The 'Ween '09

This Halloween, in honor of life in the Beehive State, we dressed in bee-themed costumes. I found cute costumes online for myself and Penny, and Britt wore his coveralls with an actual beekeeper's hat and veil, which I bought from a local bee supply place. I consider it an investment, because who knows? Maybe someday we will have an apiary. It could happen!


Damn, those tights are cute.

I tried to get all Martha Stewart and do my hair in a beehive, but that didn't work, as my hair is not really long enough. But I DID make my own little bees out of yellow and black pipe cleaners (using white ones for the wings), which we attached to my costume and Britt's hat. Take THAT, Martha. Unfortunately, in the craziness that unfolded on Halloween, we neglected to get a picture of the three of us in our bee attire. Photo Op FAIL!


Ummm...hi.

We went to Penny's cousin's house, so they could trick-or-treat together:

(Penny's cousin, and her Uncle David, before the fun had even begun).

I mentioned before that Penny is easily frightened by things, things like pumpkins and elevators. She completely freaked at the sight of a pair of those Groucho Marx glasses, so I wasn't sure how she was going to handle seeing people in costume, coming right up to the door, shouting for candy. But once she got the concept of putting candy in other kids' buckets (fun!), and went to a couple of houses and got candy for HER bucket (REALLY fun!), things were a little less scary.


Our terribly frightening pumpkins.

A word about candy. Don't get me wrong, we love dessert around here, but candy is not really something we keep in the house as a general rule, because if we did, I would eat it all day long. I was naively hoping to keep Penny in the dark as far as the existence of candy is concerned (Have some delicious apple slices!). But my best made plans were laid to waste, because she would catch me or Britt sneaking some candy on the side, and would request it. And not wanting to be hypocrites, we would share with her, so now she's developed a taste for Reese's Pieces. When she got home, she meticulously took the candy out of her bucket and put it back in, over and over, all the while not realizing or caring that it was edible, which was a relief. And I have to say, most of her candy was crap. Come on, where's the good stuff? There were no Reese's Pieces in sight.

I just thought of a story I heard about my first Halloween as a baby. My parents were destitute college students, and I was 4 months old, so they taped a bunch of leaves to my pajamas and took me around their neighborhood, so they could get some candy. Isn't that desperately sad, and funny?


Suspiciously eyeing the dry ice, which was "Na Arie." (Not scary.)

The girls came back from their trip around the neighborhood, and then Britt and I made an undramatic exit so we could attend our grown-up party. Penny's Aunt and Uncle graciously offered to let Penny sleep over, so we wouldn't have to worry about driving back across town at a very late hour to wake her (and them) up. I wasn't sure I would be able to handle having Penny away from us all night, but she had a blast with her cousin. And we had a blast with our friends. When we picked Penny up in the morning, she had slept through the night, and had already eaten pancakes for breakfast. Her toenails were even painted bright red, so it must have been one exciting sleep-over.