Continuing a Tradition

I have never been that huge into the bar/club scene (shocking, I know), so even pre-kids BVZ and I were not big Halloween party goers. Instead, we would carefully select one or two delightfully scary movies (as in, read film critic reviews for weeks and stalk Netflix for the perfect ones. Ah, the good old days). Then we would make a traditional dinner of hot dogs and tater tots and eat the majority of the candy purchased for the trick or treaters.

By Norah's first Halloween, two important things had happened: 1) we had a new group of awesome baby friends, and 2) we lived on the "Halloween Street" in Belmont. As a result, the Halloween festivities were incredibly fun and went on for days. Halloween has easily become my all time favorite holiday. I wanted to establish similar traditions here in Texas, so we decided to have a big party.

Norah approved the idea and after waffling between Jessie, Sleeping Beauty, and a Chicken, she finally settled on wanting to be Princess Frostine from the board game Candyland (although she insists it is actually Princess Frosting....good luck trying to convince her otherwise). Lou was going to be Batman. Then Norah asked me to please, please, please be Lolly from Candyland and BVZ to be King Candy. We all couldn't be one theme and leave Louis to be Batman (I mean, the indignity of it all...talk about second child syndrome). So, Louis got assigned Mr. Mint and Norah strong armed Bubby into being Grandma Nutt.

The finished costume, complete with elbow length white gloves.

The dessert table. For the first time we have been able to have both a dining room and a kitchen table and I pretty much love everything about it.

Spider krispy treats:

Owl krispies:

Owl cupcakes (those are mini oreos as the eyes):

Platters of pumpkin, ghost and spider web sugar cookies:

Megan and Trevor brought a platter of eyeball donuts later on (white powdered sugar mini donuts with a m&m in the center and red frosting streaks...they were fantastic), but I somehow managed to not get a picture of them.

We had a run of the mill cheese plate (with crackers):


Fruit skewers:


The "Undead" Pizzas:


Mummy Dogs:


Evil Octopus Hummus and Squid Dip (spinach and artichoke dip....the monsters are bell peppers):


Worm Jello Cups:


Caramel covered snack mix. This was a huge hit. In fact, it almost didn't make it to the party because both BVZ and Bubby couldn't keep their hands out of it.

Then there was a wide variety of chips and crackers and veggies, etc. for the dips and cheeses.

We got a few new decorations this year, including:

The giant Jack-o-Lantern head.

A light up pumpkin.

This was put up so that people could put their heads behind it and take cute pictures. The stupid cat knocked it down before the party, BVZ moved it out of the way, and then I forgot about it. This is the only person who got her picture taken. Boo.

A light up spider web with giant plastic spiders in the center.

My Lolly costume basically consisted of a skirt and shirt I already owned and a giant lollipop scepter that Kiki helped me make the night before from the left over materials we used to make the magic wands at Norah's third birthday party.

This is the best family picture we got. I blame it on the photographer (Bubby), and the fact that BVZ and I are possibly the most un-photogenic people on the planet.


Amy and Mark showed up as Siegfred and Roy. Reid was their tiger. Words can never adequately describe how much I love them for doing this. Mark was wearing Amy's stretch pants. And some of her bronzer.

Grandma Nutt and the tiger.

Kiki flew in from Virginia just for the weekend. She was an enormous help with the party and just generally fun to have around. She was a raccoon. When asked why she picked raccoon she pretty much admitted it was so she could wear sweats to the party.


I had organized a few games for the kids to play, including ghost bowling:


Guess how many candy corns in the jar:

Pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern (not pictured), and shove your hands in a bowl of disgusting worms (spaghetti), eyeballs (grapes), bones (cinnamon sticks), and internal organs (beans) for a prize.

We ended up with a houseful of babies, toddler, pre-schoolers, and big kids, as well as 30+ adults. It was all kinds of fun. The rest of the pictures are in no real order but hopefully show how delightfully chaotic it all was.



















