sometimes people would dress up as witches or something dead and we would all be appalled in our hearts. don't they know? this place is for christians! ahahaha... it makes me laugh. it could have been a really awesome outreach probably. but no, we turned inward, called it satanic, and shunned the world.
now friends, when i had kids, i was like...hold up, this is actually fun and cute and we get to hang out with our neighbors. AND, get this...we weren't worshipping the devil. some of you are offended at this point. but i will say, i respect your convictions and i'm not here to pick a fight. this is the story of our family and our traditions. and sometimes, people change.
me. i changed. because i used to not celebrate and now i do. whew! glad i explained all that...
moving on!
lila was a speech therapist this year. what? yes...she was. we asked her what she wanted to be and she yelled, CECE! which is her best friend and speech therapist at her new awesome school. i'm not sure if she knew what she was saying but nato and i looked at each other and said...this could work. i cut up some of nato's old scrubs and my mother in law sewed it back together. the glasses are from the dollar store and i took the insides out.
when we told cece that lila was going to be her for halloween, she decided she should be lila.
you're like, what is cece wearing? lila dresses very colorfully. she often chooses mismatchee items and sometimes i wrangle it in, sometimes i don't. but her style matches her personality.
layne was spider man and penelope was his pet spider. at least this year, penelope isn't wearing a costume made for dogs. i think. actually i don't know.
penelope will not stand anywhere for more than 1 second.
now layne earned his costume this year, as i didn't want to actually buy another costume for him. so homeboy did a lot of extra chores and BOOM. hard work pays off, my man.
just ask your cousin isaac. drinking milk has paid off for him as far as weight gain is concerned. is he not the absolute cutest thing you've ever seen?
no one is participating the way i was yelling for them to. it was really rude and i won't stand for it.
what i will stand for is a baby dressed up as a barista. thank you, poppy.
lila was so sweet when she was trick or treating. i mean, home girl has basically no recognizable words. except she would yell, YOU'RE WELCOME! after she took candy from each house. it was too hilarious.
these are real pumpkins that someone carved, btdubbs. omg. why did i even put this picture on my blog? not sure. i'm chocolate drunk though. it's sad when you eat so much of your kids chocolate and then wake up through the night with a touch of heartburn. thanks for all the snickers, neighborhood.
alright, happy halloweiners. yes, i just said that.
I too did not celebrate Halloween as a kid but now do with my kids. I remember we had to turn off all our lights and roll around on the floor when someone knocked so they wouldn't see us. I cracked up when you mentioned Lila yelling you're welcome. I really love that girl. She reminds me of my Kyle. Thanks for the laugh!
ReplyDeletewe hid too. we hid too... i feel like this is like a recovery group. ahahhaa.
DeleteToo funny! I know, we are so scared ;)
Delete*scarred*
DeleteI love that lila was a speech therapist and her speech therapist was lila...i cried a little because thats LOVE!!
ReplyDeletei cry too. it's just the sweetest thing to see.
DeleteI couldnt stop giggling to myself when I saw the picture of Lila and CeCe! That is the best thing EVER! Well, the baby barista is a close second. Amaze!
ReplyDeletetotally with you on the whole...we're Christians and we 'do' Halloween!
ReplyDeleteI'm a pastor's wife...and I LOVE Halloween...
{I feel like I'm at an AA meeting...which celebrating Halloween is right up there with drinking in many 'Christian' circles!}
I wrote a post like 2 years ago on Celebrating Halloween...and being a Christian...
http://chambersmade.blogspot.com/2010/10/celebrating.html
hi my name is kiera. i'm a christian and i celebrate halloween.
Deletehi kiera.
I love the mini barista. so adorable!
ReplyDeleteGrowing up we discussed the pagan aspects of Halloween and determined it was "dress as you aren't normally as long as it's tasteful" day. I did dress as the wicked witch from wizard of oz one year - complete with lots of itchy green face paint.
a witch?! for shame.
Deletemy mom still thinks it's for pagans. she gasped when we first told her we were going to let our kiddos trick or treat. she still doesn't like it, so we just make fun of her and she laughs. works out just fine.
ReplyDeletedude i know. mine too. but they come with us now. and celebrate with the rest of the pagans.
DeleteYour kids are awesome. And "lord of the harvest" hahahahaha sometimes we christians are so weird. Lol those are so fab u lous pumpkins.
ReplyDeleteserious. lord of the harvest sounds like a scary movie.
DeleteLove this! I too grew up with the church carnival, where we celebrated, but acted like we didn't. Our's was called "Camp Jubilee" .
ReplyDeletecamp jubilee?! christians are creative.
DeleteThere are too many things to love about this post! Cece sounds like the sweetest therapist ever, I love that she decided to dress up as Lila! All the costumes are amazing, I love the barista and Penelope as a spider, oh dear me, I've never thought a spider was so cute :)
ReplyDeletelila's therapists are angels from heaven. for reals. awards should be given to these ladies.
