halloween is almost here

this image is hilarious--i love how the bird is freaking out while chained to its perch!


we are madly decorating and getting ready for halloween! sophie is going to be a fairy princess and gus is going to be a vampire. he was a vampire a couple of years ago in iowa and everyone thought he was draco malfoy (i'm guessing the same thing will happen this year as well). tomorrow we need to go out and find some good non-lead-painted teeth for him.

tripping down memory lane; please excuse the diversion...the great thing about halloween in iowa was/is the ready availablility of abnormally large pumpkins. when i was about two months pregnant with sophie, rich and gus went out to find the biggest pumpkin that they could, which they did. i think it cost all of $20 at the hy-vee. anyway, they picked it up in my car, drove it home, then plopped it directly behind my car and left it there, so i had to roll that sucker away from my car while pregnant...i just have to rub that in every now and then...because i couldn't drive the quarter-mile to gus' school...


and this image with the pop-up boy...


...reminds me just too much of this


so they scraped the gutted the giant pumpkin and left it to me to carve, and i think i can safely say it turned out to be the best one i have made to date. i loved that pumpkin so much, however rich's refusal to throw it out even after thanksgiving kinda became an issue with the neighbors (the smell was brutal), not to mention his long-suffering pregnant wife. rich is still driving around albuquerque looking for another giant pumpkin--he still hasn't accepted that we live in the desert or something.

anyway, the other great thing about halloween in iowa is that the goodwill would save up all their halloween donations all year long and bring them out for the entire month of october, so the whole store would be full of some of the greatest costumes you have ever seen. vintage cheerleading outfits, every possible type of monster or superhero, any uniform you can think of, and tons of old decorations. it was phenomenal. i'm having a hard time with my outfit this year because the goodwills here are totally not into that kind of thing--any suggestions?


the vampire gus and road-flare lit pumpkins (i initially wanted to soak rolls of toilet paper in kerosene and then light them, but rich said no to that idea. chicken.)


best cannibalistic pumpkin ever.