Halloween Stuff

My town held a Halloween parade/costume contest today which basically consists of kids lined up in groups following a fire engine once around the square. Exciting huh? But guess which kid won 2nd place in the 8-10 year-old category. Girl didn't win, store bought costumes never do; however if they had a category for acting most like your costume, she would have won hands down.


You may notice that Girl has a different Wonder Woman costume on. I washed the first one and it washed away most of the blue from the skirt. So I got her a new one and went a size up.

This is Halloween...

I remember Halloween being really fantastic when I was little. My entire neighborhood would be out on the streets from the minute school let out until our parents made us come home well after 8 p.m. You would go up to a house and at least 3 or four other groups of kids (who you were not with your group) would arrive just behind you. There were more kids on the street than you could fathom ever living in your neighborhood. Then once you were home, your doorbell didn’t stop ringing until well after 10; and there was never any of the candy that you were giving out left in the bowl (not because you chowed down, but because you gave it all away).
When I lived in Chicago as an adult with a child, Halloween was still pretty great, although I know that the Bridgeport neighborhood was better than most. You did, however, still get all the kids out on the streets, and the all day trick-or-treating. Maybe not as much as when I was little, but enough. Boy never missed out on candy though, because the Bridgeport moms went all out for the school Halloween parties, not sending a bag with one piece of candy per kid, but Ziploc bags full.
Halloween in my current town, however, sucks ass. You are given specific hours to trick-or-treat (in neighboring towns the hours may not even be on Halloween) and even then, you may only see one or two groups of trick-or-treaters. Also, if there is one group at the door, the other group waits until they are done before going up (which in my book, just creates more work for the people at the door).
Trick-or-treating was from 5-8 for us. So I picked the kids up at the normal time, got take out and rushed us through eating and getting ready (no costumes allowed at school out of respect for those who think Halloween is for the devil- and there are a lot of people like that here) from 5-6, when we were at home, not one trick-or-treater knocked on our door. Granted we live on a hill on the darkest street in town, but come on.

Then we hit our block while waiting for Mr. Hobbitfeet to get back from school. Only six houses had porch lights on.

After two hours of straight trick-or-treating, the kids only got enough for a small bag each. Luckily enough, the candy I bought to give out was a kind we like, because we didn't give a single piece out. Thanks Chucktown, you rock!

Here is a picture of the kids. They were too excited before hand to let me get a picture, so this is them after TMH (too much Halloween for those of you who don't speak Woodlandmamaese)! Note the tears in Girl's eyes, the girth of both kids (from all the layers I put under their costumes) and Boy's idea of acting like he likes his sister.

Boo (and not in a good way)!

If you've been keeping up with my October posts, you would know that I was extremely excited about the haunted house at Ashmore Estates. Well I was so wrong! The haunted house that they set up was not scary, unless you're scared by a bunch of teenagers with face paint coming really close to your face and saying hi. Plus they trashed the place to make room for this faux haunted house, totally destroying the actual hauntedness of the real building. All the abandoned beds were taken out, as were the abandoned medical tools, and several holes were punched in random walls.
The problem, I believe, is that a mistakenly thought that their flashlight tours were what we were going to, but apparently they aren't doing that during the Halloween season.

As we were leaving I felt like warning those who were coming up but decided to let them go, maybe I'll come back when the "scary" teenagers aren't there anymore.

Sneak Peek...

I finished making Girl's Halloween costume today, and if I do say so myself, it's awesome (Check out Mr. Hobbitfeet holding Giles so I could take the picture, Mr. G will NOT pose for pictures, something about cameras stealing your soul. For the world's only librarian dog, his thinking is a little unsophisticated).
Anyhow, there comes a time in all my craft projects, where Giles has eaten one of the necessary components at a critical point (see unsophisticated) and I have gone to three different stores to replace it, when I just want to give up. This phenomena occurred during this project with the rick rack that you can see on the collar and sleeves. It is then that I curse my desire to do things right (ie. complete with rick rack), and wish I could be the kind of mom that could just take my kids to Wal-mart and let them wander the costume aisle and pick their favorite from what is available. But then I finish the costume and get to her how awesome it is and it's totally worth it.
I must confess that this year, I did buy Boy's costume , for a very good reason. Last year, mid-October Boy decided he wanted to be a velvet ant for Halloween. So I worked my butt off until the day before the Halloween parade and came out with a freaking amazing velvet ant costume and everyone was like "Whatthehell!"
What do you want from me people? My weirdo son wanted to be a velvet ant!!!! Do you know what a velvet ant is??? Have you ever heard of one before??? NO! No! I'd wager you hadn't, until this post or possibly if you had seen Boy last Halloween! What kind of goof ball wants to be a velvet ant? The costume was great, but weird and kind of hard to do (see below)




The hat was the real work of art, made with plush material, velvet and wire, it had poking out mandibles (though it's hard to tell in the pictures).

