Halloween 2011

We had such a nice time for Halloween this year.  Billy and I carved our very first pumpkins as a couple (and it was also my very first pumpkin carving ever!) We carved them in the likeness of our two dogs, Hanzo and Pirate.  I did mine in like 20 minutes.  Billy took about an hour on his.  But his did come out better and he did win us a gift certificate to a nice pizza place.

Just look at the way I deftly hold the carving utensil.  I'm a natural.  Mio, the woman next to me, also won a prize.  she made her pumpkin into the pumpkin carriage from Cinderella, complete with horses, a barbie, etc. 

Joint Ventures Club at Wash U.

Cute, eh?

My pumpkin.  It's supposed to be Hanzo, our Boston Terrier.

Billy's pumpkin.  It's supposed to be of Pirate, our pug, but he was so engrossed in carving, that he forgot to poke out one of its eyes so that it's a true representation of our one-eyed dog.

D enjoying himself at the carving party.

So, we put our prize-winning and prize-losing pumpkins on our front porch that evening, lit a couple of tea lights, and stepped back to admire the view.  I also cut out little bats and ghosts on black paper bags and put a tea light in those.  They came out OK.  Finally, we hung a BOO sign on our front door; it was covered in green glitter and god knows that I ADORE any kind of glitter.  So that made me happy.  I never thought I'd feel that way about decorating a home for the holidays, but it really does make such a huge impact on the way I feel about the whole season. 

So, last year for Halloween, Billy and I dressed up as Neo and Trinity from the Matrix (sort of unoriginal, but black is sooo slimming and I was only 3 months postpartum then and still had a huge gut...ahem...I still HAVE a gut, but it was definitely bigger then) and Desmond went dressed up as sushi.

We made this Kitty Litter cake that was absolutely delicious, but nobody wanted to eat it!  :)  The poops were melted tootsie rolls and the cake was part mashed up oreos, part yellow cake, and part vanilla pudding.

Sashimi Desmond.

Our homemade costumes.  Billy had painted his hair black and filled in his eyebrows.  haha!

This year, we decided to go with a theme again.  However, we decided to go a more cultured route: we decided to dress up as famous late artists.  Can you guess who we are?

I was Frida Kahlo, Billy was Vincent Van Gogh, and Desmond was Salvador Dalí.

Seriously, if I don't nair once a month or pluck my eyebrows every now and then, I would end up looking like this.

Notice the clock on his shirt?  It's supposed to be the melting clock from Dalí's painting, "La Persisténcia de la Memória." 

Loving the Twizzler I made the mistake of giving him.

So, the rationale behind the choices was simple: I chose artists that I both liked and who beared some cultural semblance to the make up of my family.  Although Frida Kahlo was of Mexican descent, we're close enough brown that it didn't matter that I was Colombian.  When Billy has facial hair (can't call it a beard since it's never thick enough to be considered that), it's got streaks of reddish gold in it, which reminded me of Van Gogh.  Also, they're both very white European men.  Finally, I chose Dali for Desmond because he's Spanish and Desmond's not quite brown, but not quite white...like the Mediterraneans!  But the bottom line was money.  It cost me around $10 for our entire costume (that was to buy the flowers for my hair).  Everything else was ours.  The shirt, I drew (artistic genius, eh?  Looks just like the original).

Billy's ear wound cover was actually the shirt that he had on when Des fell (again, his 4th time) and banged his head up pretty badly (pictures coming up in the next post) and we had to take him to the hospital.  So that is authentic human blood on the shirt.  Sigh...we will do anything to make our Halloween costumes as authentic as possible.  :)

Anyhow, Des loved watching all of the kids come up to our door asking for candy.  Here in St. Louis, they all tell you a joke or a riddle first and then you give them candy.  It's perfect.  I loved hearing all of their jokes and (pretend) laughing.  It was really lovely to get to spend it at home with my little family.  I know soon enough, I'm going to be schlepping it out there in the cold with Desmond, going door-to-door.  Hopefully, that's not for a few more years.