The Very Tardy Halloween Post.

I love love love this: did you know that Halloween literally means "the eve of the holy day?" I am so over the top uber psyched by that fact.

From Wikipedia: The name 'Halloween' and many of its present-day traditions derive from the Old English era. The word Halloween is first attested in the 16th century and represents a Scots variant of the fuller All-Hallows-Even, that is, the night before All Hallows Day. Although the phrase All Hallows is found in Old English (ealra hálȝena mæssedæȝ, the feast of all saints)

[Don't tell the man who likes it the more gory-and-horrifying-the-better, aka my father whom I love and completely adore but] I am not into the gory part of Halloween and honestly am pretty much turned off by it. It's my day too, so this is a small consolation for me and I know I deserve it. I am though, totally in favor of the little kid-fun dress up part of it and definitely the candy part of it! Oh yeah, I also don't mind the Saturday night aspect that came with it this year with neighbors having parties with pit fires in their driveways in evening weather that didn't even require a light jacket. It was a pretty awesome night, not just because it was my birthday. But, I do have a cool birthday. [Thanks mom.]

We finally did this on Halloween morning:

After the carving I roasted seeds [yum] and we hit the soccer park for about four hours of three consecutive games. Next, it was dress up time [such a busy day] and we had so much fun with it this year. We made all the costumes except for Eva. I figured she had at least six princess dresses in her closet ready to choose from so I didn't even bother to ask her what she wanted to be for Halloween. So Friday morning when it was time to get dressed for her nursery school party and I asked her which did she want to put on, you can imagine my surprise when her reply was "Buzz Lightyear."

Luckily, Wyatt has a Buzz costume that we were able to find after looking for only about thirty minutes! She blasted off to infinity and beyond  [her party] and I picked up my little Buzz from school three wee hours later as happy as she could be.

Old habits die hard and as you might expect Eva once more donned the princess costume for the big night. Sleeping Beauty to be precise. My other three, home-made with ideas swiped straight from the good 'ol internet, were a pizza, a robot, and an ipod.

Lastly, but not leastly, my birthday booty looked very much like this:

My T in SWEET, also known as Tony, gave me my favorite See's dark chocolate truffles. One of my very best bff's Nena showed up on Sunday with goodies galore and generously included a homemade choco-donut cake! And the pièce de résistance, an unbelievable five pound bag of Sconza dark chocolate covered coffee beans was a gift from my sister-in-law Carmen [wow, she really likes me!] I think my exact words were O.M.G! when she presented me with the gargantuan load of these much coveted [by me] beans. It's such a big bag that if you come to visit me I will happily share and send you home with a to-go baggie of them [one per day only] just for stopping by. Really. Don't laugh, I can be unselfish with chocolate!

Thanks for all the facebook birthday messages people! That was so much fun! In the busy business of the eve of the holy day, it was so sweet and strangely satisfying to see a new message find it's way to my email/fb page every hour or so! I loved it, it made my day even better.