Deletewe celebrated "hallelujah night" and totally looked down on those dressed in blood and gore. sigh.
ReplyDeleteour first kiddo is baking away, and i am absolutely going to dress her up and encourage her to prostitute her cuteness for candy!
oh i love that she went as her speech therapist!! my little girl is in therapy as well and just loves her mr.todd...but really so dont i! i will forever be greatful for him and all that he does for her! loved all your photos as usual:)
ReplyDeleteI sent to Jennie, my BFF the speech pathologist. She's going to love it. The BARISTA costume is my favorite.
ReplyDeleteconfession: my favorite thing about this post was the last line.
ReplyDeleteboom. thankyou. it was so late and i was just writing and being stupid. enjoy, world.
DeleteI hope my son is as cool as your kids when he's their age. Also - a baby Starbucks barista? Pure genius.
ReplyDeleteisn't the barista outfit ridiculous?!
DeleteToo too cute! This is our stance on Happy Hall-lujah, too... lol
ReplyDeleteor happy hallowed be they name. lol
DeleteLove, love, love it. Because we were one of those families that celebrated but didn't celebrate and now I'm a full on let's get dressed up and be silly and enjoy this day that is goofy and weird and FUN!! And those pumpkins are ridiculous!!
ReplyDeletei'm glad someone else enjoyed the pumpkins. :)
DeleteOkay, that whole Lila/Cece thing is just about the sweetest thing I've ever heard! Love it!
ReplyDeleteit really is the sweetest. i want to cry about it sometimes but then i'm like no. don't be a weirdo.
DeleteLove. All. Of. This. Especially the babes.
ReplyDeleteI love all the little children in costumes. We don't celebrate halloween at all (besides here it's rather frightening...children run chant/screaming "halloween" down the street around 10pm and bad things happen. Nothing like US halloween) But since we don't dress up for halloween I let my kids wear super hero costumes whenever they want. I actually need to get bigger ones because Logan has a batman costume that looks like capris and short sleeves. He still wears it though wedgie and all. :P
ReplyDeleteLord of the harvest was hilarious! I remember all the home groups created bible themed carnival games. So, funny!
layne's old costume was horrendous. the front wedgie was where i drew the line!
DeleteConfession: Logans totally has a front wedgie too, but he never wears it out of the house so I just pretend its supposed to look like that 0:-) It's all the darn growth spurts. I'm telling you we would be wealthy people if our children would just stop growing already. ha
DeleteWe were the same way growing up. Always a halloween alternative. This year we took our kids trick or treating for the first time, and it was my first time too! Loved it :)
ReplyDeleteBOOM. welcome to the dark side.
Deletewhat the h....
ReplyDeletehow come no children are dressed as "ye shepherd children of old"?!
or, rather, peanuts.
frig!
i was so looking forward to that from last year.
(honestly... just re-read last year's halloween post and SLOL)
(you won't understand my lingo unless you read it too, people)
ahahahahaha. you are funny that you re-read that. i need to go re-read it just for old times sake. funny how time flies.
DeleteOk, I love barista baby.
ReplyDeleteI love Lila's costume idea! And what's even better is that her speech therapist went along with it, too. Love it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your take on Halloween. Growing up, I didn't celebrate but also went to Harvest Carnivals. But I do like the idea of loving our neighbors. I mean what better day to it than on Halloween? :)
there's no other holiday that brings your entire neighborhood out on the same night. next year i want to hand out wine to the parents. :)
DeleteI remember the first time we dressed up for Halloween, I was Mary, and my brother was Joseph and the other was Abraham. I'm not sure what swayed my parents in the years to come, but I'm glad they let us dress up. It's fun! Chris's family, on the other hand, used to take him out of school so he wasn't even around people dressed up. So when we had kids, he wasn't on board with Halloween, but he wanted Santa. (I don't understand either) so we reached a compromise that I won't tell our son that Santa isn't real if we do Halloween.
ReplyDeletethis made me laugh because of your compromise! and yes, we were those kids too...pulled out of class. LOL.
DeleteI usually don't comment when there are already tons of comments cuz I just don't like to do what errbody's doin, you know? But I read the Twilight series. So I'll get over it for this too. Because this post was the best! CeCe (shoot, autocorrect just turned her name into feces. Good thing I proof read) is the sweetest and coolest lady ever and she should win some award for that costume. And lila should too. Barista baby was the cutest thing ever. And I laughed out loud at the commenter who hid when the doorbell rang. Oh Christians. You just want to slap them sometimes, don't ya? Thanks for your hilariousness. It's always appreciated.
ReplyDeletedude, don't be rude and not commenting. it means a lot. :)
Deleteyou read twilight?! lol.
