Scary, Not Scary

Spooked Up Porch

Starry Eyed

We harvested the remaining watermelon a couple of days ago when the temperatures dropped because we didn't want to gamble with that end of summer sweetness.

It's HUGE!

Mummy's the Word

I was sick with a head cold most of last week, but David really wanted to go to the Mummy and Son Masquerade Dance with me the night before Halloween, so I rallied and we went for the short dance.

Totally 80's Mummy and Power Ranger Son

Operation: Candy Retrieval

Scott and I didn't dress up for Halloween this year, but 60% of our household did! And with our supervision, they hustled in a metric ton (or 3 big bags) of confectionary goodness into our home.

Kitty Kat, Iron Man and Leonardo

Emi even had some cool contacts to make her cat costume complete. I thought she looked creepy in an exotic way and I was glad when she decided to take them out. Not because of the creepiness, but because I watched the news reports regarding those special lenses and saw the pictures of what happens when contacts are abused.

We opted to stay in our neighborhood this year vice traveling to friends' neighborhoods and it was really enjoyable - a perfect night to see old friends and even an owl! What is it with us and nature?

We took Gracie for an early morning run/walk this past Saturday and we saw a FOX (again!). And you know what?  It didn't say anything....

Ah, November...but where did October go?

A Fall Weekend

We opted not to buy costumes this year so Emi had to get really creative with stuff we already had around the house. We nabbed the rasta mouse ears at Disney a couple of years ago and Emi went with it...

Emi dressed up as Minnie Marley

We started the weekend with a trip out to my friends' place to experience their Haunted Forest. All week we'd been prepping David with the knowledge that yes, it will be frightening, but they will give you candy!! Every day this week we talked about the fact that the props were fake and emphasized the candy-giving portion of the event, but even with all the prep, David still freaked out walking around with all of us in the forest. Aubri would shake with a scare and walk past the terrifying prop to grab some candy.

Exorcising The Living Daylights

Scott and I have been in search of the scariest movie of all time...or at least something to give us a good fright this Halloween season. We're already hooked on The Walking Dead and American Horror Story shows so our tolerance has been increased. Images from these shows burrow their way deep into our brains and come out later in our dreams (which are ever so much scarier than the shows). And we watched The Exorcist a couple of weeks ago (I happen to think it's THE scariest movie of all time). A coworker said she thought that movie's effects were cheesy and suggested we watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose to see a scarier version of an exorcism with better effects. So we did and while it was a bit scary, and it did interfere with sleep patterns for the next TWO days, the movie itself paled in comparison with The Exorcist. I think the effects were good enough back in 1973 to terrify and scar me for life. If I even see a picture of Linda Blair without the demon makeup it sends shivers down my spine. Also, that demon voice ...{*shudder*}

We have gleaned a few more suggestions from fellow horror movie afficionados, but last night we had The Last Exorcism already DVR'd so we watched that. Yes, there were scary parts but they were getting to be a little old hat - young virgin girl gets possessed by a demon that makes her body contort in odd fashions and maybe there was some vomiting.  It's filmed as a documentary about the weird beliefs and practices in Louisiana and this preacher who is basically a fraud laughing about his "exorcisms". It was thrilling waiting for the bad things to happen to this guy and the camera crew (and that poor kitty cat) but the end wasn't scary as in WTF? but more like, ok, that's what I thought it was like in Louisiana already (having seen Angel Heart back in the day).

On the list to check out are:

• Dawn of the Dead (I think we may have seen this already but I can't be sure)
• 28 Days Later
• Salem's Lot (this scared the bejeesus out of me when I was a kid)
• The Thing (original version, scared me too)
• Slither
• Dead Snow

So, do you have any scary movie recommendations?

One Less Lonely Girl - That Should be Me...

Ok, maybe it SHOULDN'T be me...I just have a mild case of "Bieber Fever" at the moment.

I meant to post 2 weeks ago but I was recovering from the Haunted Forest and losing my BlackBerry (and mind), car troubles (drive shaft on mine and windshield wipers from hell on his)...then Halloween! My BB was found so sanity was restored. Then I meant to post last week but I was recovering from a soccer tournament, basketball game, Trick or Treating THEN Justin Bieber, Aubri's birthday, Goatfest 2010, etc.