Anyway this year he wanted to be a Bionicle. And in my searching on how to pull this off, discovered that they already had them. So I decided to avert the entire "what the heck is that" mentality that seems to come from people when I make a costume suited for my son's weirdness, as well as the perpetual sore back and neck I get when frustrated during crafting and shell out the same amount of cash that I would have spent on a homemade one anyhow and buy my son a costume. Does he care, well yes he does it arrived and although it says it's size 8-10 it's a little big and not the exact one he wanted to be, but it's crazy nice being done with Halloween costumes two weeks before it happens.

Sick and Other Things...

I stayed home from work today because Girl is sick. I used to really like my pediatrician, but lately I've started to think of her as a sort of one trick pony. Certainly not every time my kids get sick can they have an ear infection, or sinusitis whatever that is. And I thought Doctors aren't supposed to prescribe antibiotics because of supergerms or whatever.

Anyhow, I hate taking Girl to the doctor because she is allergic to cillins (as in penicillin or ammoxocillin) and we have to go over that every time. This time was particularly bad because after waiting at Walgreen's for 20 minutes (which really sucks because the pharmacy is right by the toy aisle and Girl wants everything) the pharmacist told me my prescription was going to be $43.50.

"What," I scream, "We have ninja insurance we're only supposed to pay $15 for medicine!!"

"Well, your insurance isn't covering it." muttered the idiot with the bad facial hair

"Why," I scream (once again, I was being those people I hate) "They did last time."

"Well last time you had a medicaid card so they covered it."

"No, last time was like in January, when I know for a fact my insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield WHERE MY HUSBAND WORKS covered it. I know what our benefits are!" (I was really obnoxious, but you try sitting in a toy aisle with a sick,whiny 3 year old for 20 minutes and see how calm you are)

"No, no last time you had Zithromax and this is ceflecor (or something)"

"Well I don't want your crappy expensive medicine, come on Girl we're going back to the doctor"

"Why, " she sniffled "So she can make me feewuh bedder?"

Bottom line my doctor was scoffing at the stupid pharmacist's idea that she had ever prescribed Zithromax, but asked what was covered and we got that instead (after another 15 mins. in the toy aisle). Also, Mr. H. says that as long as we were getting a generic, it was covered so the idiot was truly an idiot, I wasn't just imagining it.

In other news, I had decided to cut down on how much TV I watch so I thought I'd do some crafts. I made some ticking curtains for my kitchen like I saw in Martha Stewart Living, and a nice witch that was a combo of this one, and one my Grandma had when I was little. I did learn one thing though and that is you can still watch TV while crafting and so it didn't really help at all.

These are the curtains, they are the same color, but the other picture didn't turn out so hot.

See I used the nylon witch's face, and her basic idea but I used the old witch's body frame and pose (though not her scale)
I think La Sirena is Juliet, Meander is Cleopatra, and I am Scarlett O'Hara.

MMMM, Pumpkin!

Today we went to Pumpkin Works in Paris with my mom. We had lots of fun until Boy and I went into the "Haunted Dungeon Maze" which was basically just a pitch black maze with Halloween sound effects. Boy was terrified and we didn't even make it through the whole thing. We ended up taking the emergency exit out, and afterwards Boy was super grumpy like I forced him to go in (which I didn't he totally picked it). But it's good to know because he wanted to go to Ashmore Estates with me and if he freaks out at that mini-haunted house, then we sure as hell can't go to a real one.

(Boy post haunted house, I had to coerce him into smiling)

Woooooooooo! Scaaaaary!

AshmoreE02
Originally uploaded by ejsm219.

I am super excited! Ashmore Estates (last seen in this post) is having a haunted house this year. Who's in?

Haunted?

I have been taking pictures of dilapidated buildings in the area lately. On Thursday I made a stop at Ashmore Estates, a must for those snapping pics of abandoned buildings in the area. There is a hot debate around here is it haunted or not. I won't try to influence anyone on the subject but here is a picture I cropped from one that I took. Mr. Hobbitfeet says I'm silly, that it's just a reflection of the leaves; however, I am not sure really which leaves would make a reflection like that. That's all I'm saying. Original Picture.