A Witch, Football Star, and Blonde Bombshell

I'm not one to really get into the whole Halloween thing. 

It doesn't help that Jeff considers this a ridiculous "holiday" because in his mind, it's not a real holiday if he doesn't get the day off.

But with the lure of candy, candy, candy, it's kind of hard to totally ignore. And the fact that Halloween is our neighbor's most favorite day of the year... you can't really ignore a 16 foot Grim Reaper next door. Or the "Ditto" sign they hang on your fence with an arrow pointing to their house.

The kids love Halloween though. Especially Pearl. She's more like me when it comes to holidays. The more traditions, decorations, and stressed out parents the better! Fern? He could care less. Thankfully though, neither seem to be too impressionable yet with their peers in terms of high expectations for their costumes. In fact, Pearl didn't even know what she wanted to be until about a week before Halloween. Even then my sister and mom were the ones who bought her costume! 

Oh was Pearl mad at me! She was so ready to go trick-or-treating. I told her to make a mean witch face at me so she's stop whining and I'd laugh instead of ground her for life.

Cole was happy to find an excuse to wear his USU football uniform to school. Which means Jeff can assume the role as "coach" to participate in the festivities without really participating.

And me? Well, working for the Violence and Injury Prevention Program, Halloween has sort of become our thing at the office. We tend to think, laugh at, and act irreverent because we forget that 99% of the rest of the world doesn't actually see the things we do. After awhile all the gore and sadness becomes almost funny... it's a coping mechanism for us. Last year you might remember we did a Zombie Apocalypse complete with Michael Jackson's Thriller dance moves. This year we took it up a notch and did something a bit more educational. We each dressed up as a celebrity who had been injured or killed by one of the areas we work in. You know, drug overdoses, domestic violence, falls, car crashes, suicides, those sort of things. We had celebrity appearances by Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Abraham Lincoln, Vincent van Gogh, Pink, Isadora Duncan, Chris Farley, Natalie Wood, and Idina Menzel. You can see all of our pictures on our Facebook page {like us too... wink wink}.

 

I decided to be 50s/60s actress Jayne Mansfield who was killed in a horrific car crash where the entire top of her head was basically scalped off. Sweet. 

Let's face it, I wanted to be a big boobed {and busty she was indeed!}, blonde bombshell once in my life! I borrowed a wig, found my perkiest bra {and stuffed it just a little}, and slabbed a grundle of makeup - including the brightest red lipstick I could find - on my face. When I was finished dolling up, Cole took one look at me and said, "You ugly Mom." 

Nice.

I felt like a total idiot until my coworkers started walking the red carpet {oh yes, we did line the hallways with red paper, Hollywood stars, autographs, and a description of who we were and how we died} and telling me how awesome I looked and how much fun our program is. I even had a few people humor me and say I actually looked like Jayne Mansfield in my blonde wig, suggesting that when I hit my mid-life crisis I dye my hair blonde and get a boob job.

I will have you know, I did not scare my entire neighborhood by keeping in character trick-or-treating. Although I did have to go upstairs to the Executive Director's office for something and he got a huge kick out of my costume.... that wasn't embarrassing. 

I'll admit I was kind of hoping Jeff would've found me as a blonde with bright red lipstick intriguing but he didn't care. So off went the wig and gobs of makeup. 

There are two other families in our neighborhood with girls Pearl's age so we went trick-or-treating with them. It was a nice evening and fun to go with other families. Especially because they weren't as stingy with the glow sticks as I was and gave Pearl and Cole an entire collection of them to wear. 

And we scored on the Reese's peanut butter cups!

You can't beat that.