Halloween 2010

Halloween is quickly becoming my favorite holiday. It's virtually a no-stress holiday and you can pretend to be someone or something else for a whole day. Fantastic! This year I decided to go as a butterfly (easy enough) and Lydia was a lady bug. Ben bucked the bug fest and decided to be the offensive coordinator for the Auburn Tigers. *Sigh* That's my husband for ya. Since I was borrowing butterfly wings from a friend of mine, I just made a quick set of antennae and my costume was done and done. Lydia's costume, however, I made (almost) from scratch and had an absolute blast doing it! Every now and then I enjoy doing crafty things. I found a red turtleneck for $3 at Walmart and a cute little red skirt for about $7. I knew the turtleneck would be good for nothing else when I was done with it, but the skirt is 18M and totally reusable. I thought about sewing, but in the end, I hot glued everything together. I hot glued black felt dots to the front of Lydia's shirt, hot glued the red felt to the black fleece backing for the wings, hot glued black felt dots to the wings, and hot glued the wings to the shirt. I made her antennae with some pipe cleaners, pom poms and a piece of buy-by-the-yard elastic which I (what else) hot glued together :) I had so much fun doing it that I just might make Halloween costumes again! There is nothing that hot glue and I cannot conquer together!!

We attended two Halloween parties this year, one at a friend's house and one at church. The one at church was followed by a "Trunk or Treat" and so I got together with a friend of mine earlier and decked out the back of the Explorer with a giant spider, spider webs and little foam sticker spiders. I also loaded some eerie music onto my MP3 player and played it loudly though the speakers of the car while the trunk or treating was going on. Some of the little kids got very nervous at the crazy sounds coming out of my car, but it was so much fun passing out candy! I'd never really had that pleasure before. And, since we had ZERO trick or treaters come to our house this year, it looks like Trunk or Treat will be the only place I'll get to hand out candy for a while.

They also had a chili cook-off at the church Halloween party this year, so Ben entered and WON! I mean, I thought his chili was the best, but then again, I thought I might have just been biased. Turns out, I wasn't the only one who thought it was the best. Ben jokes about never entering again. Talk about quitting while you're ahead!

My little Lydia-bug ;)

The bugs and the football fanatic

Lydia as Tinker-bell

Award-winning chili!!!

Spooky ...