These are a Few of My Scariest Things

Happy Halloween!

My Scariest Things

(Sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things.")

Sons on tall buildings and polka dot dresses

Bathtubs as hot tubs and self-butchered tresses

That crazed look belonging to tormentor, Spring
These are a few of my scariest things!

Nathan in speedos and pants made of pleather

Gosh awful haircuts and frightening weather

Open eyed sleep and a husband who sings

These are a few of my scariest things!

When the leg breaks

 When the trunks shock

Photo Booth pics of Dad

I simply remember my scariest things

And then I feel twice as bad!

Hope your Halloween's scary, too!

Lots of Fun on Halloween

Trick or Treat started an hour ago, pumpkin seeds are in the oven, and the Jack-O-Lanterns are carved - last minute as usual (you wouldn't want 'em to go mushy by doing it too early).

Keaton is at a party, Larry is going for a run and I'm answering the door while playing our Halloween Mix on iTunes.  Let's see - here's the lineup of Halloween songs:

This is Halloween from Nightmare Before Christmas

The Worms Crawl in

Jaws Theme

Monster Mash

Phantom of the Opera Overture

Thriller

Witch doctor

Ghostbusters

Psycho Theme

Munsters Theme

She Blinded Me With Science

Twilight Zone

Adams Family Theme

Somebody's Watching Me

Later we'll carry out one last Halloween tradition - turn out all the lights, light the jack-o-lanterns and sing our own Halloween songs at the top of our lungs:  Ghost of Tom, Halloween, The Owls and Witches and Jack-o-Lantern.

Happy Halloween From our House to Yours

(I'll give you one guess who made the Cyclops.)

Scary Movies, Glen Rock Soda and Fat Jiggling

Guess what turned up deep in my jewelry drawer?  Yes, I am cleaning out a lot of things - must be what happens when three of four kids go away to college.  Anyway, the following turned up from the depths of my drawer:

Oh yeah - you know you had one, too.  Especially if you were a pre-teen girl in the 70s.  This one was no bigger than a small address book.  Remember those psychedelic satin covers?  I wasn't very good at keeping a diary.  A typical entry was not more than a sentence or two.  From Saturday, March 6, 1971:

 

Who is Mark?  One of our weekly crushes, no doubt.

 

My best friend, Sherry, and I would often get together and watch scary movies on Saturday afternoons in her basement.  Channel 18 in Milwaukee often broadcast creepy movies during "Saturday afternoon Theater."  I don't remember, but I thought there was a costumed host introducing the movies.  Maybe I'm confused with Shock Theater or Nightmare Theater or Dr. Cadaverino.  My entire diary entry from Saturday, March 13, 1971:

 

 A week later and another scary movie.

Bela Lugosi in Murders at Rue Morgue (nice eyebrow/s).  Sherry and I couldn't get enough of horror movies - even if they were awful, B-rated and kind of stupid.  We'd sit on her basement couch wrapped up in blankets and if we were lucky, we'd get permission from her parents to have a Glen Rock soda.

They always had a case in their basement.

And if the movie lightened up, we might spend some time jiggling our midsections in her mom's belt exerciser thing - but we didn't wear heels like the lady in the picture above who actually kinda looks like Sherry's mom.

The other night my son DVR'd Bram Stoker's Dracula off the television.  Although we don't really watch scary movies too often, we feel it's in order every year to watch one good one to celebrate Halloween.  We watched the edited television version (thank goodness) of this 1992 version of Dracula starring Gary Oldham, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves.  Yuck, was it creepy.  I am not a better person for having seen that movie.  My son kept saying the story line just didn't make any sense.  It kinda reminded me of those awful, B-rated scary movies of Saturday afternoons in Sherry's basement - gross, gory and bleak.  I'd much rather have a scary, suspenseful movie with a good story -- like Disturbia or Signs, which we've watched for Halloween in the last few years.  I'm not afraid of a little gore, but please give me a decent story, something that will make me jump, and some good acting.

OK, I'm taking suggestions - a good Halloween movie - what are your ideas?

Jack-O-Lanterns

People do amazing things with pumpkins at Halloween.  I am blown away by the creativity and talent I see in jack-o-lantern carving nowadays.  Pumpkin is a great medium for carving and the possibilities are endless.

We carve pumpkins every year.  Usually it's a fairly quick and dirty routine.  Often just in the nick of time to display so the trick-or-treaters will know to stop at our house.  Every single solitary year with out fail, my husband carves a Cyclops jack-o-lantern.  It's the easy way out - one less eye to carve.  That's what I think, but perhaps he is a little fixated on Cyclops.  Here's an example of one of his lone-eyed, Polyphemus pumpkins.

That's just one big giant eye above the mouth.

My husband is always the first one done.

Usually, I like to get off-color pumpkins - sounds like a bad joke... a little off-color.  Anyway, I guess they aren't pumpkins - maybe gourds, I suppose.  Last year I got carried away with teeth.

 

A recent favorite was a couple of years ago.  I saw a guy on Regis and Kelly who did this and I thought it was pretty gross, but appropriate for Halloween - so I gave it a try.

The big mean pumpkin is chomping down on the puny weak little pumpkin who is so frightened he is vomiting pumpkin seeds and innards.  Sorry if that is a little much for any of you, but I thought it was funny.

