Tales of a Shoebox Princess

Although not so much obligatory as "for posterity's sake." As in so I can remember what costumes the kids wore each year. Because I like to keep track of those things. Hayley had been working on her costume since summer time. She sewed stuff for it, but in her own way; without a pattern, without instructions, willy-nilly, making a mess, hounding me for help with a collar. She likes to create things, but doesn't want too much structure telling her how to do it. And she got a hat and a Pikachu backpack free from some website (she is always getting packages in the mail. It's a bit worrisome, but she claims they are all freebies). But here she is: yes, she sewed the gloves. "Ash Ketchum" from Pokemon series.  Matt had no clue what he wanted to be for Halloween, which was kind of hard to believe since he was the one who went as Dirt and as Fire and one year as "an explosion of Mario" and last year as Jake the Dog. But when kids from th...

And all over my rooms, appeared pumpkins, and witches astride their wood brooms. It's that time of year, I've looked forward with glee to putting out decorations for All Hallow's Eve! Jim got the box down this morning (and I think there is another box still to bring in) and I'm going to be preparing the house for the onslaught of orange and black, which means I have to remove the clutter from tabletops and piano tops and half walls and shelves, and then dust all horizontal surfaces that will be hosting decorative ornaments of the Halloween variety. New this year to the Halloween menagerie are: Ceramic pumpkins that Jim bought for me while vacationing in Cali. The purple one might make an appearance at Kate's MN reception. Keep an eye out for it. Halloween subway print a friend gave me A vinyl sticker I expertly applied to a pre-painted board A candy corn dish from my mother who knows I love candy corn. It has already held two bags of disappe...

Another cheesy B movie title! It's the story of a young woman who goes to a carnival and makes two wax hands at a booth. Unbeknownst to her, the wax hands were made from cursed wax. Her parents wake one morning to find her strangled in her bed.  Her distraught boyfriend realizes the wax hands are gone. He hunts them down and melts them with the very last match in his pocket that he'd been saving for a special bonfire date with his girl. Then he dies when a bear eats him. Think I can pitch it to Hollywood? Anyway, Jake asked for pictures of the wax hands mentioned in the last post. Here ya go: Just stick a battery-operated tea light inside a wax hand for a pretty neat Halloween decoration! Here's a movie of my wax hands: I like the flickering effect. Happy Halloween! Enjoy the last day of Octobery goodness!

Just got home from the ward chili cook-off and costume party. Hayley worked hard all morning and afternoon to finish up the costumes in time. Matt helped for about 5 seconds. I refused to do any of the real work of the costumery, except for the hoods. I did those. But the eyes and nose on the dog costume were mostly by Hayley. Princess Bubblegum, Finn holding Peppermint Butler, and Jake the dog Lots of people of all ages at the party recognized the characters. During the fashion show portion of the party, when Gabby, Hayley and Matt came out, they got a huge round of applause. Then the three yelled out, "What time is it?" and everyone yelled "Adventure Time!" EJ asked me to make him a costume for the ward party. This is what he wanted me to sew for him: pirate EJ Then there was Paul. He came up with his idea five (5!!!) minutes before he had to leave. He originally wanted to sew a vest, but we convinced him to let us cut up an old shirt of Jim...

Hayley has been bugging me to put pictures of her Halloween costume on the blog. She finished it last week and we got a wig to go with it. This is the cartoon character she is trying to look like: Princess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time" And here is the dress: She's trying to be pretty Here is Princess Bubblegum Hayley with the wig and crown and the stuffed Peppermint Butler she made a while ago: And one last picture because we found it funny. See if you can guess why: Do you see why we found it amusing?  Here's a hint mixed in with some labeling requested by Hayley: Did you guess Paul's face on the computer is what made us laugh? Cuz that's what it was. I'm still chuckling.

I can't let October get away from me without posting something related to my favorite holiday. Matt was home by himself for a little while on his birthday while I was at Paul's cross country meet. Matt saw that I had forgotten to take my camera with me (I felt naked without my camera during the whole race. I had to tell myself that I have LOTS of pictures of Paul running and I should just enjoy watching him and his team run without having to get a good shot of him legging it down the chute at the finish line). So Matt had some fun with my camera while I was gone. This is what I found on my camera when I got back: Matt likes little plastic animals, especially bats. Several of the photos show this bat in front of the camera. Here's another one of the bat. I think this looks oddly realistic. I kind of like the picture. I might have to use it for a banner or a background or something. And I really like this picture. The triple images give it kind of ...

