Halloween Hysterics

I had this great idea for Halloween. Brynna watched something with a zombie prom and decided she wanted to dress up as a zombie for Halloween. I was going to get her a prom dress and tear it and roll it around in the mud, tease out her hair, paint her face white and teach her a zombie walk. Then, my mom had the *genius* idea of dressing Maren up like a little old lady. Because she basically looks just like one all the time. She's got this walk and this belly and for some reason all her dresses make her look 80, I swear I buy the kid stylish stuff... Anyway, I digress...

Then, this happened:

Brynna and my baby brother, D.

If you are looking at these pictures and thinking, "Hmm... Yeah, I don't see a zombie or a little old lady anywhere, then you are truly an astute blog reader. Congratulations.  It started with Brynna. First she got all, "I don't want to be a scary zombie. Can I be a nice zombie?" Then I explained zombies. Which was perhaps not the appropriate way to go. Especially if you want your kid to be a prom dress clad zombie.

So, then she decided that she wanted to be a fairy princess mermaid ballerina. After a few passes at, "Okay, well, if we bought a mermaid costume and put one of your tutus over it and fairy wings and a crown, would you be a fairy princess mermaid ballerina?" "No, mom, I'd need ballet shoes." "But how do mermaids wear shoes?" "Ugh. You just don't understand me!" we decided to go a different route.

Some friends of ours, then bestowed us with what Brynna has alternately referred to as a Southerland Belle costume and a Scarlet O'Haro costume. Add in the white shoes from this summer and a little bolero sweater (oh, and white sweatpants because it was chilly and you could see her teal panties through three layers of polyester and tulle) and you have a lovely Southerland Belle named Scarlett O'Haro. (She also proudly told a handful of people that her mommy had a whoooole book on her.) I promised her we'd watch the movie soon.

Maren and his lovely girlfriend and
my honorary baby sister, Morgan

In the meantime, I've spent the entire month of October trying to put together an old lady costume, which, as I've mentioned, shouldn't be hard since she always looks like an old lady. She more or less grew out of all the summer dresses that did such a good job of making her look 80, but she does have a pair of hand-me-down turquoise wide wale corduroy pants that only a retiree could love. Well, and me, because I'm from the Kurt Cobain generation. She's also got a white cardigan sweater and I made her a string of pearls. I could not find any gray hair spray, though and her curls are starting to grow out. Pretty much anything I tried made her look like an incredibly unfashionable toddler, rather than an old woman.

Luckily, Brynna, whose favorite game was always dress up, went through her trunk a couple of weeks ago and donated some of her stash (the pieces she couldn't wear anymore) to Maren's future dress up trunk. The stash included this Tinkerbell costume, which she wore with style and grace.

It was a great Halloween. The Southerland Belle and Tink Belle (which was the best pronunciation I ever got from Maren) cleaned up and brought home two big baskets of candy. Maren wants to go trick or treating every night, now. Since she spent the better part of today flying high from a what I can only refer to as a sugar hangover, the adults have plenty of candy too. Shh. Don't tell her, it's just going to disappear tonight.

Hope you all had an amazing Halloween. Tomorrow, I start turning my attention to Thanksgiving.