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If By Yes

Tag Archives: Hallowe’en

Incredibly Belated Halloween Awesomeness

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by IfByYes in Fritter Away, From The Owlery, Life and Love

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

baby, costumes, Hallowe'en, skeleton

Sorry I have been so absent. Life is actually going fine, it’s just… full… and the blog has fallen lower down on the priority list. But I miss it so I’m catching up.

Look! Cute Halloween pictures!

Owl wanted to be a skeleton. Well, actually, at first he insisted on a cute Dia de Los Muertos dress costume with a pink frilly skirt (you know how he loves those).


I eventually caved to the demands with reluctance, not because it was a girl’s costume but because it was still three weeks until Hallowe’en and he has all of the focus and determination of a light autumn breeze.

I kept the receipt.

Sure enough, two weeks later he spotted a green skeleton costume and immediately changed his mind.


I was annoyed but also relieved, because the girl’s costume had me concerned – he was supposed to wear his costume to school for the Hallowe’en parade and I didn’t want to expose him to misogynistic kids teasing him for wearing a girl costume.

I found a skeleton costume for the baby and I turned a kid’s skeleton t-shirt into a cover for the ergo and cuteness ensued.



Little Boy In A Fireman Costume. Need I Say More?

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery, Life and Love

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

costumes, deathly hallows, fireman, firetruck, Hallowe'en, home crafts, pumpkins

This was Owl’s first REAL Halloween.

Last year we dressed him up, and took him to a couple houses, but the whole thing confused him a little. He actually got much more excited after it was over, because for months he would pick up his pumpkin basket and inform us that he was going to go get candy.

This year, he was ready. It was hard to find outfits in his size, so while he dreamed of “space man” suits and “dragon” suits, the best we found for him was a cute fireman outfit.

Although I did see this “Tyrannosaurus” costume, complete with wings and horns just like a REAL T Rex, at Toys R Us, but it was too big.

ipodmisc 486

trex

Owl was only luke warm on the fire man outfit. He does love fire trucks and fire men, but not as much as he likes monsters and space men and pirates.

Some days he was happy about the fireman outfit. Some days he said he didn’t want it.

20131110-135515.jpg

We thought he looked adorable.

But I went out to Michaels, got some construction paper, and constructed a crude fire truck out of a cardboard box.

20131110-135535.jpg

The sad part is, it’s too well done to have been made by a three year old, but humiliatingly poorly done to have been made by a 30 year old.

I remember the costumes my own mother sewed for me and they were fantastic and elaborate and completely unique.

This was the best I could do for my kid.

After all the fire truck building, I couldn’t muster the energy for pumpkin carving that I have in the past.

I did continue the tradition of getting Owl to mark his pumpkin so I could carve it out, and his efforts this year were significantly more recognizable as faces than last year’s attempt.

20131110-135554.jpg20131110-135604.jpg

Once I’d carved and scooped his pumpkins though, I only had energy for the simplest of efforts, so I carved the Deathly Hallows into mine. Nothing is much simpler than a line, a circle, and a triangle.

20131110-135622.jpg

I think about one person recognized it.

Anyway, the important thing is, Owl had a blast.

DSC00120 DSC00134

He loved trick or treating, he insisted on sharing his candy with us, and he cried when we threw the pumpkins away.

He’s already looking forward to next Hallowe’en.

Hopefully we’ll be able to find a costume he’s super excited about next year. He’ll be bigger by then!

Costume Name Fail

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

costumes, dragon, fail, Hallowe'en, t-rex

ipodmisc 486

You know, has wings, and three horns. THAT tyrannosaurus.

Creepy Hallowe’en Stuff Comes In Different Shapes and Sizes

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Hallowe'en, laity, October, pumpkin patch

Hallowe’en is a time to embrace our fears, but for the most part, we keep that stuff away from our small children.

Hallowe’en for Owl means costumes (he’s going to be a fire man, although originally he wanted to be an astronaut) and candy and pumpkins. Lots of pumpkins.

So we took him back to the Pumpkin Patch.

It’s a great time, and HE had a blast.

ipodmisc 523 ipodmisc 522 ipodmisc 535

We enjoyed ourselves too, but PH and I found ourselves feeling creeped out on more than one occasion.

It’s strange that children, who often find mundane TOTALLY NORMAL things to be scary, manage to overlook the bizarre horrors hiding all over the place at the Pumpking Patch.

ipodmisc 533

Pumpkin Dad is possessed by the devil

ipodmisc 534

Creepy native baby born without soul

ipodmisc 525

Sally and the other kid from Cat in the Hat seem to be sinking into the mud and pleading desperately for help

ipodmisc 527

Just… what…

ipodmisc 520

Triffid-like dead sunflowers hanging over us

Terrifying soul-less wooden cut outs not withstanding, we’ll go again next year. He has so much fun, bless him, and isn’t this what kids are for? Excuses to go to lame, childish things like this and not feel self-conscious about it?

