Halloween is almost anti-climactic after all the pumpkin patches, parties, weigh-offs and trunk-or-treats.
This year, the kids opted for a Mario Bros. theme. Bode’s hero is Mario and Hadley begged to be Yoshi, his sidekick dinosaur. Bode’s costume was easy: I went to the local thrift store where I found overalls and a red shirt. I bought the actual Mario hat from the Halloween store.
I’ll admit I wasn’t too thrilled about Yoshi so when I couldn’t find a costume in Hadley’s size, I proposed she dress up as Princess Peach, the damsel in distress in Mario’s ficticious Mushroom Kingdom.
Just pretend they are posing with The Great Mushroom.
If you know Hadley’s aversion to all things princess, you would realize what a risky move this was. Somewhere, at sometime, a princess did her wrong and these royal wenches represent all that is evil in the world.
Fortunately, due to her affection for Mario, she made the exception to be Peach.
Though she did have the pageant girl wave down at her school parade.
On Saturday, we had a busy day with soccer games and a playdate with Aunt Lisa while Jamie and I auditioned at the Marriage Ref. That night was the trunk-or-treat at the church. Knowing they would get loaded up on sugar, I fed them a healthy dinner. Thirty seconds prior, Bode professed to be starving to death and proceeded to eat half his weight in food.
“My tummy is sooooo full,” he moaned.
I thought he was exaggerating until it was time to go to the trunk-or-treat an hour later. He refused, with the same complaint.
“Bode, don’t you realize you’re going to go to a place where they are going to stuff you full of candy?” I queried.
“Don’t care. My tummy is too full.”
I don’t know how a kid like that came out of me.
He bounced back on Halloween and we joined our neighborhood revelries with a fire-truck-led procession, followed by trick-or-treating.
The local Medved dealership sponsored our parade and brought this Camero. It was love at first sight for the Lord of the Gourds.
Please don’t ask me how many times he made me retake this photo in order to best showcase his dream car.
As you can imagine, visiting the house of The Great Pumpkin makes us a VERY popular stop for picture-taking.
Next year, I’m charging a fee.
All these were fun times but my favorite moment came earlier that day when I attempted to clean up the house. As I swept the kitchen floor, the Lord of the Gourds commented:
“You’re the best looking thing with a broom today.”
‘Bout time someone recognized it.
Happy Halloween!
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 