Things were winding down and SLB (my best friend since before kindergarten) and her husband Ben showed up (they were at a baby shower earlier in the day), in these outfits:

They went out and got Snooki and Pauly D wigs specifically for this kid's party. The rest of their costume was found in their own closet. They brought blush wine. They talked in Jersey accents the entire time. I love these two more than words can say.

All in all it was a great time and something I hope we do every year. Kiki was instrumental in helping me with all the food and decoration and costume prep. Amy made both the hummus and the artichoke dip. Bubby cleaned up after us the entire time (no easy feat, I assure you) and entertained babies. Parties are so much more fun to throw with that kind of help around.

We missed our California gang tremendously (I may or may not have cried a little in the Target parking lot the day before about it), and Halloween didn't seem quite the same without them. Maybe I could convince them to all fly out at the same time next year for the party? Any takers??

The After Party

After the Halloween party wound down (this won't make any sense until I actually put the Halloween party post up....soon, I promise), Reid got down to the business of eating some dinner.

And some of the rest of us decided to move our candy corn asses and take a walk. SLB agreed to walk around my neighborhood dressed as a streetwalker (she was actually Snooki, which you will see glorious pictures of if I ever get around to that pesky Halloween party post....) I am sure our neighbors have now called CPS.

Megan wore my Giants shirt and brought binoculars.

Norah changed into cat pajamas.

The beating heart zombie stayed behind to watch the babies (oh, and so did a few grown ups).



I think I took 276 pictures of these three yokels in front of this cute BOO sign and this is the best one I got.


We walked a few more blocks to check out the best decorated house in the neighborhood. We can only aspire to be this good. It was a fully stocked, completely decked out graveyard. It was legitimately really, really scary. Norah loves scary stuff and refused to look at most of the stuff. Megan was a little freaked out too, although she wouldn't admit it.

Trevor, on the other hand, decided to dare himself to do crazy things like lay in the graveyard, shake a skeleton's hand, kiss a tombstone, etc. Then he decided to make me take a picture of each thing he did. I think there are 60+ pictures. Here are some highlights:

Trevor and Kiki pretend to be part of the landscaping.

Trevor chills with a zombie.

SLB realizes how inappropriate her outfit was for a children's party. (Kidding! It was awesome).

Trevor shakes hands with the undead.

Bubby forces Norah in on the action.

SLB gets up close and personal.

Trevor and I danced with the devil in the pale moon light.

Being as "creepy as possible."


The kids came back to eat dinner and watch a Halloween movie, but were so exhausted they couldn't keep their eyes open. Trevor actually sneezed into and then drooled on my pillow he was so tired. Totally gross, but a sign of a successful party for sure.

Halloween Day

Tired of posts about Halloween yet? Too bad. I have lots.

Monday was a regular day and Norah had school. After all of the festivities of the weekend it seemed pretty anti-climatic to do anything on the actual day of Halloween, but it wasn't like we could just ignore it. So, Lou wore some skeleton pajamas.

And Norah put back on her Princess Frostine outfit.

Check out the detail on this dress. We bought a cheapie dress from Target, snowflakes from the craft store, and Bubby worked some magic (I don't think I even own a needle and thread).

She was pooped, but the promise of candy was enough to get her to rally.

This is the best I could get of the two of them together. Pitiful.

I love our scary lady in the tree. Just love her.

BVZ was still at work of course, so Bubby helped out.

There were lots of kids running around the neighborhood and sadly, it made her miss her friends in California. A lot. We had a moment when she looked down with tears in her eyes and I asked her what was wrong. She said, "I am just thinking about Ruby right now." We went trick or treating with all of her besties last year and surprisingly she remembered exactly where they went and what they were all wearing (mind like a steel trap). In retrospect I should have taken her to her cousins' house and had her go with them, because truthfully it is kind of depressing to trick or treat by yourself.



She ended up being a great sport about it though and we had a good time. She got a few select pieces of candy when we got home and later on BVZ and I had a few select more (okay, maybe more than a few). Can't wait until next year when this one can get in on the action too.