Decorate for Halloween

My 6 yr old is on board this year with buying some spooky stuff. We begin our shopping very soon!

I have the pictures to prove it.

When I remember to get them off my camera I will post a few here.

so i am marking this one as done! unfortunately, it didn’t turn out the way i hoped it would. in the end, i ended up back in an apartment (not a house) and so i had limited space to work with. but bri did the best he could to make use of the space. there’s always next year!

The cobwebs are up, the spooky purple lights are draped, the bats are hanging and today my beautiful husband surprised me by offering to buy more Halloween things! Paco had a truck-full of leaves, bamboo cuttings and other “clean green” to take to the dump. His back was hurting him so I asked if Max and I could come to the dump and help him empty the truck. So all of us piled in and went to the transfer station. We got the truck empty in record time. Just after we left the dump we passed this great kite shop on Stone Way. “Hey! Want to get something for Max?” Paco asked. So we stopped and got a Halloween banner, an orange + black triple-twirly thing for the garden (Max likes things that spin or flutter in the wind) and this bizarre squishy red ball encased in netting. When you squeeze it really hard the rubber part swells out between the netting and turns bright green. It looks like some horrible, diseased thing from outer space and Max loves it!

Today after I dropped Max off at kindergarten I sneaked a trip to Costume & Display. I decided to focus this year on skeletons and bats so even though I was sorely tempted I did not buy (1)a fabulous gravestone with R.I.P. and the Grim Reaper on it or (2)a life-size ghoul with flowing robes or (3)a fancy cobweb spinner that needs an air compressor to work or (4) a rubber vulture or (5) a really cute jack-o-lantern night-light. . . you get the idea. I got some of that special cotton for cobwebs (cheap), five smallish bats and some flat-paper jointed skeletons.

My decorations are half Halloween, half general autumn. Because when Halloween passes, I feel weird having pumpkins and witches everywhere. So I can take down the super spooky stuff and keep the garlands of leaves up, my candles out, etc. until Thanksgiving. Then it’s CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, BABY!

Ahem. Obviously I like Christmas. Yes.

I cut up a fence post and made 3 blocks…different sizes. Painted them orange and now I am putting the faces on them. I am going to drive a large nail on the top of each and bend it to make stems so I have 3 pumpkin blocks for my porch.

I guess that’s what I would call it. I like my house to slowly get spookier and spookier as Halloween approaches. It looks pretty good already! I have a few things that won’t actually come out until Halloween night!

I got last-year’s decorations down from the garage a couple days ago – so the fiber-optic pumpkins are outside by our front-room window. Yesterday I bought a black-wire-LED-light display Skull with a BEWARE sign and put that up. Max likes shutting off the porch and living-room lights and playing outside after dark now! I also got a doormat with jack-o-lanterns on it. Not nearly done – but a good start!

Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, I will be the proud owner of a “Tattered Hanging Rotted Skeleton” and a “Life Size Rotted Mummy”, and maybe even an “Evil Hanging Vampire Bat!” Bwahahaha!!!