I took Hayley to the eye doctor today (luckily they have late appointments on Tuesdays so I could take her after I finished work). I'm always a bit nervous going to the eye doctor. You wouldn't think I'd be nervous because #1 this appointment was for Hayley and not for me, and #2 even if the appointment was for me, I actually enjoy getting my eyes examined, except for the part where the dr puts the drops in to dilate my pupils. And that isn't so annoying since I had dilated eyes for 8 years when I was a kid, so I am used to it. What makes me nervous about going to the eye doctor is the person who we have to deal with to purchase eyewear, both contacts and glasses. Whenever I go in, I get the largish woman with weirdly dyed hair and severe glasses. She looks like she was once a goth, but as she has neared her middle age (and she is probably close to my age, and maybe she's younger by a few years), she toned the look down a bit, but only just enough so she could g...

Our jack-o-lanterns. Made with pumpkins grown in the backyard! The treat for us tonight was a little guy who came to the door. Hayley gave him a Kit Kat along with a couple other candies, and the kid said, "Wow! Thanks! I love Kit Kats! It's like getting two bars in one!" We had a good laugh. Happy haunting, everyone!

The kids had a trunk or treating opportunity tonight (except Other Jim, who had to work). (I wasn't feeling in tip top shape so I stayed home.) Hayley was the only one who was prepared with a costume. She had spent hours a few weeks ago in the sewing room. I had no idea what she was doing. I think she was using a pattern, but I'm not sure because I didn't find leftover pattern pieces floating around the sewing room. And all fabric remnants had been disposed of. The sewing room fairy must have cleaned up, because certainly Hayley NEVER would have cleaned up after herself, if her room is any indicator of a tendency (or gross lack thereof) toward picking up. Apparently, this is what she was working on: For those of you not familiar with video games, she is an elf. For those of you who ARE familiar with video games, she is Link. (bow and arrow supplied by generous brothers) As I said before, Hayley was the only one who prepared. Ten minutes before Jim was to leave for th...

OK I'm back from busy-land. Temporarily. I won't bore you with details from my calendar for tomorrow and Thursday, let it suffice to say that I am excited and at the same time exhausted already. I am happy this Halloween season. This makes me happy: Yes, it looks sort of creepy and probably not altogether tastefully or pleasingly arranged, but it represents something that I have craved for years.... A coffee table (not that I drink coffee...I don't. But what else can I call it so that you would instantly know what I was talking about?) on which I can put seasonal displays without fear of some little preschool-age kid getting into it. After 20+ years of raising children and 7 years babysitting, FINALLY there are NO MORE preschool-age kids who regularly frequent this house. So my coffee table can do what I want it to do: exist horizontally for the sole purpose of displaying items. In the future, the table will probably display items like homework, dirty dishes, iPods, phon...

Let the season of happiness, joy, candy, and spirited fun begin! My Halloween quilt is officially on the bed. Now I'm going to utilize my quilt in its official capacity, for I am tired and coming down with a cold. I need to sleep. The major headaches of the week are all in effect past tense. But I have a poetry midterm coming up next week. So there is that. But I need to sleep first.

This is the last Halloween Decoration Special Feature of the year and that leaves me a little sad. Tomorrow all the pretty pumpkins and scary skulls come down. Boo (hoo!). I'll update later tonight with pictures of trick-or-treaters so for now I'll just leave you with the last Halloween Decoration Special Feature. It is the pumpkin dishcloth I knitted over the last few nights.

I'm in the middle of decorating for a party (not at my house. I don't do parties. No one would show up) and I'm only home because I forgot two bags of decorations. I'm just here for a few minutes but I thought I'd provide a few updates and a quick Halloween Decoration picture while I'm eating my lunch. Update #1: Paul's race that was supposed to be yesterday afternoon was rescheduled to this afternoon because of yesterday's pervasive rain. Update#2: Despite the rain, Other Jim played frisbee with his friends. Someone took this picture of OJ diving for the frisbee: He caught it and then presumably plowed into the soggy grass. Update #3: Hayley's costume pants are finally finished. Update #4: There is no update #4. Halloween Decoration Special Feature: A two-fer. A spooky candle And a glittery black pumpkin. The lighting in the picture is bad so you can't get the full glittery effect. But just try to imagine it.