I DID manage to post pictures from most of these events to my Flickr Acct so I've sort of kept up...

So, to recap: We had a nice Fall Break towards the end of October, we were enjoying some down time together as a family when out of the blue the Disco decided to start acting up...not getting enough attention I guess. We ended up getting her in to the shop just in time, so that the drive shaft didn't fly off and take some expensive prisoners with it!! So we were down to Scott's truck and his window wipers decided to stay ON for all of our Friday and Saturday driving pleasures. It was a little rainy but by Saturday night on the way to the Haunted Forest, it was dry and the scree-scree-scree was driving me and the kids crazy. But we pushed through to enjoy being scared and eating some Halloween treats out in the country. Emi was a Zombie Hippie, David was a Monkey (in the Middle) and Aubri was a Bumble Bee. They were so cute in their costumes.

Emi had been to this Haunted Forest before and she's 8 now so basically an Old Pro at not getting spooked and maximizing candy and treat collections. David and Aubri were not so sure. They were both scared by the Robot, which is funny because he is the least scary prop in the forest, but he did have red eyes and he was, in fact, doing The Robot. The next day Aubri kept telling everyone that the "robot 'cared her". We assured her that the robot was just a friend in a costume but she wasn't quite so sure.

The following week Emi wore her Hippie costume to school but because they were not allowed to dress up scary or use fake blood, we had to ditch the zombie part of her costume. On Halloween night when we took the kids out for actual trick or treating, the zombie make up had dried out so Emi went as a dirty hippie. We should have let her run around barefoot in the mud to get the full effect of "hippie feet". I noticed that she also wore some purple vampire teeth so I guess she was improvising along the way. A group of us met at a friends house for collective treating and we took the kids around to a haunted garage. When we took the Little Ones through they were supposed to hold off on anything scary, but one of the "technicians" darted out to fix a prop and scared little David. He lived to tell about it...

After we got the kids into bed we got to watch the premier of  The Walking Dead. It did not disappoint. Afterwards I had to watch the news to sort of rinse my brain of the undead images of the "walkers".

This past Wednesday night a few of us soccer moms and our daughters went to see The Biebs...

And the next night we celebrated Aubri's 2nd birthday with the Little Ones' birth mom and grandparents (via Skype):

On the weekend we had another party for Aubri's birthday and went to Goatfest 2010:

It's been a very full last few weeks with lots of gatherings, games and fun...

Monster Mash

Today some of the kindergarten moms hosted a Halloween Party in Emi's classroom after their parade. And what a party it was! The main mom who organized the party set the bar VERY high on followup parties by having a cool handprint keepsake craft (with foam craft materials from Oriental Trading), cool goodie bags and a chocolate fountain for dipping wonderful things like fresh fruit and pretzels (yum!). The kids were definitely buzzing after hitting the snack table. Check out the anticipation...

A Haunting...

Psycho Astronaut and Elvira

Tonight we went to some friends' place to visit their Haunted Forest. It's the third year they've hosted this event and it gets more and more fun (for the adults) every year. Even though we kept talking about how scary it will be to walk through the haunted woods, Emi kept assuring us that we were just putting her on for Halloween and that it wasn't real. The first trip through Emi was cautious, but not scared. She helped herself to the buckets of candy and didn't jump out of her skin when the motion activated props moved or screamed. But the second time through, she came into the kitchen where I was noshing on some creepy delectables, buried her pale frightened face into my bosom, and wailed like a baby. One of the helpers had come running from out of the dark woods and scared my poor little girl. One of our friends offered to kick the scary guy in the shins for her...

My costume was pretty lame because I was tired of being a psycho astronaut, but my friend Stacey's costume was very cool. Most of us didn't know it was her when she got to the party because her hair was long and pitch black and she was sporting some serious eye makeup! I knew she was going to be wearing a black cape (or is it a cloak?) but she obviously spent some time adding to the costume. We surprised her with a champagne toast for her birthday....complete with a triple chocolate mini cake and chocolate covered strawberries from a local French bakery...

Little Devil and Elvira

Feeling Campy

We went to Flint Ridge for the annual Halloween camp trip. We forgot the camera so we are relying on other campers to supply pics....stayed tuned. While you are waiting, guess who we are: