Happy Halloween!

Halloween is a three-day affair for our family this year. It began Saturday evening, when a wonderful group of friends from around the neighborhood gathered on our front lawn then paraded to a nearby neighbor's home for a bonfire, s'mores, and hot chocolate. It continued Sunday evening, when we put the costumes on again and attended a "Trunk or Treat" event. Finally, on Monday evening, we'll get to the original business of ringing doorbells and collecting goodies.

As you may recall from my previous post on the topic, we had a Wizard of Oz theme going this year. It started innocently enough, with the decision to reuse the scarecrow costume I made for Finn a few years ago. I then made a Dorothy pinafore and picked up some red ballet flats at the local Goodwill for iona. And I got totally lucky on the lion costume, as I had a serendipitous conversation with a mom I know that resulted in her lending us a size 4 cute-as-can-be lion costume for Finn. Here they are in all of their Emerald City glory:

At the last minute, Sean and I decided to join in the themed fun and dressed as Auntie Em and Uncle Henry:

Though, as our good friend pointed out, all we needed was a pitchfork and a black suit jacket to pass as the couple from American Gothic:

I was so pleased with how the costumes turned out. Emmett grew increasingly wary of the scarecrow's headpiece as the night grew late, but he tolerated it nonetheless, and his amateur walker stumbles gave him the appearance of being in perfect character. Finn was absolutely tickled to be the lion, from the whiskers to the big "Courage" medal he wore around his neck. And iona, who is celebrating American Halloween (she is from France) for the first time, was seemingly delighted both with the costume and the sweet treats. Collectively, they looked great and had heaps of fun (even if the boys don't look particularly happy in this picture):

I should add that The Wizard of Oz has some history in our family. Way back when I was in junior high, my suburban school district put on a production of The Wizard of Oz, and I played the part of Dorothy:

At dinner on Saturday evening, we started talking about the story, and iona and Finn both informed me that while they have seen the VHS recording of that production countless times at Grandma and Grandpa's house, neither of them have ever seen the real movie! So we'll be hitting the movie section at the library sometime this week to check out the MGM version. Finn will probably be sorely disappointed that I am not in it.

I hope everyone had a safe and memorable Halloween weekend. I will never stop loving the imagination emphasis of this kid-centered holiday, and I love being able to be a part of that magic for my own kiddos.

By the way, I am officially project free, having finished my two knitting projects and finished sewing Halloween costumes. I have a stack of knitting books that I checked out from the library last week and a headful of ideas for sewing projects. We'll see where the week takes me.