Dad, Me, You and Halloween memories....good times

The Halloween weekend is over and I have been doing much reflection on our Halloweens together.

I know that each of you kids have different memories of the holidays but as you know-Halloween was one my favorites.

Every year I would buy an array of unique Halloween decorations. I wanted our home to be the one that had decorations like no other. Of course cob webs, spiders, bats, ghost and pumpkins were all over our yard and home but every year we would make a scarecrow called Hayward. I would go to the self-help on post and get bales of hay and then you kids and I would stuff an old pair of jeans and a flannel shirt and prop "Hayward" on the hay piles. Your friends liked to come over and help us stuff Hayward.  His head was a pumpkin that we would carve later. He was a celebrity every year in the neighborhood.

I also would take you kids to pick out your own smaller pumpkins and you would paint and decorate them every year from your craft box.

Your craft box was a Tupperware filled with buttons, feathers, glitter, paints, markers to name a few things and we would make crafts quite often.

On the night of Halloween, I would prop up a cassette player(until DVD's became popular) in the window and play scary music. Our home was pretty much the tackiest decorated house on the block and you kids would say-

"Mommy, our house is the best one in the neighborhood."

Honestly-I liked hearing that because I had to agree.

My first memories of costumes is of course is with you KJ.

When you were about 6 the movie Space Jam came out and that was your all time favorite.

I found you a jersey like this one above and you lived in it. You also asked me to play. the Space Jam sound track over and over again.

I loved their music myself.

I pretty much allowed you children to choose what you wanted to dress up as and one of my favorite costumes you chose was a magician. You went through a stage where you loved trying to do magic tricks.
I had found you a few magic kits and you would be in your bedroom practicing for hours. Then of course, you would have magic shows for all of us. I must admit-you got pretty good. I knew that once the Harry Potter book series came out, I made sure to volunteer at the Scholastic Book Fairs at your school each year so I could buy all 7 at a discounted price. As you got older, you wanted scarier costumes. I took you to Walmart and there was a mask that when you pressed a button, blood would drip from the face. At the time, you did not know that it came from a movie called "Scream."

You just thought it was a cool mask. With much hesitation and a promise from you that you would not show the blood dripping down from that mask to Justin-I got it for you.
It was the year you were old enough to Trick-Or-Treat with your friends and you could not wait.

Megan-from the very beginning dressing up like a princess or a doll WAS NOT going to be your choice as a costume. You hated bows, ribbons or any type of "pretty" in your hair. Dresses were like the plague to you. To even try to convince you to wear pretty little sandals or dress shoes was torture and a constant battle so being that I tried to pick my battles with you children-whether in a dress or not-you wore sneakers with everything and God forbid if they were pink.

So, when Halloween Costume shopping would be upon us there was not doubt in my mind that you were going to be a vampire, a ghost, a scary monster or a werewolf. Your best costume ever was the werewolf. Do you remember that it took me almost 2 hours to glue the hair to your face and arms? I bought the fake hair at a craft store called Michaels and was ready to take on the task and it was worth it. NO ONE recognized you. Not even Dad. Dad came home from work and I told you to go outside and knock one the door in about 5 minutes and then ask for Megan. You did just that and your Dad said-"And you are?" Then you laughed and said-
"Dad-it's me Megan."

He couldn't believe it. It was epic.

Now my darling Amanda. You were the princess. All you wanted to wear was pink, glitter, shiny, sparkly and girly. I don't know why I even asked you every year what you wanted to be. Every year you would say-"Mommy, a princess of course."

So, I made sure to buy princess costumes for the next year because there was no doubt that you were going to choose being a princess. No, wait-there was one year while we were living at Fort Belvoir Va that you said-

"Mommy-I don't want to be a princess this year. I was shocked and asked you what you wanted to be. With my anticipation you looked at me and said-"I am going to be a cheerleader"

 Your best friend Ashley at the time had an older sister Morgan that was a cheerleader and you and Ash would watch the movie-"Bring it On" over and over again.

Either way, I am blessed with two beautiful princesses. 

You are both beautiful Meg and Mandy and I am so thankful for God's blessing of two wonderful daughters.

Justin-your favorite movie was Toy Story and I knew immediately that I was going to have to run out and beat the crowd to buy a Buzz Light-year and a Woody Costume. Not only did you wear them for Halloween but you slept in those costumes. One day you decided to be Woody and one day you decided to be Buzz Lightyear. You would go to with me to the commissary, Walmart, the bank, the dry cleaners and even Dad's work in those costumes. I made sure to buy 2 of each because I knew they would wear out. It wasn't until one year when you told me-"Mommy-I don't want to be Buzz or Woody for Halloween. I want to wear KJ's mask that drips blood. It was then that I knew that my little baby boy was growing up. So I let you wear that mask that your big brother wore years before and watched you skip down the sidewalk exited that abundant candy was going to be in your future.

When we would get home from getting candy, I would sit on the floor with you kids and go through your treats. My favorite was Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and each one of you would say-

"Here Mommy-you can have one of mine"

You have no idea how much I treasured your gifts from your Halloween candy.

All of you were so very sweet and generous.

Your dad and I also had some good memories with Halloween. I can remember one year in particular that your dad and I laughed for awhile about this next incindent.

Remember the scarecrow Hayward I wrote about above? Well one year we propped Hayward on the porch and instead of a pumpkin for a head-I used a gorilla mask. You kids were old enough to get candy with your friends so Dad and I stayed behind and gave out candy. I told him that I was going to dress in the scarecrows clothes and wear the mask and I asked him to put the candy bowl in my lap. You see, for 3 weeks people got use to seeing that scarecrow on our porch so it would never cross their mind it was me inside. 

As the older and let me stress the older kids came to the door to get candy from the bowl on my lap-they just thought I was Hayward. I would jump up and it would scare the poop out of them.

Anyway, one father of a trick-or treater stood back and was talking to your Dad. This guy was a smart-ass and looked at your Dad and said-"So, who is this....your wife? He had never met me. He was making a joke that your dad was married to a scarecrow. I jumped up and screamed. I swear he peed himself.
Then your father looked at him and said-"As a matter of fact-It is my wife."

Needless to say-that guy never came to our house again. :)

I kept every costume. Every dress. Every mask and put them in what you kids called-

"The Dress Up Box"

Those items were destroyed after I was forced out of your lives but that's ok.
My memories have not been destroyed and it is my goal to make sure that my memories with you are never forgotten.
I will continue to write.

I want you children to remember the happy times we shared and the holidays was defiantly a part of our legacy together as a family.

I hope all of you had a great Halloween.

I will be writing more soon about other holiday memories we shared and please feel free to share your memories and thoughts with me publicly or privately.

I love each of you very much.

As Megan posted on Justin's 16th birthday video-

"We do not remember days-We remember moments"

It is time to start remembering the "happy"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDhYRSqqatI&list=UU0JA1zp8bX_R5Au2dV9PFSQ