happy halloween.

click on the collage to enlarge. 

we had fun trick-or-treating with our friend and his little brother! unfortunately it gave me a bad case of house envy. so many cute cottages with hardwood floors. on the good side, i'm really thankful i signed up for the dental plan for next year, 'cause we're gonna need it! by the way, the boy ditched his harry potter costume, dubbing it "too cute." he went with last year's vampire costume instead.

bits of my weekend vol. 74

hello, my lovelies. i am back from the dead. funny how a sinus infection can just about kill a whole week if not more.

and speaking of death and killing, let's dispense with halloween. my least favorite holiday. and let me tell you why.

last year

a perfectly adorable child ... (far left)...

this year

turns into this.

it would be super duper great if we could just go back to this moment.

and relive it every halloween.

ok?

great. glad we could talk that through.

moving on. over the weekend i dragged myself to a giant garage sale, at which i got approximately a million new shirts, dresses, toys and puzzles for exactly $19.

i'm now addicted to thrifting. i mean, it's official.

digging through other people's crap is fun.

here's one of the fun games we got.

we also got chutes and ladders. it didn't come with a spinner, so we decided dice would work. but we didn't have one.

so we made one out of playdoh.

cuz that's how we roll.

we also got this most awesome book.

you didn't think i'd skip the most awesome vintage book table, did you?

i love it that they use terms like "chum" and "jalopy."

it does slow down the reading aloud part, though, explaining to the boy what chums and jalopies are.

but just think of the vocabulary he's building.

the boy did some climbing and monkey-barring after the sale.

and some old fashioned stick tossing.

i gotta say he's pretty awesome.

boy-o-lantern!

hurray for halloween. for us, it can't come soon enough.

Bits of my weekend volume 20

we had absolutely no plans this weekend. sometimes that is the best kind of weekend of all.

but we did not laze around.

oh, no, we didn't.

there was much cleaning to do.

exhibit A: moldy bread in pantry.

exhibit b: sell by 8/23.

not good.

i was wondering where that smell was coming from.

after cleaning, scrubbing and doing about 40 loads of laundry, we set out for the mall to play on the indoor playground.

we couldn't resist stopping off at the halloween superstore to get a few things.

including this parrot.

well, captain hook's gotta have a parrot right?

and a mad, mad mustache.

he's gonna hate having that mustache and goatee taped to his face. i give it about 30 seconds before he rips it off.

my mad men secretary look is coming together.

the dress is back from alterations (the bow on the back needed fixing).

but i can't decide between all my lovely jewels. should i wear pearls or rhinestones or colorful gems?

in other news, the boy now sleeps in a tent.

on top of his bed.

yeah, he's pretty excited about it.

i thought we'd sent it to goodwill but found it in the closet during my cleaning frenzy.

the boy is currently into buying these tiny animals from a vending machine at the grocery store. you put them in water and they grow.

they're kind of disgusting. the horned caterpillars look exactly like the ones i had to pull of tomato plants when i was a kid. yuck.

what else did we do ... hmmm ... let me see. we went bike riding.

and our down the hall neighbor katie gave me this fabulous mad men book! now i'm even more inspired for the costume party she's planning for oct. 29 in the lobby.

she's going as sarah palin.

we may need to hire someone to come tease our hair.

and yes, i know the season finale for mad men was last night, and no, i haven't watched it yet, so don't tell me anything. ANYTHING!

these illustrations are fantastic.

our no-plans weekend also involved piano playing.

we are not forcing the boy but he seems to have his daddy's gift for music.

fingers crossed.

oh, and we took naps. what could be better on a weekend with no plans?

how was your weekend?