In honor of Halloween, the Shoebox Castle presents two tales so terrifying that it will make all you parents of future teenage boys gnash your teeth and send you running to chain your fridge shut with huge titanium locks. Yes, it's time for another bad horror movie title, which I haven't done in a while ("Maw"--you know cuz of "Saw." Get it?) Today's movie tale begins with a seemingly normal teenage boy. He goes to school, he drives, he gets ok grades, he talks to girls on the phone for many hours. And he eats. There he was at lunch. The Halloween dance committee sponsored a dance ticket contest involving a doughnut on a string. Many teenagers lined up to compete for the prize, and our normal teenage boy was among them. He lined up with the others, hands behind his back and eyes on his doughnut. The rules said that you had to leave a small bit of doughnut hanging on the string. The fastest doughnut eater would win a free ticket to the Halloween da...

Last night was Matt's very last Pack meeting. He is no longer a Cub scout. It is the end of an era in the Shoebox household. Matt has one year left in Primary at church and then I will be the parent of all big kids (well, age-wise. Matt will probably never be a big-kid size-wise). No more Cub scouts! Here he is receiving his pile of awards and pins from over the summer. The pack meeting was held at a bonfire at a park so we could hardly see or hear what was going on. I did manage one picture with the flash, but in doing so, blinded everyone at the event. Sigh. So I didn't get any pictures of him walking across the crossover bridge from Cub scout to Boy scout. The little ceremony they had for his crossover was very nice. The Boy Scout leader was there and he involved Jim and me in changing the epaulets on Matt's shirt as he changed Matt's scout scarf. Matt is excited for Boy Scouts (aren't they all at the start?) and has grand plans for earning all the mer...

I'm up early today. I decided to knit instead of going back to sleep after Fake Child arrived at 6 a.m. this morning. I am now over half way done on an orange dishcloth with a pumpkin picture on it. I started it the other night when my hands had nothing to do during a movie and I couldn't stand fidgeting anymore. I paused the movie and went upstairs to paw through my bales of yarn for something--ANYTHING--to knit. Purse? Don't have the right needles. Socks? Can't find the other ball of yarn (side note: found the yarn later. It turns out I already knitted one sock out of that particular yarn and had TOTALLY FORGOTTEN!!!) I found some orange dishcloth yarn and googled up a pumpkin pattern and--VOILA!--no more fidgeting! PS to this paragraph--I bought the needles for the purse and have started that too. Now I have a project for upstairs and one for downstairs. (The pumpkin dishcloth will be done soon) Yesterday I bought two weird magazines: Mother Jones and ...

Today's Halloween Decoration Feature is not really a Halloween decoration at all, but a means of displaying M&Ms for as long as they last (two minutes in my house). Of course there are Halloween M&Ms available (in AUGUST!) to fill this thing so I put it out as a decoration. It's an M&M dispenser made for me by a friend. Pull the knobs back and forth and you get one M&M at a time. When the children were younger, they'd ask for some and I would allow them to have 2. At the time, they viewed 2 M&Ms as an acceptable reward. Nowadays, they expect a few more (bags). I tell them "too bad!" I use this dispenser for Christmas too. It's an all-year-round thing, but I usually bring it out only twice a year because the "novelty" of dispensing one M&M at a time gets old really fast (I usually end up unscrewing the jar and pouring the M&Ms out into my hand, which defeats the purpose of the candy dispensing machine).

I have this: It holds my Halloween napkins.

All my married life I've wanted a lovely table. I'm not talking about the actual table, I'm talking about having a nice centerpiece on a clean tablecloth or runner in a clean dining room--the kind of thing you see in interior decorating magazines. Most of the years I've been married, I thought that the reason that I didn't have a nice table because I didn't have a centerpiece. I realized now that I was wrong. The reason that I don't have a lovely table is because we are a family of messy pigs. I cannot keep a table clean for 5 minutes. I wash all the crumbs and spills off the table (once a week if we're lucky and I have the time) and change the tablecloth, and within mere minutes, someone has dirtied the table again: they've used it as a craft table and left bits of colored paper, tape, scissors, stickers, very small rocks, (etc.) out, used it as a place to dump books, school papers, and newspapers for lack of anywhere else to put them, or eate...

...is the countdown. Halloween has apparently developed a severe inferiority complex.. Christmas has always sported an "advent" (which used to be just a "four Sundays before Christmas" but has turned into a massive "count down the days until we can rest from our shopping binges for nine months") and Halloween's jealousy has prompted it to start stealing Christmas celebratory decoration ideas. Yes, folks, I'm bringing back the Halloween Decoration Special Feature (click the link and then scroll through last year's month-long Halloween-decoration-of-the-day thing) only it's only going to be from now until Halloween. I couldn't do a whole month this year because I had Matt's party to deal with, along with a few other things. Besides, I don't have that many new or unfeatured decoration items. Guess it's time for me to get some more, right? Anyway, these blocks allow the Halloween appreciator to countdown the whole 31 days ...