Relatively spooky

I had a long weekend due to my college's two-day Fall Break this week. And I saved up all the Halloween prep accordingly. Including the jack o' lantern!



We asked the kids whether they wanted two jack o' lanterns, one for each of them, as we've done in the past (mostly because in the past we've gone to pumpkin patches and let them each pick out a pumpkin--not applicable this year since Noel was going to get the pumpkin at the supermarket). As we suspected, Archer said one was fine. After reassuring Cady Gray that this meant she was in complete charge of the sole jack o' lantern, we were good to go.



More than 200 seeds came out of this thing. CG regards the counting of seeds as an important part of the Halloween ritual.



CG's design was inspired by a pumpkin she saw somewhere with a math equation carved into it. She picked her favorite equation and added nerdy spectacles and a big happy mouth just for fun.



I drew the line at carving out "HAPPY," especially since it was so close to the top opening, but executed the rest of her design exactly as drafted. It came out great!



Let others have their jack o' lanterns that are "scary" and "traditional" and "coherent as a collection of elements." CG's design couldn't be more perfect for this family.

It's all treats here

This is the picture where Archer was trying to look all serious and competitive like Ash Ketchum.



And this is the one where he let slip just how much he's actually enjoying Halloween. Hope yours was just as happy.

A bunch of cutups

We managed to carve out enough time in our weekend to make jack-o-lanterns. Get it? Carve out enough time?



Archer volunteered that he was having a lot of fun scooping out pumpkin guts with his hands.



That surprised me given how carefully he was trying to remove the stringy mess from between his fingers after each scoop.



Archer took this picture of me scraping the inside of his pumpkin.



He made his pumpkin face simple, which was considerate to the carver (me).



By contrast, Cady Gray made hers pretty fancy. Archer kept up a running commentary about how he used 100% polygons and CG had 87.5% closed curves.



I appreciate that they chose pumpkins that were almost the exact size of their heads.



See? It just needs a pink headband.



When I set the pumpkins up together, Archer said, "It looks like they're going dating." "Going what?" I said. "Like they're on a date, like they're dating," Cady Gray explained.





Those are four handsome faces!

October 31

This afternoon a student asked me if I knew when the city was planning to hold Halloween.  I'm afraid I scared her a little with the rant I offered in reply.

Before last year, I had never encountered this notion of rescheduling Halloween.  In 2010, October 31 fell on a Sunday.  For weeks ahead of time, people were asking whether Conway officials would issue an edict moving trick-or-treating to Saturday, to avoid conflicts with Sunday evening church services.

I know that some of you will find this bizarre because of the religious angle; I found it bizarre despite my Southern evangelical in-church-every-time-the-doors-were-open upbringing.  When Halloween conflicted with church, we trick-or-treated early, late, or not at all.  We didn't ask elected officials to get involved to protect our God-given right to dress up in non-occult and non-slasher-movie costumes and solicit candy around the neighborhood.

Here's why you can't reschedule Halloween.  Number one: It's a day on the liturgical calendar -- All Saint's Day Eve.  That's not under secular control.

Number two, and more important: You can't get the memo to everyone.  To its credit, that's how the city responded last when the hue and cry arose.  They got the word out to the papers that the city was taking no action so that there wouldn't be an incomplete penetration of the news, meaning some people would expect trick-or-treaters on Saturday and some on Sunday.  Disappointed kids and embarrassed doorbell-answering would ensue.

And number three: There is no problem to be solved here.  Are we concerned that Halloween falls on a school night?  That happens most years.  Why is it suddenly unacceptable?  Trying to move it creates far more problems, because people are uncertain about what they're supposed to do and are afraid of doing the wrong thing.

All we have to do is have Halloween on Halloween.  No issues whatsoever.  Everybody chill and stop calling City Hall.  End of rant.

Sweetness

I save up my sweet tooth until the weekend.  That's when I indulge in my longest love affair -- the one with chocolate.  And there's no better time of the year for chocolate than Halloween.

