halloween

your eyes, they are like limpid pools..., originally uploaded to the brenneman photo set.

I know we don't do it a lot here in Australia, Halloween that is, but I love it. I love the excitement the kids have when going trick or treating, I love making stuff, mostly I just love the excuse for an event. We don't go all out on store-bought things, mostly just cobbled-together fun.

Circe's costume was last-minute, but do you really need a reason for dressing up someone so small and cute? I stitched it up in between baking, as always with lots of little helpers. I took one of Eliza's old black tops with a hood and cut out a pattern for a raven of Martha Stewart's. This was easy to do and I just think felt is brilliant for anything. I also took a size 1 pair of Eliza's leggings and took them in a bit to fit miss petite. She looked adorable. At first the beak bothered her, but as the afternoon wore on and having missed a nap she didn't care at all that it was hanging in front of her tired eyes.

This year I improvised on all the costumes. Eliza had wanted to be a peanut, then later this week was adamant she would dress as a ghost. I loved listening to her all week talk about how she'd be able to still have her eyes to see. A pair of yellow tights Beatrix was wearing inspired her outfit. A simple mask with some glued on yellow feathers, her blue eyes just looked beautiful. Seeing her in the tree was a "I've got to grab the camera" moment, I had two of those moments yesterday. The other was seeing Eliza in Circe's costume on the sofa with a cushion in the background that just matched her so well.

Phoenix took a while to come to the party, there are no explanations as to why they sometimes throw a spanner in the works.

We had cooked up some real treats. We made our traditional eyeball-orange-jelly. The kids always love it, served out of a huge wobbling bowl. Some yummy cupcakes with orange sprinkles, and some green ones too. My neighbour whipping up some gingerbread over at her place kept all the little ones busy.

Our small cul-de-sac came to life:A lively neighbour's head sporting a green mass of...something to potentially frighten unsuspecting trick-or-treaters, unidentifiable children everywhere, people on their porches. A new guy had just having moved in the day before and was beginning renovations on his new-but-worn home, he must have loved the welcome. The spirit and nature of our street, it either scares you off or draws you in, he looked like the draw-you-in kind. My brother in law donned a fabulous large black trolley bin bag, a Mafia style hat, a Zorro type moustache drawn on, and sported a slight hunch. The overall effect hugely comical. My nephews got and truely into the spirit, and a family friend brought along a crawly hand and snatchy bowl. These props have seen about five of my parties, I love that they still work.

As it got dark everyone migrated from the street to around our kitchen table. I made a huge batch of home-made macaroni and cheese to hopefully cancel out the sugar binge occurring in the other room, some sort of circle-of-candy face dive with no hands required.

Much later clean up ensued, mainly of sticky jelly off my kitchen floor and the milliard of lolly wrappers. The house seemed so quiet.