Halloween 2013

Halloween 2012



Meet Black Spiderman Mason and Good Witch Marley!

We had our annual Halloween at Karen Lynn Circle this year.  Much better than last year when Halloween was cancelled and we were sitting in the dark under blankets!

It was quite a busy day as Mark and Janelle had the closing on their new house.  Auntie Amy came up to babysit for that and also to go trick or treating with us.  She dressed up as her favorite, Ozzy Osborne!

I was wondering how Mason was going to do because the night before he told his father that he didn't want to have Halloween the next day because he didn't want to see monsters and pumpkins!  He is too funny!  I could see monsters, but pumpkins?  He did fine, walking right up to the houses, ringing the bell and saying trick or treat and then thank you, and sometimes the other way around! LOL!

Because it was Wednesday, I had to leave early to go to my Prims group, and what did I see when I got there, but Miss Pat dressed up as something....Mardi Gras girl maybe!  The girls got quite a kick out of it.  Some of them didn't recognize her until she spoke!  Leave it to Miss Pat.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween (a little early)

I guess it's a tradition at the Wakeda Campground in New Hampshire to have Halloween for the kids on Labor Day weekend (since it's not open on Halloween). So...tonight Kristen and Marley stopped over to show us her costume. As Kristen says, it's not easy to find a Halloween costume at the beginning of September. I guess they spotted the little hair "thingys" and went from there. We're not sure what to call it, but I think it's cute!

304/365 - Halloween 2010

Since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, we decided to make a celebration of it. Stacia, Bill, and Amy joined us for dinner. I felt bad that Mark had to work. When it started to get dark we got ready. We were a little worried that Mason wouldn't like being in his costume (especially the hat). He didn't mind it a bit!



Amy dressed up as an M&M, Marley was an Indian, and Mason was a blue monster.



It was pretty chilly out, but we were dressed for it, except for Marley. She didn’t want anything over (or under) her costume. We always say that she runs warm anyway!





Mason did not like the little ghost we have outside!



We had quite a time keeping him focused on walking from house to house. I would love to know what he thought; all of us out walking in the dark. He would have been perfectly happy walking up the driveways and looking at the cars. “Car” he would say as he walked over to pat it. It’s a good thing my neighborhood is not too big; 26 houses, and we only went to the neighbors that I knew.



Amy collected Mason’s candy for him, and when we got back she and Marley looked over their stash.



We had such a fun time tonight; we sure did laugh a lot!

303/365 - Halloween 1978

I think this was Mark's first Halloween (at least it is the first picture that I have). He was four.

Isn't it funny how both he and Kristen have their hands up to the little opening for the mouth?

302/365 - Halloween 1975

This is Kristen's first Halloween costume. She was three years old. I think Paul took her part-way around our circle the year before but she was scared and he had to bring her home.

I guess the Halloween costumes didn't change much from the '50's to the '70's (see previous post). Still the plastic masks and the silky costumes.

301/365 - More Halloween '50's style

This picture was taken in 1958. Left to right is my cousin Lynda, my cousin Bobby, and me. I must have liked ducks back then. This is yet another duck costume (see yesterday's post). My aunt Dot took this picture as a slide. It seemed at least once a year when my family was all together we would look at the slides and each time we came to this picture someone would comment on the fact that Bobby's smiling mask face was so different from his pouting face underneath. I'm not sure why he was pouting. Maybe he didn't want to go Trick-or-Treating, or maybe he didn't like his costume. The funny thing to me was that we always made the same comments, each year, about this picture.

300/365 - Halloween 1950's style

I was struck by how different Halloween costumes are today from when I was a child. This is me sometime in the early '50's. The masks were plastic (which got really hot and sweaty after awhile) and the costumes were of some type of silky material. Too funny!

p.s. How different wallpaper is too!

299/365 - Marley's costume at 17 months (2002)

This was Marley's first Halloween costume. It is the same type as Mason's. She was Marie (the kitten) from The Aristocats. Too cute!

298/365 - Mason's monster costume

Janelle brought Mason's Halloween costume over yesterday thinking that maybe we would have some time to take pictures outside. Not so. No nap made someone not such a happy camper and we all knew puting him in this costume would not go well!

