Frankenstein, Witches, Buzz Lightyear, Oh my!

There are not many Halloween’s to date that stand out in my memory. Most are just a blur of sugar induced haziness. One particular Halloween from my past that always stays with me was the year my cousin Tess (Landon’s Godmother) was sick. Very sick. I don’t even remember what was wrong with her. All I remember was that she had been in the hospital, had surgery and (gulp!) would not be able to go Trick-or-Treating with her sister Kate and me. For two 11 year olds and a 7 year old this was absolutely not acceptable. Kate and I decided we would dress up as two crazed nurses and Tess would be our unfortunate patient. We somehow ended up scoring a wheel chair, nurse’s scrubs and some stethoscopes. Most likely thanks to Tess’ Mom who works in a hospital. We dumped some fake blood on Tess and bandaged her head…and we were off. Nobody puts Baby in the corner! I mean...Ummm...wrong situation, but you get the picture. We had the best time that night and is one Halloween I will always think of. That, and now last night.

While last night was not Landon’s “First Halloween” it was the first Halloween where he had the “ah-ha!” moment. “So you’re telling me, I just go up to the door, yell "Trick or Treat!", hold out my pumpkin and these people give me candy?” You could see the wheels turning. Throw in a few “Please and Thank yous” and “To Infinity and Beyond!” along with a mega-watt smile and you can score enough candy to last a year! That was our boy last night. And I don’t think Dustin and I will ever forget the first time he walked up to the house by himself and said “Twick or Tweet” and held out his pumpkin to the nice old man. I also don’t think we’ll forget him running back to us thrilled at a job well done and yelling that he just saw Frankenstein! As it turns out this old man who was very tall reminded our two-year old of Frankenstein…and he couldn’t wait to tell us about it. At the top of his lungs. While the door was still closing. I guess we’re at the age where you just laugh, shrug and say, “Kids say the darndest things.”

We had a very similar situation at the market the day before where Landon told a lady she was a witch. He wasn’t being rude, or suggesting that she was any other possible rhyming word…he just really thought she looked like a witch. My only comment back to him was, “You’re right. That lady has a long black coat that looks like a Witch’s cape!” She also had a black hat on (albeit not the pointed variety) so in my mind, she was asking for it. Luckily, she was a good sport about it...but maybe she hexed us as we walked away.

Saturday night while we slept in a "we ran 20 miles today (really!)" coma, Dustin and I both woke to the dogs barking like maniacs. Dustin sat up and looked outside and the only thing he saw were two girls slamming their trunk closed, hopping into the car, and peeling out down the street while laughing. We didn't think much of it at the time (half asleep and all) and had forgotten about it completely by morning. It wasn't until we went to carve our pumpkins that we realized we were down by one. Somehow, these two high-school girls managed to get our 80lb pumpkin down our drive way and into the trunk of their car. Seriously, who does that?! Unless they're working for said witch who gave them super-strength to lift the pumpkin and teach that two-year old a lesson! Okay, so that isn't the case...but what if??? At first we were pretty PO'd, but then remembered all the crazy ass stunts we pulled when we were young...so as long as the pumpkin was carved and wasn't tossed on the interstate we're ok with it relocating this time around...next year however, we'll follow Dustin's advice and keep them behind closed doors until the big night.

We still managed to carve one giant pretty awesome pumpkin that Landon was very pleased with. He helped scoop out the guts and had fun saying, "Disgusting!" We also topped off the night with my-new-favorite-recipe for Pumpkin Harvest/Butternut Squash soup that is delish! As much as I love traditions, this might become a new Burgess Family Halloween regular.

And here we are, back again on Monday...anxiously awaiting yet another weekend. Hope everyone had a safe Halloween and you didn't piss off any witches!