Well, it's my favorite time of year again, and as promised I'm dedicating a separate blog to all the upcoming events in October. The weather is starting to finally feel like autumn, and our sunsets have been earlier and earlier- a signal that nature takes care of the time change all on her own, without man's interference. Updates for the month: our baby's nursery is about 70% finished (!!!!!!!) and we're putting the final decorative touches on everything. School fairs are kicking in, and the pumpkin patch is back- although this year, due to time constraints, we will probably scoop our pumpkin up at Wal-Mart (and spend this weekend carving it and hanging up the rest of our creepy spiders/web outside of the house). I volunteered last Saturday with my final animal rescue event of the year (till post-baby anyway!)- Delgado's Expo, with the Louisiana Boxer Rescue. I wasn't able to stay for the entire event but it was fun-filled, and the weather cooperated beautifully. The highlight, of course, was our Boxer Kissing Booth- Cooper and his human mommy Vicki were handling that part of the program. If there was a record for best Boxer kisses, Coop would have to take the prize, paws-down. Here's a shot of the boy in his place of honor (the halo effect was unintentional but fun):
The big event on this month's list is....me and Lucas's 4th Wedding Anniversary! Traditionally the symbols are books, fruit and flowers (why they have three for one year I have no idea, but I'm fond of all three so it works, lol) and I'm brewing some ideas on how to incorporate all three. Thinking about going to the bookstores and picking out books together; having dinner at a restaurant with a flower in the name; then hitting the farmer's market for the third and final fruit part of the program. Since our special day falls on a Thursday this year, we'll begin celebrating early (Sunday), with our annual picnic in the park where we got married, followed by a school fair. Keeping fingers crossed that the weather cooperates the way it's been doing.
Something that has amazed me- this month is going by faster than all our other Octobers put together! It's that nesting thing hard at work again- I've lost complete track of time! After last weekend soared by on rust-colored leaves, I took a good look at the calendar and called it to Lucas's attention that we were officially halfway through October....and we HADN'T DECORATED OUR HOUSE FOR HALLOWEEN!!! Le Horreur!! This is a record for us- usually the Halloween festivities begin on exactly the first of the month and last until the end of the thirty-first. Something had to be done, immediately! So we dug out our plastic storage boxes filled with Halloween deco- bypassing the costume boxes (this year is going to be a "little" different in the costume dept, lol) and got our pipestem spiders/paper pumpkins/grinning skulls out, and began making up for lost time. I also made a new addition to our decorations- I borrowed a page from Martha Stewart and took a styrofoam mannequin head, covered it with that faux spider web material and placed one of the pipestem spiders on top as a "hat" of sorts. The effect was fun, and I'll post a shot later. Looking around the house, it is FINALLY starting to look appropriately spooky around here, at long last.
As far as Halloween costumes go, I've been scouring the 'net looking for ideas and inspiration but haven't come up with much to pique my interest. There were some cute "mommy and baby" skeleton tee shirts, but nothing else really screamed "Halloween costume". Eventually I came up with an idea on my own: cookie!<--(insert Cookie Monster voice here). It would incorporate the big belly, and I could either dress up my arms and head as Cookie Monster, or see if Lucas wants to play that role (either that or he could be 'the last cookie'). If I go the first route, all I need for this costume is to buy royal blue arm warmers/gloves, and make a simple cookie jar shirt or poster board cutout. I already own a C.M. hat Lucas gave me a few Christmases ago, which would be the final touch. For Lucas's costume I can design a shirt with the saying "The Last Cookie" with a Natalie-Dee-ish sketch of a chocolate chip. A far cry from the usual scary stuff, but change can be fun sometimes ;) This year we won't be venturing out very far, and it would be a good year to dress comfortably to stay home and hand out candy to the kids/watch scary movies/nest some more. And next year there will be three of us doing a family theme, for baby's first Halloween!!
This is what's going on in our corner of the world (the big stuff anyway). Hope this finds my readers preparing for a spooky, scary, scintillating Halloween time!
~Jamie aka "Cookie Monster"
