Two Birds with Gum-ball Machine Ring

Much like how sugar just seems to accumulate in our house from various well meaning bank-tellers and check-out-clerks we also have a good amount of small toys that just appear.  They come from prizes won at school, pridefully cherished right up until the moment my child gets off the afternoon bus and walks in the house at which time I find the "prize" next to the crumpled worn socks of the day in the front hallway.  They are hastily grabbed in a hard fought scrum of children scrambling for the innards of a pinata at a party. They are begged from the edges of parade floats and given after finishing one's nuggets and fries.  They spontaneously appear in the bottom of my purse and in the floor boards of my car, in the pockets of the children and underneath the couch; these hot wheels and whistles, tiny bottles of bubbles, Frisbees with insurance agents phone numbers on them, squirt guns, packs of just three crayons, maze books, necklaces, temporary tattoos, gum-ball machine rings, rubber lizards, inspirational wrist bands, plastic frogs, tops, fuzzy moustaches and various plastic eggs that crack open to reveal something gooey, sticky and guaranteed to dry into a giant crust of gross on your mother's carpet.

As I find these items I've been throwing them all in one place, along with the missing dice, legos, meeple, marbles and playing cards that will only be important when they are missed.  They go into one giant bowl in my dining room.  Twice this year it's overflowed and I dumped it into a grocery bag with the intention of handing it back to a teacher to give out as prizes again and then having it instead collect dust in the hall closet.  Upon walking past the overflowing bowl again today I realized the most incredible solution!  Halloween. If you get to my house to trick or treat this year, you could get a candy or you could get a little balsa wood plane, or Alvin the Chipmunk on a skateboard. I hope you don't get the goo filled egg.

That Natural Look

It's Halloween and of course I'm looking at a bazillion cool makeups that will end up melting into my contacts by the end of the night causing a dense fog no one should drive in.  I thought I'd try to test a couple out tonight and got the smoky greys and blacks out.  I gently traced the lids with a nice jet black and blended out into grey and then finally layered in a lovely blood red at the end in an attempt to match the red the derby team I'll line coach this weekend will be wearing.  It ended up looking like the coal miner's take your daughter to work day.  Ten minutes of soap in the eye later I started again with liquid liner, drawing the perfect cat eye, followed by another perfect cat eye on the left side.  I stood back and looked at two perfectly non-matching cat eyes. arg. Maybe people will only look at me via profile and nobody will notice. After more soap in the eye, I gave up.  I'm going for good lips.

Wolf Pack

Wolf mask pattern

Halloween on My Street

Spring Heeled Jack 2011

 The neighbors have been getting together for a street party for fifteen years here on Halloween.  Everyone brings their best crock pot of chili and we all turn our house lights off and put all our candy at the candy table at the end of the cul de sac.  The kids run wild in the street and the adults taste everyone chili and potato salad and eyeball shaped cupcakes and drink beer.  At some point we gathered up kids and walked a few blocks trick or treating.

On the next block over the neighbors turned their garage into a haunted house and it reminded me of the many times my dad and uncles turned a basement into a haunted house.  Usually there would be a scarecrow at the end who was holding perfectly still but then jump at you once you got close to see if it was real.  I think we may still be a few years away from doing that in our garage, but it is now on the list.

The kids had a blast.  Even after Jack fell on the sidewalk and fattened his lip, he didn't want to go home.  It was lovely to meet all the people on our block and only have to walk two houses home and even better that I didn't have to answer the door forty times with the dog barking each time.

Mail Time

Fredrick's of Hollyween Store

I brought my six year old out to look for a tooth fairy costume. In essence it requires a white tutu a pair of wings and a wand. I figured we could get all these things in one package of Angel stuff and add some toothy things to it. She liked the idea of a bag with "Teeth" written on it but got very sad when I mentioned a set of bloody pliers on a tool belt. So, I took this child of extreme delicate sensibilities to The Halloween store next to the mall, where the percentage of items actually meant for children were almost nil. I drew a diagram

Two Nights of Halloween Goodness

Happy Halloween

She's a Princess (are you surprised?)

Project Runway the Bombadee Edition - Season Two (Fall)

Ella picked something from the dress up closet for tomorrow. Feeling a little bad that she didn't get anything new for her costume I went and got some white fur (fake of course) and spent the afternoon sewing some nice little warm bits for her to add. What is she going to be? Tune in tomorrow to see.

Yes We Carve

Thak you Cameo for sending this to me. Get your own Yes We Carve stencil HERE.

I am old.

Instead of yelling "Freeze you little sh*t!" I snapped a picture and posted it on tiny town's web board. Yes, I am that crotchety old lady, I posted this last night.

"Happy Halloween dear neighbors, I hope everyone stayed safe and warm. My husband and I took our daughter up and down the block this year. While we were gone, we left a bowl of candy on the front porch with the sign “take one please” just like we do every year. While we were just next door 4 young men on razor scooters wearing clown wigs of various rainbow colors relieved our bowl of the rest of the candy in it, about two bags worth. I hope their mothers or someone that knows them read (tiny town's web board)

PS I snapped a picture of one of them. "

Still Sparkly

I spent whole summers stubbornly wearing my favorite blue jeans so I don’t know why I am fighting it when Ella gets up every morning and peels her PJs off to adorn herself with one of her many princess dresses. This child would rather shiver in tulle than revel in denim and somehow that feels like a personal affront to me. I’m sure these aren’t the last fights we’ll have about her dress but I didn’t think I would have to argue about it so soon. When we started discussing Halloween I braced myself for the expensive foofy princess dress with tiny plastic high heels (ug) and sparkly tights and a crown. Behold the chosen Halloween costume:

“Princesses aren’t scary” - Ella

Ug

Halloween 2007

Sleepy Hollow

"...Farther on he beheld greatfields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from theirleafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning uptheir fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospectsof the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrantbuckwheat fields breathing the odor of the beehive, and as hebeheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of daintyslap-jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey..." -Washington Irving