Boo!

Happy Halloween!!

This was our best Halloween, yet. The first Halloween that we took Beckett trick-or-treating, I spent the entire day sewing his costume with him sitting on my lap and feeling horribly nauseous with a throbbing migraine. (I was pregnant with Kyler.) I finished the costume about 15 minutes before nightfall. Then we proceeded to walk the neighborhood in freezing temperatures. I had to explain to several suspicious candy-givers that when I rang their doorbell with pumpkin in hand that, yes, I did have a child with me, only he was too cold and tired to climb the 24 steps to their house to ring their doorbell. The next year, Kyler was the cutest little ear-infected pea pod. Again, it was freezing. Kyler was so bundled in his stroller no one got to see how cute he was. Since we lived in an apartment, we decided to walk to a nearby neighborhood. It seemed like a good idea, but the walk was about 20 minutes each way and uphill (each way). Oh, and, it was freezing. This year, no one was sick and it was 70 degrees!! Though, I was still sewing Beckett's costume the morning of Halloween. Oh well. One of these years I'll be prepared!



Beckett was upset Kyler wasn't going as an ant. He had a bug theme in mind, I guess. But, we had the scarecrow costume leftover from Beckett. I tried to tell him it was scarecrow's job to keep the ladybugs out of the garden, but he didn't buy it. I guess he's informed that ladybugs are actually beneficial to agriculture. Interestingly, the scarecrow got tons more compliments this time around. We were told by several houses it was the best scarecrow costume of the night. Maybe folks in Wisconsin are just too used to seeing real scarecrows to be impressed with my costume-making skills!


Ladybug, Ladybug fly away home! My mom says I've ruined the nursery rhyme since I informed her that male "ladybugs" have spots and the female ones don't. This is absolutely true and was my best attempt to masculinize Beckett's costume in the eyes of my mom. (Dana and I, of course, did not care. He begged to be a ladybug). My mom's response, "Then how do you know how many children the ladybug has?" Seriously?

The kids had SO MUCH FUN trick-or-treating. Beckett raced to each door while Kyler trekked behind, carrying his pumpkin all by himself. After EVERY house, Beckett would exclaim, "They gave me MORE candy!" with utter astonishment. At one house, there was an odd lady whom I overheard tell the mom in front of us, "No candy for babies" as she reached into the toddler's bag and actually took the candy back. Then she shooed away the mom. I was shocked! The baby looked just slightly younger than Kyler. When it was our turn, the woman asked how old Kyler was. I exaggerated and said he's almost 2 hoping she'd let him have the candy. He did afterall walk up the walkway carrying his pumpkin all by himself. How can you deny a kid candy?! And just because you "own" the candy, is it really right to discriminate who can receive it? Kyler came home with a full pumpkin of candy, but it's not like we're allowing him to eat it all (the same goes for Beckett). But, even if we were, it's really no business to the person who gave us the candy freely. That woman really irritated me. If I hadn't been in such a darn good mood and had the boys there as witnesses, I probalby would have given her a piece of my mind. Or, maybe I wouldn't have. I did warn the families behind us, though. I felt a little better after that. Oh, and Kyler did get the candy!

Since we live in the neighborhood where my mom grew up, we trick-or-treated at her old house. The current owner let us come inside for a quick tour. It was very cool! It seemed so much smaller than I remember (my mom said the same thing). They had done some odd things to the kitchen, like turned the breakfast nook into a home office with built in cabinets, so there was no kitchen table. But the rest of the kitchen looked identical. It still had the tile floor my grandma had installed in the '80s, and the backsplash, counters, and cabinets were original from 1959 (except the cabinets had been painted white). My mom and I hadn't been in that house since '87 when my grandpa died. I'm really glad we got to see it again. Now, I'm on a mission to tour all my old houses. There were a lot of them. I wonder how the current owners would take that?

As upset as the mean candy lady made me, my good mood was preserved by the Obama pumpkins in the neighborhood. We have some talented and political neighbors. I would have never thought to carve Obama's face or "O" symbol onto a pumpkin (nor do I possess the skills), but I'm sure glad people did. In hindsight, we should have carved a big "W" on our pumpkin instead of a toothy smily face. But, that might have been too scary!