A Puppy and a Fairy Princess on the Loose

I know in my last post, I just said I love fall, but I really love Halloween! We had a blast last weekend. On Saturday, Charlie climbed into his barking puppy dog costume (it looked like we had two Maples running around the house, and yes, it actually barked) and Madeline dressed up as a fairy princess (everything came straight out of our dress up closet, including the clip on earrings and fairy wings) -- we piled into the car and drove five minutes to downtown Franklin's Halloween festival. There was live music, vendors passing out candy and the smell of kettle corn and fresh potato chips. It was a perfect way to spend an hour getting into the Halloween spirit.

The next day, several couples and their adorable ladybugs, Marios and Supermans came over to our house for a festive dinner (blood red martinis for the adults) and trick-or-treating. Our dear friends arrived fully decked out as characters from the Cat in the Hat, including Thing One and Thing Two. Rob went as Hillbilly Bond (or Redneck 007), tearing the sleeves off a button down, cutting off some denim jeans into gross jorts, and wearing his tuxedo vest and bow tie. Coors Light caps served as button covers. I pulled out an oldie but a goodie -- dusted off my feather boa, combed my black wig, found my fishnets and put on my flapper dress. And I'm going to give myself a little extra credit here -- I walked the kids around the neighborhood in four inch heels.

After two straight days of doing everything in his Maple suit, suddenly Charlie insisted on wearing his Ninja costume, a $2-purchase I grabbed at a consignment shop to try to add some boy things to the overwhelmingly feminine dress up closet. No joke: the kid was making ninja sounds and karate chop motions all night. Madeline enchanted neighbors with her sweet little manners in a flouncy tulle dress and glittering shoes.

Now I'm just trying to stuff an extra banana into my kids diet here and there to offset the crazy sugar consumption going on. But hey, it's only Halloween once a year!