Halloween 2008

Halloween is one of those holidays that I sort of lost - I got older and forgot just how much fun it really is. Could be because anything that requires creativity scares me just a little - so I avoid it. As I "grew up" and shed my youthful enthusiasm for the holiday it just became a chore. The weight of choosing a costume, making/procuring it - just too much! Thankfully having a child is slowly bringing me back around to just how awesome a time it really can be.

Alot of that is due to the fact that Somerville knows how to do Halloween. There's always tons of stuff going on around the holiday and our street really does it up. Perhaps everywhere is like this and I just never notcied before. But certainly having Lily in our lives has put all this Halloween fun right back at my fingertips.

Due to my aforementioned lack of creativity Lily was a monkey this year, courtesy of Old Navy (oh how I love that place). And she LOVED her monkey costume. When we brought it home she would walk around the house clutching the costume and her stuffed monkey, trying to hold up two fingers while proudly proclaiming "TWOOO Monkeys TWOOOOOOO!"

Our first chance to wear it came the Saturday before Halloween at a little costume potluck held at the Somerville Growing Center. We parents basically stood around, ate and watched our little costumed children play and slowly strip out of their costumes. Gordon did manage to get some good shots:

We sent her with a real banana prop - go creativity!

Look! a monkey! in a tree!

The next big event was the Thursday before - a rocking party at Gordon's office. And man do these people know how to do Halloween! I was very impressed by this party - the whole office was decorated and the costumes were spectacular. There was a jambi the genie, smurfette, the whole cast of the wizard of oz and a bunch of used car salesmen. Gordon got some great shots of the decorations and the costumes - you can check them out here if you're curious. In the meantime, here's one of Lily after she "happened upon" a big pumpkin full of candy:

Finally it was Halloween Day. We started off our celebration with a trip to the library for spooky story hour dressed in costume. It was very fun and we met Lily's friends Marlena and Kaylee there. Gordon came home early for Trick or Treating and we got an extra special treat - Mimi (who runs Lily's day care) and her three youngest daughters came out to join us. Lily was SO happy to have Mimi and the girls here with us. The girls also really enjoyed our street - everyone gets so into Halloween here. They do a great job decorating and sit outside handing out candy. It's like a mini block party. It's always so nice chatting with all the neighbors I wonder why we only do it up like this once a year!

We were amazed by Lily's energy. She has no idea really what candy is, but thought it was SO AWESOME that you went up to pepole's houses and they just gave you stuff. I think the whole experience blew her little mind. After every house she'd say "another house! another house!". We were easily out walking around for 90 minutes and brought back a ton of loot.

Lily and her entourage

But eventually the night had to come to an end. Even though Lily insisted that she was "not tired" and protested "no bed" we did wrap up the evening. But not before we got a great picture of Lily and Mimi's girls. Hope you had a great Halloween too!

Lily, Sarah, Susan and Amel