Early

Happy November! In an effort to write more consistently, I sit before my giant computer screen. It's early, earlier than it feels thanks to our Daylight Savings Time system.
I love early, in the same way that most of us are attracted to the antithesis of ourselves.
[Wow. I just worked the word "antithesis" into my day and the sun isn't even up! It is going to be a stellar day already, I know it!]
So my thinker is full of ideas and ideals about the upcoming Holiday Season.
Don't worry, I'm not skipping Thanksgiving. I couldn't do that; it's my favorite. I love the gathering together over food without gift stress.
But Thanksgiving is followed quickly by gift stress.
And baking stress.
And decorating stress.
And party stress.
ALL FUN STRESS!
But still stress.
And so I'm trying to spread it out a little by thinking about it early.
Well, early for me.
It feels Holiday Seasonally earlier in than it is.
Which is the antithesis of how today feels.
Which is why I like it.

My thinker may be malfunctioning.

Happy Excuse-to-Dress-Up Day!

I don't do Halloween.  Neither my husband nor I grew up celebrating Halloween, so it's just not a big deal to us.  Honestly, not much really appeals to me about the witchy festivities, and I really dislike all the ghoulish decorations.  I'm not being a hater here; if you love Halloween and want to throw your energy into making it a big day, go for it. It is just not for me.

Except.

Who doesn't love candy?  I mean, besides dentists and my Sammy?

And.

Pumpkins are so cheerful (and, uncarved, they make great decorations right up till Thanksgiving).

And.

I love love love playing dress up.  Yep, I'm a grown-up mom lady person and I still play dress up.  Only my kids don't know it yet.  They must think everyone dons a polka-dot dress and vibrant red lipstick to perform domestic chores.

I happen to have a lot of candy and pumpkins around, but one can never have too many dress-up clothes.  The happy, cute, creative costumes and the chance to show off my happy, cute, creative children are the only reasons that make me wish we did Halloween. Especially when I see something like this lovely little concoction from one of my favorite blogging crafters.  What kind of dress-up loving mama would I be to deny my lovely little girls something like that?

When I saw The Cottage Home's duds, I started thinking through my stash of fabric, creating a similar ensemble in my mind... Let's see, I have shiny red satin, sheer sparkly organza, happy striped and dotted ribbon, and absolutely zero extra time.  Bummer.  Because my girls need some new dress-up stuff.  Really.  What they have only fills a small laundry basket and it is all Disney Princess garb (which I hate and they love.)

The next day a friend and I hit Old Navy for a massive sale they were having (a situation that deserves an entire post of it's own: 2 mommas + 2 nursing infants + 2 two-year-olds = absolutely hysterical chaos!) and I saw a rack of costumes marked down to $5.00.  Plus, I had a "40% OFF" coupon.  So, instead of the original price of $29.94 I paid a whopping $3.00 for each outfit!  That's less than a happy meal, folks - and guaranteed to last a lot longer! 

 Is the construction of the garments solid? No, I've had to repair the queen bee dress twice already.  Does anyone care? No!  It was $3.00 people!

We are very happy on this last day of October, (despite the rush-to-school yelling) and we hope you all are too.

Boys dress up too! My sons had outfits (homemade, so take that!) for the school costume parade on Friday. Weston was a Christmas clown (say what?) and Sammy was a laptop computer (because his dad thought it would be cool).  But OF COURSE, I did not get any pictures snapped. Maybe I'll make encourage them to become their clowny computery selves again today.  We could hit up Great Grandma's house during the town's trick-or-treat hours.  She always has lots of candy around.