With the big night falling on a Sunday when I was away, this weekend was the first time I got to dip into the kids' haul.  Cady Gray had already made the accounting: The most treated candy was M&Ms, of which they received a stunning 82 fun-sized packets.  (Archer won the contest with a guess of 82.)

When I was a kid, we used to dump out our bags on the kitchen table on Halloween night and make sure everybody got an equal share of the most desirable items.  Chocolate came first, with Hershey's miniatures at the top, followed by Reese's cups, kisses, Snickers, M&Ms, and other lesser candy bars.  SweeTarts were the best of the non-chocolate treats.  At the bottom were Smarties.

In our house, we put the chocolate in one bowl, the rest in another.  The kids get their dessert from whichever they choose after dinner.  And on the weekend, I raid the chocolate bowl for the choicest bits.  It's pretty much the same priority as thirty years ago.  I still can't figure out what a serving is of these little mini-candies, so I eat too much, I'm sure.  And I'll be just as sad when the good ones are gone and I'm left scrounging through the off-brands hoping there's a stray Dove nugget that I've overlooked.

In absentia

I spent the day complaining to anyone who would listen about being gone on Halloween.  (Then I showed them pictures of the kids on my cell phone to drive home how painful this was for me.)  Luckily, I have a husband who not only dutifully dressed them in costumes and took them around the neighborhood, but shot and edited a video so I could see it from afar.  When I called this afternoon, Noel told me they were totally psyched for trick-or-treating. I hope they had as much as it looks like they're having.  And look how great my Poké Ball costume turned out!

I stick to the path that I choose

Today's post about Halloween props is at Toxophily.



Posting from Kansas City, and presuming that these cushy, huggable Poké Balls are being employed back in Conway luring and trapping stray Munchlax that happen to be hanging around the front yard area.

Halloween commissions

There are so many wonderful things about having children.  Halloween costumes are not one of them, as far as I'm concerned.  I love taking pictures of my kids on Halloween, I love having them be excited about dressing up and going house to house.  But when it comes to putting together good costumes, the pressure really gets to me.  I don't feel like I have the time or creativity to do it well, but I don't want to send them out in something half-baked.

So when Noel reminded me that this is the weekend to get their costumes made, since I'm going to be gone for the next two weekends in a row, I didn't need the heads-up.  I've been thinking about little else all week.

Cady Gray wants to be a Poké Ball.  I would love to make her into a sphere, but the only way I could think of to do it involves sheets and sewing and stuffing and the serious possibility of it going very wrong.  So I'm thinking sandwich board ... styrofoam ... cardboard ... poster board, maybe poster paint ... fabric straps over the shoulder.

Archer wants to be a chess piece.  We have talked him into a rook, so there's not a whole lot of shape needed to the body of the piece.  Basically I'm thinking poster board wrapped around him held up with fabric shoulder straps, and a crenellated crown.  All white, no fuss.  But I started to think about where his arms would go and whether his legs would be able to move.  There may be some details that I'll have to figure out on the fly.  And that's what I dread.

Any suggestions for how to do these costumes, oh creative readership?

... Scary! Scary!

Cady Gray took some time while we were setting up jack-o-lanterns to show me her most frightening looks.



This is just generalized scary.




Boo! It's a ghost!




Vampire ... you can see the fangs, I'm sure. They're still baby fangs, they'll fall out eventually.




And my favorite: Mummy! I didn't get any more shots because I was too busy running away in terror. Luckily her actual costume is nowhere near this scary.

Scary! Scary!

Today was jack o'lantern carving day! Here's how it turned out.





The spiky one is Cady Gray's ...




And the happy one is Archer's.




Everybody say "Halloween!"




I certainly hope these pumpkins can coexist peacefully.




Ahhhh! What have you done with my children?!

So good to me

What makes a perfect pumpkin?

It's a question asked in many a fall-themed children's book. And one that comes up anytime a kindergarten class takes a field trip to a pumpkin patch.

