Last night we went to our friend Staci's 6th Annual Halloween Extravaganza -- this is our second year attending. We have the good fortune to have friends who love dressing up and spend months thinking and scheming about their costumes. It forces us to stay on our toes. This is our first holiday as a family of three, so I had a lot of fun figuring out our costumes. Naturally, J and I were merely accessories to Little, I mean, Thing One.
The party started at 7pm and we were the first to arrive. Little charmed the early arrivals for approximately 45 minutes and then decided that parties pretty much suck. I went into the back room, swaddled him and shushed him to sleep and placed him in his stroller where he slept for a solid two hours. I guess the boom of the music and the the loud voices of the 25+ people were the perfect white noise. I was still nervous about leaving him alone where I couldn't hear his cries, but managed to have a great time while checking in on him every 20 minutes or so.
By 10pm, J and I were both pooped. So, I fed our sleepy baby, wrapped him up tight, and walked briskly home in the rain. Little stayed dry under the canopy of his stroller, but squawked toward the end to make sure we knew that it was way past his bedtime. Halloween was great this year, but we were all happy to be home and tucked into our warm beds.
I love this time of year. The weather starts to get cool, the trees start to turn, I get to roast vegetables and make soup, and of course Halloween is just around the corner. I love the process of thinking about and costumes, getting excited about creating crazy gross-out Halloween food, and carving pumpkins (even though I never end up actually carving a pumpkin). In D.C., we were lucky enough to have friends that loved to dress up and go out on the town, but our last Halloween there was a bit of a let-down. Most of our friends had moved away and we just couldn't get up the motivation to go out on our own. Since we moved to Portland just two months before Halloween last year, we didn't have a lot of time to make friends and sat that one out too. I have now had two years of build-up and can't wait to get out for Halloween Portland-style.
I feel pretty lucky to have found a group of friends who love to dress up (at Halloween and otherwise), so this year is going to be pretty awesome. The Halloween party date is set, and everyone is hush hush about their costume ideas. These ladies and gents take their Halloween pretty seriously. I have a couple of ideas up my sleeve, but they'll have to stay under wraps for now. Here are a few of our costumes from the past to hold you over for a couple of weeks:
2003: Ice Queen (which unbeknownst to me was my nickname during the first few months of grad school) and Wolverine.
2004: My best friend, Lauren, and I dressed up as Krystle and Alexis from Dynasty. J said that my faux silk jumpsuit was so ugly that he might never be able to love me again.
2005: Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York and Mrs. Incredible. I think bourbon and some strong margaritas gave me the courage to put on skin-tight red suit. Jesse also really enjoyed the margaritas and nearly got kicked out of Heaven and Hell (a local bar) for his jubilant dancing. I had to cut off part of his costume when we got home. It was a good Halloween.
