Happy Halloween; or, A Nightmare Come True

I enjoy Halloween. It does, however, give me anxiety. I used to have dreams--nightmares, actually--in July or so of any given year, that it was Halloween and I didn't have my costume yet. I'm too cheap to buy ready made costumes. Unfortunately, I'm not super talented as a seamstress either, so this ends in stress sometimes. Two years ago, Matt and I attempted to go as Calvin and Hobbes, but something went wrong and everyone thought we were Tigger and Piglet, which was bad because Matt didn't like being mistaken for a "baby girl pig." (Don't worry, all you Pooh fans. I assured Matt that piglet is male, though that didn't seem to make him feel much better.)

Anyway, this year I was down to the last minute without costumes, proving my nightmare prophetic once again. Then my sister Carolyn saved the day with a great idea: the three bears! Simplicity was of paramount importance at that point, and so was thrift, so it was a good fit. Here we are: Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear.



Yes, I realize we look like mice. But honestly, why would we be three mice, unless we were the three mice, as in the blind ones? Clearly we have no dark glasses, so people should have been able to tell who we were by process of elimination at least, right? Anyway, here's Harrison getting in character (actually, it's Harrison getting freaked out. He started crying immediately after I pushed the shutter button):



Whatever people thought we were, we had a really fun Halloween. Matt took the whole afternoon/evening off from studying and we squeezed in a lot of celebrating. We started at Midwestern's annual carnival, then headed off to a pumpkin patch where we had a hayride, chose a pumpkin, visited a petting zoo, and where my cowboy husband used his roping skills to subdue a hay-bale with horns. (But seriously, he's good at it.) Here's Harrison learning about the art of selecting a pumpkin:





Next we went to the trunk or treat and chili dinner at the church where Baby Bear dumped his just-right porridge on the table and where we were mistaken for mice. Finally Matt and I finished off the evening watching Charade on my laptop, huddled around a set of headphones so as not to wake the baby. We hope you had a happy Halloween too!