There was an article in the local paper today about the difficulties pumpkin-patch operators encounter trying to turn a profit. At this time of year, it's hard to imagine that the pumpkineers aren't raking it in; all you have to do, it seems, is plant a half-acre and then sit back and collect money from the school buses that will start lining up at your gate before they've even sprouted. But I guess there's quite a bit to it -- you need to press some sorghum, map out a hayride, invest in some petting-zoo animals. The article stated that if the crop is bad, as it's been the last couple of years, you have to buy pumpkins wholesale to plump out your patch. That cuts into the margin, I'm sure.

Like most parents, I have some definite pumpkin preferences. I'm not sure what the point of a small pumpkin would be, since I don't like pumpkin to eat and am unlikely to make a pie. The bigger, the better, as far as I'm concerned -- easier to carve, more impressive on the doorstep.

I didn't get to accompany Cady Gray on her pumpkin patch field trip today. What with Noel in Chicago and me with the usual work responsibilities, there was no one who could subtly push her in the direction of jack-o-lantern-sized gourds. So she came home with a perfectly Cady Gray-sized pumpkin, just about exactly the volume of her head. It's gorgeously round, pleasingly proportioned, classically sectioned. I have no idea what to do with it, but sitting on our kitchen table, it's a lovely evocation of the misty, chilly weather that's taken hold, and a signal of the rapidly fleeing year.

Dressing up

Today's post about a new costume is at Toxophily.

In other costume news, Archer will be a Lego brick for Halloween, thanks to this tutorial.




Cady Gray will be a beautiful princess, thanks to the best costume I could find at the consignment sale.




And each will have a jack-o-lantern that strangely resemble him or her.

Treats tricked, or tricks treated

Cady Gray among her costumed classmates (how many characters can you name?).


Ever notice how jack-o-lanterns look like their creators?


More irrefutable evidence.


Even before the sugar high, Halloween is the best thing that's ever happened to us.

Weekend update

Updates on matters of recent discussion:


During the pumpkin patch field trip, Cady Gray sat near members of the gourd family ...


... and stuck her head in a two-dimensional facsimile of one.


All are happy with their Halloween costumes, from the spiders ...


... to the space commanders. (The mustache is left over from a pirate-themed birthday party earlier in the afternoon. I think it gives him a science-fiction Errol Flynnish air.)


We felt like embracing the whole world ...


... and heading off to the stars.

Halloween preparations

After last year's unprecedented (and never to be repeated) homemade Halloween costume for Archer, we've reverted to our costume norm: whatever appropriately-sized dress-up clothes come close enough to our greedy hands to be snagged.

We've managed to convince Cady Gray that she really wants to be a spider. What necessitated such brainwashing? A local Freecycler offered a 3T-4T sized spider costume for giveaway.

Archer was tougher, since he's unlikely to come up with any character ideas on his own, and since we didn't come across any likely cast-offs hanging over the edge of nearby dumpsters. Finally Noel took him to a Halloween shop that's opened up in empty retail space across town, and they settled on an astronaut jumpsuit.

On the same trip, Noel picked up a rubber dog mask for himself. We're going to a Halloween party thrown by friends next weekend, and these are friends who take Halloween very seriously. Adults who show up without costumes are forced to wear whatever is offered them when they walk in the door; last year Noel and I ended up with Thing 1 and Thing 2 wigs. The dog mask is an attempt to head the hosts off at the pass. I have neither spare energy nor shopping time to do likewise. Probably that is legally equivalent to consent to be photographed in a Viking helmet with attached Nordic braids, or whatever my punishment will be for not playing along.

I can't remember having many definite ideas for Halloween costumes when I was a kid. Thanks to various costumes produced for school plays, I was a dinosaur once (my tail, which was tied around my waist under the costume, attached through slits in the back, got stepped on and ripped off) and a witch more than once (when you've got the big hat, it's secure fallback position). My older brother tended to wear his PeeWee football uniform for a no-effort costume. A store-bought Casper The Friendly Ghost mask topped many a sheet, many a year. I'm probably blocking out some hugely elaborate outfit my mom spent hours and hours on, but my memory is that I'm carrying on the family tradition when I worry as little as possible about what the kids are going to wear on Halloween.