Halloween 2012

So this is our first Halloween that we are (officially) celebrating. Last year we handed out candy that had bible verses on the wrapper (a tradition that will most likely carry through), but that was "witnessing" verses "celebrating".

I have no problem with Halloween. I grew up in a home where we didn't celebrate it, and when I was probably 10 or 11 I started snagging a pair of my mom's scrubs to "sneak out" and go trick-or-treating. When my nephew Chandler had his first Halloween he was so cute! I can't remember his costume 10 years later, but I remember my sisters and I taking him trick-or-treating in Nana's neighborhood... there was so much laughter and love surrounding him. That was when I knew I wanted to celebrate Halloween with my kids when I grew up.

And then I grew up. And got married. And my husband didn't want to celebrate Halloween. I was devastated. And slightly annoyed. Now, like I said, I love Halloween. But I hate hate hate horror movies. I have never been able to stomach them, including the old cheesy ones. My sister once said "picture the guy behind the camera when you can't handle what's on the screen." I did, and it didn't help. So in order to keep me from getting terrified into nightmares, Abraham agreed that there would be no horror movies in our house. He enjoys horror movies.

Well this year rolls around, and I am pregnant. I wanted to do a costume with baby-doll parts tearing their way out of my shirt, but that grossed Abraham out... as a pro-lifer, he is very against macabre meets pregnancy... so I 86'd that idea and began looking for another one... I thought maybe mother earth so I started looking for a shirt that had a planet on the belly, and I'd wear a peasant/belly dancing skirt... kind of a flow-y happy perspective of mother earth, and the earth is my womb. Shockingly, all the earth/world/globe shirts I found had the earth in the middle of the chest verses IDK rounded on the perfect circle that is my midsection. I thought that was stupid, so I started going through comic maternity tee-shirts to try to find something that was equally great... or at least pretty darn close... that's when I found the escape velocity shirt. It was so nerdy it was perfect! With all the dorks and geeks and nerds in my life, I was sure to get a few good giggles out of it.

Of course, I then had to translate this into a costume and came up with... Chalkboard! Boom! A costume I've never seen, and heck... it seems pretty creative to me... so I went with it.

And then there was the road block of my anti-Halloween Grinch of a husband. I asked him for the billionth time if we could celebrate Halloween. I'm sure he was certain I'd say no immediately because he replied with "If we can watch horror movies the week before and after Halloween, then why not? Now, Halloween is the start of holiday season so once it's over, I'm on to Thanksgiving... So I countered with "the week before Halloween PLUS you can take our family to one age appropriate horror movie in Theaters during that week... and only so long as there is no satanic rituals/demonic possessions in the movies (zombies, werewolves, ghouls and goblins, vampires, boogie man, serial killers etc. are all okay... just no "Paranormal Activity" "666" "The Possesion" type movies). We had a deal. :)

I ordered the shirt, plus a Melissa & Doug eraser/chalk bundle from Amazon.com and my costume idea was born. When my stuff came in the mail, I tried on the shirt and I absolutely loved it. I actually wore the shirt to my OB-GYN appointment, and my doctor took one look at the shirt and busted out laughing. WIN. Now all I had to do was wait to wear the shirt again until Halloween. Longest. Week. Ever. Just saying, I'm not a patient person. Somehow, I'm sure by the Grace of God, I made it. (I totally almost caved yesterday!)

I love my costume, and can't wait to rock it out tonight while handing out candy. And next year, I look forward to a cute little super-hero or zoo animal or something equally adorable to take out trick-or-treating...
Happy Halloween!

(I'll get some more photos up later today.)

-Lydia Joy-