Some Years it's an Obsession

Time is running out.  

Are you ready for Halloween?  

Got your costume?

Not every year results in an ambitious Halloween costume.  My kids know this.  It's really hit or miss what they'll get out of their mother.  Keaton's "Link" from Legend of Zelda costume above was one of those ambitious years when I was obsessed wandering around the Goodwill store to find just the right sweater that looked like chainmaille and just the right purse to cut up and slap around his forearms for wrist gauntlets and just the right belts for those strappy things.

All that from a cartoon picture.

Yes, there were plenty of years where we just "made do" with what we could find around the house.  Here's Princess Chelsea with the 50,000 yards of red tulle we had laying around.  Next we have Lars who was obviously on his own that year with his plastic knight's helmet, clown wig, leather cowboy vest and red satin shirt all dug from the costume boxes.  Don't know who the mummy kid is, but the one next to him/her is Nathan and he's wearing a store bought (gasp!) Tick costume.  Anybody remember the Tick?  If I recall correctly, it was a short-lived cartoon character from the early 90s.

Nathan often came up with a good costume idea that didn't take a ton of work on my part, dear boy. Here he is  striking a pose as a 70s disco guy complete with polyester pants, wing collared quiana shirt and gold chain necklace.

And here's Nate again (with Carly) in a granny wig wearing authentic dress, hat, sweater and purse dug out of my vintage stash.  Yep, some years were easier than others.  But  let's not get too past tense about it.  I'm not off the hook yet, I still have pending requests... let's see... for a full blown Matrix Neo Nehru collar long black coat... and a Star Trek uniform as previously stated, and a LED studded light up jacket for Keaton to do some cool dance moves in... the list goes on...

Got Your Halloween Costume Yet?

Time's a-wasting.  Have your kids decided what they want to "be" yet?  I actually heard my 14-year-old say the other day, "What am I going to "be" this year?"  What?  Huh?  I thought I was off the costume-go-round!  Maybe he'll finally give in and be a tornado.  I once heard this idea to wrap yourself in tons of fishing line strung up with matchbox cars, doll furniture, dirty puffs of cotton batting, sticks, farm animals - you get the idea.

Here's Chelsea in 5th grade as a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.  All you need is red pajamas or sweats and add some yarn, some pom poms and a colander.

Here's cute little Nate as a cowboy.  That's probably 16 years ago.  He's a big 6'-4" brute now... a "brute" that loves ballroom dancing - hee hee.

And Let's not forget Lars as Darkwing Duck.

He always was into secret agent stuff.

Should have known that someday he would go into the biz... he's about to graduate and looking at a career in the CIA.  "Let's get dangerous!"

Keaton sure enjoyed being Draco Malfoy a whole heck of a lot more than being a deviled egg.  I know he had the perfect attitude.

18 days till Halloween... better get busy!

The Owls & Witches Come Out Tonight!

Halloween without fake fur is like a day without sunshine.  Here's a simple costume:  just take a flannel shirt, slice it up, and stick fake fur under the rips.  Voila!  You have a wolfman bursting through his shirt.  But beware of a full moon.  It makes six-year-olds in wolfman costumes even crazier!  Here's Keaton in between gnashing and growling.

We have so many cave man costumes at our house, we could clothe the entire family of six.  Over the years we've accumulated boulder necklaces, bone earrings, and more.  Here's Chelsea and I in our One Million Years B.C. outfits.  Raquel Welch, eat your heart out.

Here's Chelsea as Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl from Toy Story 2.  She was always game for a fun costume... but someone else was not...

Here's Jessie consoling little brother Keaton in his Deviled Egg costume.  I thought it was cute and so did everyone else... except Keaton who HATED it.  The only way I could get him to keep it on was to promise him that he could smash the paper mache'd egg to bits at the end of the evening.  That he did... with relish.

Oh well.  Ya win some.  Ya lose some.

Halloween Costumes!

It's that time of year again.  The time for all creative types to get busy on Halloween costumes.  And if you have kids, you know they have already started talking about what they want to "BE" this year.  The Halloween costume pressure is starting to wane in my family now that my youngest is 14.  However, that doesn't mean too much.  We have boxes and boxes of costumes in our house and everyone likes to dress up, no matter what the age... especially my husband who loves a good costume.  As a matter of fact, I remember in high school every year he would gather a large group of friends to go Christmas caroling at the mall and he would lead the way wearing a red satin cape, green shorts and tights.  Same husband once dressed up as an Oreo cookie at a Nintendo convention (believe it or not, a paid gig) and was followed around by a guy who wanted to know who the person with the nice legs in the Oreo was.  Same husband has been begging me for a Star Trek officer's uniform for years - any era: original show, Next Generation, one of the movies.  Yes, costumes are big at my house... and that won't be changing soon.

So, in honor of Halloween and creativity, this month I will be featuring pictures of Halloween costumes I have created in the past.  I'll start with my all time favorite:

The Staypuft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.  Here is Lars, (my oldest - now 25) wearing the Staypuft outfit created from foam, felt and white cotton duck.  He loved that movie - still does.  The best thing about this costume?  It wasn't ruined by the winter coat underneath - usually a requirement for our chilly Wisconsin Halloween trick-or-treating.  His two-year-old brother was Slimer, but refused to cooperate with the costume much.  Yes, don't we all have those stories...