I r a grown up

I r a grown up

Ermagherd, COSTUMES And PERMKERNS.

02 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

costumes, Hallowe'en, toddlers

I spent most of yesterday carving pumpkins and running around.

As of Hallowe’en day, I still hadn’t found a costume for Owl.

I thought about dressing him up as a baby zombie. Most adorable zombie ever, maybe even cuter than the kid in Pet Sematary, who totally made me want babies even more.

But then I realized that this child fusses if I take too long wiping his face – he wasn’t going to let me smear his face with grey paint and fake blood.

The Farm Fairy spotted a used owl costume that she thought might fit (and come ON, how apropos would that be??) but by the time I got there it was gone. Or at least, I was unable to locate it.

Then I thought that if I could find a power blue tux and dig out his sunglasses, he could go Gangnam Style.

No luck.

Then I realized that if you put him in a brown robe and put a fake bald patch on the top of his head, he’d look just like Cadfael the monk.

Totally looks like

So I went looking for a Jedi costume, with no success.

There was another problem.

There weren’t ANY costumes of ANY kind in Owl’s size, anywhere,, jedi or otherwise. 

I found lots of cutesy little baby costumes, like pea pods and puppy hats, and costumes for 3 and 4 year olds, but they had nothing for little 2 year olds who still fit into their 18 month clothes.

Poor Owl got quite excited over an astronaut costume, and kept insisting on coming back to gaze at the “space man”, but it was for four year olds.

I bought a “toddler knight” costume from Zellers, only to open it at home and find that it was for ages 5-6.

Finally, at 3 pm on Wednesday, I tried a party store that I had never visited before.

Good news! They had costumes for toddlers!

Better news! They even had a toddler Jedi costume!

Bad news! It was a Yoda costume, with a brown undershirt and a white robe. No good for a Cadfael costume.

But hey, my mother has always said that Owl looks a little like Yoda. I figured a Yoda costume would be just fine.

Until I saw the shark.

“Candy gram!”

AWESOME.

Not only am I a fan of the SNL “Land Shark” skit, but my character in a current D&D campaign (yes, WE’RE GEEKS) just adopted a baby brulette, aka a land shark.

So Owl went as a Land Shark for Hallowe’en.

And my carved pumpkins turned out well, too. And yes, I did carve out Owl’s scribbles, as Hannah from Hodgepodge And Strawberries will be pleased to hear!

All in all it was a successful Hallowe’en, and I am pleased.

But my pumpkin keeps scaring me, so I think I’ll put it outside now.

Why do I carve dead things? I’M SCARED OF DEAD THINGS

ERMAHGERD, PUMPKINS.

30 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by IfByYes in From The Owlery

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

family outings, Hallowe'en, parenting, pumpkin patch, pumpkins, toddlers, Vancouver

I love Hallowe’en, but I haven’t had time to get into in over the last few years. I used to do up the whole house in creepy cobwebs and make Kleenex ghosts, but I’ve lost the urge. Hopefully as Owl ages I’ll get back into things.

Meanwhile, we took our little extrovert to The Pumpkin Patch as a way to entertain him, and he had a BLAST.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

He ran everywhere, including into the corn maze, and got bored before we found the way out. He gobbled a hotdog and an entire apple, he saw cows and donkeys and lots and LOTS of Pumpkins.

We got a big one for ourselves and a little one so he could proudly carry one himself. I’m thinking of getting him to scribble on his and then carving out the scribble marks.

But the best part was getting this photo, which we instantly Memed in case he becomes The Next Big Thing.

 

I Want To Send More Candy To Those Kids At The End

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Hallowe'en, jokes, pranks, videos

Have you folks seen this yet?

I CANNOT decide what I think about it.

My thoughts go in a spiral like this as I watch this video:

1. What a terrible video. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE YOUR KID CRY LIKE THAT?

2. Cpme to think of it, I can totally see myself or PH casually announcing “by the way, I ate all your candy today. Hope that’s ok,” to Owl in later years when he arrives home from school.

3. The thing is, I am also pretty sure that Owl would get hit by lines like this a lot, and would totally not take us seriously.

4. Especially since Owl should know that we would never be so cruel to him.

5. So maybe the really cruel thing is that these kids don’t TRUST their parents enough, if they actually believe their parents so quickly.

