Halloween Advent?

We are preparing our hearts and home for All Hallow's Eve, to the best of our busy working abilities.

The Great Pumpkin Soundtrack is like an atmosphere around me right now. This is a good thing.

Some ordinary weekend adventures: there was shopping after dance class, and after shopping there was a trip to the playground. I don't get to snap as many pictures like this as I would like:

Adele is more and more decidedly independent, about every small thing. You know how it is. She's nearly 3, after all. 

Here, proof I still exist. 

The old caboose furnished some quality imaginative play. 

I may not take them to this playground alone for a bit, however. Neither wanted to leave, and both very nearly had to be carried out, kicking and screaming, one under each arm. Managed to execute the old "ok, then I'm leaving you here" deception successfully in this case, but it won't always work. Must come up with some other strategies for playground exit. 

We did our ritual pumpkin disemboweling that evening:

Each kid got to design the faces of their own this year, and name them. Adele's is Titum; Miles' is Laura.

Sunday afternoon was like our dress rehearsal for Halloween! BooDoo is a free party the First & Main Shopping Center throws for Blacksburg kids (and, you know, to drum up some business).

We got to give the ordered costumes a first wear:

Yes, I unapologetically ordered their costumes online. It was the right choice this year. No way could I have assembled a hobbit costume, not this October. And making an Elsa costume (as Adele insisted she would be only Elsa) is out of the question. Maybe one of these years I'll have that sewing machine, and a bit more time. Anyway, these two are happy, and we got them mighty cheap. :-)

I DID "make" those furry feet on Miles, out of some craft fur and flip-flops and tacky glue. I'm thinking about attempting a pipe. But that will be IT. Unless you count my efforts at Adele's braid as a craft.

For the first time, I went to the Blacksburg Children's Museum. This is because for that day only, it was free. I do free things.

But you know? It pleasantly surprised me. I may be back, a paying customer. 

Adele's dream come true: an interview, hug and photo with Real Elsa. 

She did the cake walk long after she'd already won and could not hope to win again, just for the sake of following Elsa around. 

There were probably about 10 Elsas at this massive party, that I saw. I wanted her to be Merida. But we are beyond the era of my Halloween autocracy. Too bad for me.

Soon we'll be lighting parading downtown with probably 16,098 other Elsas. We'll be lighting the pumpkin lanterns and feasting on our Trick or Treat spoils. And November, when we wake up, always has such a different, more contemplative flavor. We'll remember the saints who are with us still, and visit all the feelings that presence produces. We'll go to bed in black, silver and livid orange of flames, and awake in gold. All Saints Day. Whether I remember to light candles, or pray the collect of the day, we will walk through these mysteries regardless. Like so much of the profound graces of the stories we are living, we get to travel through enchanted territory just by virtue of the fact that we kept walking.