes and had a blast at school at their parties and celebrating Halloween.  Now if I can just get through Christmas......

Well, all I can say is I hope that from now on I have no more camera/computer problems.  I know I take a lot of pictures but I realized over the past week how much I rely on my camera and my computer synching perfectly!!!!  My fingers are crossed!!!

A Haunted Halloween

Due to a computer or camera glitch I am delayed with my cute children's halloween costume pictures.  I do, however, have the pictures of my brother and sister-in-law's souped up haunted halloween house.  My brother-in-law Jeff has admitted that Halloween is by far his favorite holiday and I think that as you scan down these pictures you will agree that he certainly enjoys this holiday.  

The front yard was covered with a graveyard and skeletons of all kinds.

A ghostly figure moved up and down her hand outstretched....

In the backyard were more creepy characters....

The creepy character in this case is the spider .... of course!!!

Neighbors get in on the act to help create the spooky ambiance...  I'm referring to the teenager in the mask... not the skeleton in the casket.  Although if any neighbors are reported missing Jen might have to send some of Jeff's co-workers to question Jeff.

Family are also enlisted to scare up some fun.  

Most are suitably scared.  Cody would only get his picture taken with the mummy if Brett had an iron grip on him.  I was even scared and warned the masked teenager not to sneak up on me while I was taking pictures.

These pictures of course don't do justice to all the lights, sounds and motion to all of the figures.  Kudos to all the hard work that went into this year's haunted yard Jeff and Jen!!!!