304/365 - Halloween

Meet witch Marley and peapod Mason. It was a spookily warm, drizzly and windy Halloween night. There were not many trick-or-treaters out on our street tonight, in fact, while we were out we were about the only ones out there. It was almost as if we had the wrong night, except for the fact that all of our neighbors handed out candy! Mason probably wondered what in the world he was doing out in the rain with two people with pointed funny hats (Big Baba bought Marley a beautiful witch's hat at a craft fair, full of beautiful flowers and ribbons, and so I agreed to wear the hat that came with her costume). It was a fun family night, although I felt bad that Mark had to work and couldn't be there for Mason's first time trick-or-treating!

You know, Linda, you are right (see comment), I actually thought later that I should have added the picture of both Marley and I with our hats on. So here it is:

303/365 - Haunted house

Marley and I finished her haunted house tonight. You can't see it, but the roof has all hand colored, hand cut, and hand glued shingles! It's all decorated and ready for tomorrow night.

302/365 - Halloween foamies

I went to Michael's tonight and when I saw this box of Halloween foamies, I just had to get it for Marley to decorate her haunted house tomorrow night. I'll post a picture of the finished project tomorrow.

299/365 - Pumpkin Seeds

These are some pumpkin seeds that we made on Sunday night while carving pumpkins. Kristen and Stacia (Janelle's mother) picked the seeds out of the pumpkin guts, and I toasted them in the oven.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

2 cups of unwashed pumpkin seeds
1 1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons of melted butter or margarine
1 1/4 teaspoon of seasoning salt

In bowl combine seeds, Worcestershire sauce, butter and salt until seeds are coated. Spread on large shallow baking pan. Bake at 250 degrees approximately 1 hour, stirring occasionally until crisp, dry and golden brown.

From six pumpkins we got about 4 batches. Yummy!

298/365 - Marley and Pea Pod Mason

This afternoon Janelle's mother Stacia and her sister Amy came up for pumpkin carving day. Stacia had bought this adorable pea pod costume for Mason before he was even born. Janelle brought it over and said she wanted to take come pictures of Mason outside in the leaves propped up against some pumpkins. Of course this was right up my alley! We all thought he would fuss being put in this outfit and being put outside in the leaves but he actually liked it. He stayed there for quite awhile while all of us took pictures, videos, etc. My neighbors must have thought we were nuts. Mark was not too keen on this whole thing. After a while he said, "Okay, can this be done now?" Then he said to Mason, "Sorry buddy you had to be put through this." We all thought it was hysterical.

296/365 - Making the haunted house

When Marley came over tonight she said, "Grandma I have a project for us to do tonight. We are going to make a haunted house." "Okay", I said, "are we going to draw it?" "No, we are going to make it out of a box." "Oh, I said, Hmm...." She worked on it all night. All that is left is to color it. I told her I thought it looked like a haunted factory. She did not think that was funny.

To offset the "factory" look, we came up with some alterations to the house and a few more decorations. I think she did a pretty good job with what she had to work with!

294/365 - Izzy and the little plastic ghost

Last year, the day after Halloween, my neighbor Sue asked me if I wanted this little plastic ghost. She said it didn't light up anymore and she didn't want to bother keeping it. The first time Marley went trick-or-treating I took a picture of her next to this little ghost. It seems every year when we go to Sue's house I tell Marley that the first time she went trick-or-treating she was about as tall as Sue's little ghost.

Yesterday Paul fixed the light and put it in the living room to wait for Halloween night. Just as I was taking the picture, Izzy walked by it. I think it adds a "spooky" effect.

This is Marley and the little ghost in 2002.

Marley the Mummy

Marley decided she wanted to be a Mummy for Halloween this year. Kristen and Toby created a great costume for her. They cut up a white sheet and Toby dirtied it up in our backyard. Then they wrapped her up and secured the strips with staples. Kris put dark eyeshadow around her eyes. She went trick or treating on our street and all of my neighbors just loved her Mummy costume. This picture was taken in a neighbor's yard who goes all out every year with Halloween decorations. Marley seems to fit right in!

Pumpkin Carving Day

Sunday, October 26, 2008 was our 4th annual Pumpkin Carving Day, and the second time with Janelle's mother Stacia and sister Amy. As usual, the boys were distracted with the football game on TV, but eventually we got all of the pumpkins carved and the pumpkin seeds baked.

See below for the individual carvers with their pumpkins (my apologies to Amy for no picture with her finished product, so I substituted her work in progress).

For any of you who haven't heard the news yet, Janelle and Mark are going to be parents, on or around June 8th. This was the first time that we had all been together since we heard the news, so baby talk was the topic of most conversation. I think the new parents-to-be were completely overwhelmed. They better get used to it!