Happy Halloween!

I’ve always enjoyed Halloween… I mean, who doesn’t like to dress up?! It’s so fun! I’ve had a blast the past few years, dressing up as everything from Snooki to Jem to a vampire (I admit… I’m a huge Twilight fan). Most years, we’ll dress up and hand out candy to the few-trick-or-treaters who make their way down our street (Usually, around 30 kids will stop by – maybe next year I’ll splurge for the full-size candy bars!), and then go to a party or a bar. Last year was especially fun, as we went to see Dylan McDonald & The Avians at Puckett’s in Leiper’s Fork and then went to 3 Crow Bar, one of our favorite bars in East Nashville. At least two-thirds of the people at the packed bar were dressed up, and many of the costumes were so clever and impressive (What else would you expect from East Nashville?).

I knew that this year would be different, since I wouldn’t be hanging out at a smoky bar, but I still wanted to do something festive. We decided to just hang out at home to hand out candy, have a taco party and watch scary movies. There was a Halloween (the movie) marathon on AMC, so I watched that until Ryan got home, and then we decided to watch Paranormal Activity 3. The first Paranormal Activity scared the you-know-what out of me, so I was expecting the same from this one. Unfortunately, neither of us were either a) frightened or b) thoroughly entertained. Lesson learned - next year, we’ll watch a classic.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to dress up this year, since we didn’t have any big plans. We usually dress up at my office, though, and I really wanted to join in the fun. Plus, I had a special prop (baby bump) to use! I knew there had to be a clever costume, so I took to the internet to help me brainstorm. There were lots of cute painted-on costumes… But, please, like I was about to paint my belly! Ew. Plus, no one wants to see that.

I narrowed my options down to two: Juno or a basketball player. I thought Juno would be super cute, but I’d need to make a trip to Goodwill complete the outfit, and I had no clue if I’d even be able to find the perfect orange and white striped Juno-inspired t-shirt. I could easily put together a athletic costume, which had the added bonus of being super comfortable. The only thing I had to figure out was how to make the basketball cover.  I ended up using orange felt, masking tape and dry-erase markers (Which I freaked out about afterwards… I didn’t even think about the possibility that the marker  could be toxic! Luckily, after close inspection, I realized that the marker was labeled “low-odor nontoxic” Sheesh…). Shaping the basketball was a little difficult, but I’m happy with the final outcome. And, of course, it’ll be fun to show these pictures to Jett when he’s older!

I hope all of you had a fun Halloween! What did you dress up as this year?