Getting Ready.

For the past two years, I have been the absentee parent on Halloween. I have been joining my girlfriends in St. Simons Island, Georgia and attending the UGA v. UF game in Jacksonville. This year being a rebuilding year for our football program, my college roommates and I chose not to go to the game and decided instead to meet in Athens on October 17th and participate in a breast cancer charity walk, which leaves me in town for Halloween. The kids seem really excited that I'm going to be around to celebrate the holiday with them.

That being said. I love Halloween. It's my favorite non-religious holiday. (OK, I really like St. Patty's Day, too). In the past two years, I took off for the East coast with my children's costumes all set only to realize that they had changed their minds two or three times and ended up with substantially different costumes than the ones we had previously agreed on. Fundamentally I have no problem with this, however when spending a wad of money on a costume only to realize that my daughter wore an old, dirty leotard (to school, no less) is quite disconcerting.

I'm always trying to come up with costumes that all the parties can agree on. I don't allow scary costumes. I don't allow weapons. These are my only parameters. Since I'm going out of town next week, I decided that this was the week we were going to nail down the costumes. I'm afraid that if I wait, my options will be limited.

This year (presently), we have decided on an Artist for Barrett and Dorothy Gale for Ansley. [Ansley decided Dorothy was too itchy last year after I left for St. Simons, but apparently it has become less itchy with age?] Clayton is still kind of all over the map. His options include a doctor, Clark Kent or Robin.

Yesterday, we worked on Barrett's costume. We took an old mens dress shirt and went to town on it with some finger paint. We also made her an artist's palette to carry. I think she's going to be the cutest artist in town!!