6. Then again, in what world does belief equal distrust? Am I really claiming here that Owl would TRUST us enough to ASSUME that we were LYING?

7. Seriously, how old are some of these kids? After a certain age, tantrums like these are totally unacceptable. I could see arguments, where the kids explain how hard they worked to gather that candy and why it was totally unnacceptable for their parents to steal it…

8. Like this kid. Hey, here’s one with sense. Way to go, kiddo, I like your attitude.

9. Aw, and you’re sweet to your little brother, too! I hope Owl ends up being as smart/arodable as you some day.

10. What a great video.

My biggest problem with this video is that it gives me traumatic flashbacks to an old childhood memory:

We were in line at the grocery store. Hanging on the impulse items rack was THE BIGGEST COOKIE YOU EVER SAW. It was the size of a dinner plate. It was awesome. I wanted it. Of course I wanted it.

And here’s the thing – my mother ACTUALLY SAID I COULD HAVE IT. My mother did not buy me impulse items. Ever. No candy, no sugary cereals. The grocery store was for her boring food purchases, not junk for me.

But this time was different. She said I could put it on the conveyor and I did.

I was bursting with unbelievable joy.

And then? When we got to the cash, the cashier just went and ATE MY COOKIE.

I started to protest and my mother shushed me, pointing out that we hadn’t paid for it yet and it was the cashier’s RIGHT to eat my cookie. So I stood there in horror and watched that terrible woman wolf down MY COOKIE. 

I woke up with tears streaming down my face.

It was one of only three dreams I have ever had in my life that I woke up crying from.

When I tried to share my terrible dream with my mother, I felt that she did not fully appreciate the tragedy therein. She even seemed AMUSED!

Parents are heartless bunch, aren’t they?

So even while I’m laughing at these kids’ melodramatic reactions, I am remembering the four year old who cried over a fictitious cookie.

I also really hate videos of people being cruel to kids for fun.

Videos like this. I hate that video, because the kid did as he was told and was punished for it. That’s terrible.

So why do I find redeeming features in this one?

Well, I guess because I feel like the key to a good practical joke is a happy ending. That’s why it’s fun to tell the kids you’re going to Hawaii without them and then spring a surprise Disneyworld trip on them instead, but it’s NOT fun to tell them they’re going to Disneyworld and then tell them it was a lie.

Assuming that these parents didn’t ACTUALLY eat the candy, these stories all had happy endings, and the kids probably learned a good lesson in getting dramatic over something before you have checked all the facts.

Hallowe’en in pictures

02 Tuesday Nov 2010

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Hallowe'en, October, photos

 

Reminiscing: The Most Elaborate Hallowe’en Prank Evar.

17 Sunday Oct 2010

Posted by IfByYes in Life and Love

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

ghosts, Hallowe'en, hauntings, old houses, practical jokes

So, I don’t normally do those writing prompts and Friday Fives because I AM A SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE but this just seems right: One of Mama Kat’s writing suggestions this week is “the biggest Hallowe’en trick or prank you ever pulled”.

Now it just so happens that not only did I, in my ill-spent youth, pull one of the most awesome Hallowe’en pranks EVAR, but my Bestest Buddy, who was my partner in crime, is paying me a surprise visit. The Navy flew her out to Victoria for a few days, so she changed her flight back and is coming to stay with us til Friday, so she can finally meet her new nephew!

So, in homage to one of my best friends coming to see me months and months before I could ever have reasonably hoped to see her again, I want to share with you the memory of the Great Hallowe’en Caper.

Now, Bestest Buddy lived in an old Nova Scotia home. It was a large house, with a servant’s stairwell and a dumb waiter, and her parents had turned it into a bed and breakfast. And folks, weird stuff happened there.

Now, I’m a bit of a ghost agnostic. I find it very hard to believe in ghosts but at the same time, I kind of do. And believe it or not, I have to trust my friend when she tells me the creepy things that happened in her home.

Bestest Buddy never liked being left alone in that old house when we were kids. She said that she could hear footsteps running through the hall upstairs, and sudden bangs. You know, the kind of stuff that parents tell you is “just the house settling” but sounds scary as hell.

There was also her touch-lamp. Remember how those were all the rage, once? Well, she had one, and it used to go on and off unexpectedly and inexplicably. It would cycle through quickly, dim, medium, bright, off, dim, medium, bright, off in the middle of the night without warning. She would get up to go to the bathroom and it would turn on. She would go to bed and it would turn off. Perfect Girlfriend swears she saw this happen a couple of times when she was visiting. Bestest Buddy’s father is an engineer and he looked at the wiring and couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with that lamp. When they finally moved to Ontario, the strange activity stopped forever.

