Playing Dress-up

Dear Ian,

There are witches in the air and spooks all around, and your dentist appointment has already been scheduled.  Yup, it's Halloween again.

I'll be honest; I am one of THOSE people.  You know, the ones that wear holiday socks and shirts and decorate for every holiday there is.  It's the teacher in me; every holiday is worthy of some sort of celebration or decorative pair of socks.  Even the little ones.  But, for me, Halloween falls into the category I like to call the Big Five.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Easter and Halloween are the biggies around here, and they are cause for much decorating and enthusiasm.

Even back in the day before having you, the house was still decorated and there were fun socks on my feet.  I can honestly say that having a little you in the house has added to the insanity, but not by much.  I remember one year painstakingly carving the face of Ozzy Ozbourne into a pumpkin, and another where your Daddy and I set up a "scene" in the front yard to go along with his viking costume.  (Which he has worn like six years straight, so dont let him try to convince you that it's only been three.  I have photographic proof.)

When I was growing up, we lived on the big farm, and there were no neighbors, so we would dress up and "borrow" a neighborhood for the night.  It was kind of like doing covert ops, and we had a total blast taking candy from strangers.  When Daddy and I got married, I couldn't wait to pass out candy to the little kids on our street.  Sometimes we would even sit outside and make a picnic out of our dinner in the driveway.  (Usually Chinese food.)

Me in my first Halloween costume - a cheerleader.

I also scoped out the costumes that each kid was wearing.  I am personally a fan of home-made costumes.  I think growing up I had a couple of store-bought outfits (me in a Strawberry Shortcake plastic mask comes to mind), but for the most part, your Grandma Davis made our costumes.  I specifically remember your Uncle Brian in a home-made Ewok costume.  That was really cool.  Uncle Gary's Superman also rocked.  It's just more fun to me when you can add your own personal touches and have something totally unique.

My sweet candy corn

I am now carrying on this tradition of home-made costumes with you.  For your very first Halloween, little 12-day-old you donned an awesome little candy corn costume.  Your Grandma Davis helped me make it, and you were deliciously adorable.  You also slept the entire time, but hey.  We made the whole thing out of felt, and I added the little white hat and long-sleeved onesie.  It ended up being wicked hot that Halloween, so you only wore it for a little while, trading it for a store-bought onesie with ghost eyes on it.  Still, I was proud that you wore something made just for you, and it was safe to say that you were the only sleeping candy corn infant in the neighborhood.

Last year, we went all out.  We all dressed up.  As a family of Vikings.  Awww yeah.  Sadly, your Daddy's costume was store bought, and so was mine, but I did spend about three hours altering it.  The only size they had was "huge," so the needle, thread and I were intimately familiar with each other due to the fact that I had to tuck about six inches to make it fit.  Oh, and cut off a FOOT of material at the bottom.  Seriously, who did they think was going to wear that thing?!  Anyhoo.  There were no options for a baby viking costume, but I wasn't worried.  After all, my goal was to make your costumes, and I think I did a rocking job, if I must say so myself.  I used one of your little sleeveless John-John outfits as a pattern and got to work.  That costume took on a life of it's own.  It had fur, it had gilded borders, it had gold buttons.  And it had an adorable little plastic battle axe and helmet.  I added some brown knee socks with a fur trim, and there you have it. 

And once again, this year I am making your costume.  You are going to be the most adorable little lion ever.  Our plan was to do The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and that may still happen, but as of now, Mommy is falling behind on getting everything done by next Monday.  Hopefully it will come together and we'll have another photo of our nutty family getting into the spirit of Halloween.

Trick or Treat!

Love,
Mommy