Don't knock it til you try it... You too might swoon over Edward. Although you might be team Jacob since your hubby kinda looks like him.
DeleteWell, at least you didn't go to/participate in a Judgment House! ::shudder:: What a way to lovingly bring people to Jesus.
ReplyDeleteI posted this link over on Emily's blog, too: a bit written by a dude about how to celebrate Halloween, as a Christian. Disclaimer -- I know nothing about the guy, or his theology, but I did like this one piece: http://kuyperiancommentary.wordpress.com/2012/10/27/how-to-celebrate-a-christian-halloween/
If you hand out wine to parents next year, I'm coming to your neighborhood. ;)
the judgement house?! i assume this was a haunted house about hell? ahahahaha.
Deletereading all these comments totally makes me laugh... and cringe all at once.
ReplyDeletei know our parents were just trying their best but i'm glad we're learning from their mistakes.
seriously... i have to laugh at the comment about being yanked out of school.
i totally remember not being able to listen to the teacher when there was sex ed in gr.4.
it was me, little girl christian, and my friend melody, little girl jehovah's witness, sitting out in the hallway.
what a party that must have been for us, huh?
NOT!
what's with this judgement house?!!?
sounds spooky!
(kinda like those 'torture chambers of the midevil ages' type attractions at fisherman's wharf or niagara falls)
totally. my parents were really thoughtful about the holiday...they were following their leadership and their convictions. and it has made me into the weirdo i am today. hahaha. i enjoy laughing about my background often.
Deletethanks for the laugh again, jami!
ReplyDeletei love the costumes. i got teary when i saw that cece dressed up as lila. that's really, really sweet.
we take the kids trick or treating. wilder said he wanted to be a mummy but i said it was disrespectful...whatever that means. i think the scary stuff just goes back to my roots of "being careful" it doesn't give satan glory or something. my parents let us hand out candy and we trick-or-treated a few times. honestly i think their hesitation had more to do with being exhausted an not wanting to participate, and less to do with the Jesus vs Satan stuff.
i do still pray for all the black cats just in case weirdos sacrifice them.
i clearly remember one year at our old church's holy harvest festival a woman came dressed as a pregnant nun. she was quiiiickly asked to leave. i mean, that's amazing. gotta give it to the lady for coming up with that costume and being ballsy enough to wear it to the the holy harvest.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodess, I cannot get over Lila's costume! I am currently getting my masters in speech therapy and I just told my roommate my new goal in life is to have a child love me enough to want to be me for Halloween. So sweet!
ReplyDeleteI love Lila's costume! I still need to post pics of my little ones in their costumes. Let's face it... it may never happen. lol.
ReplyDeleteI never realized some Christians didn't participate in Halloween! I guess that's because I am Christian and we always celebrated...?? I wasn't allowed to be the devil, or a witch, or something "dead" - but, we always went trick or treating. I am a little sad for you. I guess I was too distracted by all that candy to notice some kids didn't participate.
ReplyDeleteso, we are that crazy family that has never celebrated halloween and my kids are totally happy and normal!
ReplyDeleteof course, we don't have issues with what other people choose to do in their own families...and the saddest part of this whole deal is that i just burned a whole pot of chocolate chips i was melting for pie while reading all of these comments! so sad! :)
You slay me with this post--but I had to share this story:
ReplyDeleteMy middle kid had trouble learning how to talk so when he was just 3 we taught him to give "thumbs up" for his Halloween candy (he was Batman, of course) since he couldn't say "thank you." Still kills me to think of how darn cute he looked!
Oh gracious this is EXACTLY my story but it seems more funny when you tell it! Every time you post I'm like "yeah, that's us, too!!" or "I totally agree with her!" I'd like to think if we lived near each other we'd be friends and my special 3 year old daughter could play with your special 3 year old daughter. But, to be real, I'm a hermit like you so we could live across the street from each other and never speak. That's really how it would go. :)
ReplyDeleteOh gracious this is EXACTLY my Halloween story this year, too! But it seems more funny when you tell it. :) Every time you post I'm like "yeah, that is totally us, too!" or "wow, I agree!". I'd like to think if we lived near each other we'd be friends and my special 3 year old daughter could play with your special 3 year old daughter. But, to be real, I'm a hermit too so even if we lived across the street we probably wouldn't ever speak. That's how it would really go.
ReplyDeletehaha oh my gosh! I love that she dressed up like her speech therapist & her speech therapist dressed up like her! Too sweet!
ReplyDeleteLove this story! I did that one year in elementary school... I forget what we called it back then but basically I had to be pulled out of my regular classes every week to spend time with the deaf/hard of hearing resource teacher. She was AWESOME and one year I insisted she dress up as me for Halloween. She was happy to oblige. Aren't those kinds of teachers the best?! So glad sweet Lila has one in her life!
ReplyDelete