And there was the B&B guest, who stayed for a week and every night she was there she dreamed that an old lady was standing at her baby’s playpen, looking down at the sleeping child and smiling.

The lady who had lived there before them was an old lady who died.

So weird stuff happened in that house. Even if there’s no such thing as ghosts, it was a damned creepy house.

So… Bestest Buddy and I decided to scare the bejeebers out of all of our friends on Hallowe’en night.

For you to fully appreciate our evil plan, you need to know the following about the house:

  1. There was a main stairway, and a back stairwell which led to the kitchen.
  2. From the kitchen, you could access the basement, and from the basement you could access the outside through the old wooden cellar doors.
  3. In the old, Blair-Witch-style basement, full of creepy recesses and bare light bulbs dangling on strings, was a disused school room. The last day’s attendance could still be seen on the ancient chalkboard. The support beams were scrawled with children’s carvings. Above this room was the living room, including a little trap door under the fireplace that servants could open to remove the ash and soot from below.
  4. The fuse box was also in the basement.
  5. The guests all knew the history of the house – the thumps, the bangs, and Perfect Girlfriend had even seen the touch-lamp phenomena, and swears she had seen some other creepy things as well – shadows that moved when no one was there.

Bestest Buddy threw a Hallowe’en party and we were all invited.

This is what happened:

When the teenaged guests started to arrive, Bestest Buddy’s parents met them at the door, invited them in, and told them that Bestest Buddy had been sent down the road to help a neighbour move some heavy objects, but would be in half an hour or so. They (the parents) were going out now, but people should make themselves at home.

The guests settled into the living room, chatting nervously, as it feels a little weird to be at a party with no host, especially a house that sort of scared them all a little. It was starting to get dark outside, and without warning, the power suddenly went out, not an uncommon occurrence on a gusty October night, but still an unpleasant experience in a strange, old house with no host to fetch flash lights or candles for you. Shortly after, they heard scratching noises at the windows, but when they turned, nothing was there.

The doorbell rang, and they screamed. They went to the door and saw me there, and they pulled me in, explaining that the power was out and there were “weird noises” outside. I laughed at them, told them that Hallowe’en must be getting to them, and we went back to the living room. It was almost dark out, now.

Suddenly, there was a banging noise in the kitchen, and everyone shrieked. I reminded them that the dogs were probably in the kitchen, and we went to investigate. The dogs had gotten loose and almost ran us down in their excitement at being free. We put the dogs back, and started rummaging for flashlights or candles, because the power was still out. One friend hypothesized that Bestest Buddy was playing a trick on us, and so the basement was tentatively investigated, but there was no one down there… Which is when we heard another thump – coming from upstairs. Everyone went still.

“Did you hear that?”

The thump was followed by the distinct and unmistakeable sound of someone RUNNING down the dark, deserted upstairs hallway, footsteps pounding over our heads.

That’s when the terror really set in.

Several guests were brave enough to explore the upstairs, looking for the cause of the footsteps. They didn’t find anyone, because Bestest Buddy and I had already identified the one place they would never look: her parents’ bedroom closet. Would YOU snoop through someone’s parents’ bedroom? Nope. The parents’ bedroom is sacrosanct in the world of children.

When the searchers reported that they had found absolutely no one upstairs, everyone’s anxiety levels went up another notch. Then it happened again, going back the other way -THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP – more heavy running footsteps from the upstairs that they KNEW had no one in it!

Another search, and this time they DID try the parents’ bedroom, and even the closet, but Bestest Buddy was safely down in the basement, having gone down the back stairwell to the kitchen and down to the cellar.

Everyone huddled in the dark near the windows of the living room, whispering nervously. One of the guests, a cynical atheist, was near tears and began talking about calling her mother. It was great.

Especially when the ghostly child made its appearance.

The sound came wafting up from the old school room in the basement; a tiny child’s voice, softly lisping a childhood ditty, echoing eerily as it rose up through the grating in the fireplace.

“Miss Mary Mac, Mac, Mac…

All dressed in black, black, black,

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons,

All down her back, back, back…”

That’s when everyone broke down. The cynical atheist did run and call her mother, and Perfect Girlfriend just hugged the smallest dog and screamed.

The hoax was revealed soon after. One of the guests recognized the tape recording of Bestest Buddy at age three playing “radio” with her tape deck, and it all fell apart.

But damn.. it was awesome.

I’m not sure they have forgiven us yet, and that was 13 years ago…

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