Then oooooo went the wind, and out went the light

Tomorrow is the first day of October. I love October!! Leaves start to turn color, and the air simply smells of fall. (Ryan and I received a wedding gift of scents of Autumn and you can bet that candle will be lit daily! Thanks Aunt Laurie and fam!) And, perhaps most importantly, Halloween is at the end of it. I love Halloween. It might be the decorations - I own a decent sized collection myself, and I know that Ryan is just beside himself at the prospect of having even more wife-like things adorning our home - or it might be getting to dress up. Last year I was a robber with my sister and her then-boyfriend-now-husband. We totally rocked it, and I even burglared my own future husband! (That must have been how he fell in love with me.)





Or maybe... most likely... it's the memories I have involving it. My mom is a great mom, and she made sure that we grew up with family traditions that we might treasure forever. I know that dressing up like Cinderella or The Hulk and running amok in the streets looking for generous donations of candy is more of cultural tradition, but we had lots of other things to remember this holiday by.

Halloween decorations were out ASAP, and I think the most memorable piece was an orange and black ball. It was this one:

It hung on the ceiling betwixt the kitchen and living room in both of our childhood homes. It has since gone into nonexistence, but will be forever remembered.

My mom used to work at my Grandma's daycare center and learned lots of preschool rhymes and poems. As her children, we got to benefit from it! The title of this blog is part of "Five Little Pumpkins" - my favorite one. Look it up if you want, it's pretty great.

We also had this ridiculous Halloween cassette tape full of creepy noises that are appropriate for this time of year. Some parts of it seriously freaked me out, but I loved it! My dad would face the speakers of our entertainment system out the front window to add a little ambiance for the trick-or-treaters.

We always got to be whatever we wanted, and my mom would make an effort to make us look the best. For instance, one year I wanted to be a ghost and my older sister, Crystal, wanted to be a bunny. Check out our mother's great talent (note my hair; I love that she made no effort to fix it before snapping this momentous photo):

Carving pumpkins was also great fun, but died off in my family at least a decade ago.

My very favorite Halloween movie is Hocus Pocus.

I have watched this at least once every year since it came out without fail. If you have not yet had the privilege of viewing this epic film, I HIGHLY recommend it. Just be aware - it's Disney. It's corny. And it's quite fantastical.

Once Halloween is over and it's time to start putting the decorations away... out comes the Thanksgiving decor! And then Christmas! Oh, here comes the holiday season - my most favorite time of year!

So you see? Halloween is great. I cannot wait to get back from Utah on Sunday evening so that I can break out the witches, ghosts, pumpkins, and black cats!!