In vampire folklore, a vampire initially emerges as a soft blurry shape with no bones. He was “bags of blood” with red, glowing eyes and, instead of a nose, had a sharp snout that he sucked blood with. If he could survive for 40 days, he would then develop bones and a body and become much more dangerous and difficult to kill.
Today vampires are widely believed to be very old, tall, attractive, intelligent and aristocratic, sleep in coffins on native ground, have an insatiable thirst for blood, and who must be staked through the heart to be killed. In contrast, folkloric vampires (before Bram Stoker) are usually peasants of low intelligence, recently dead, do not need their native soil, and are often cremated with or without being staked. (more…)
After we went to the Trunk or Treat at the hospital, Abug and I met up with hubby and Jared and went down to our campground where we ride horses. They were having a Halloween shindig called Horse ‘n Around on Halloween (I think that’s what it was called anyway… lol). There was also a Costume contest and a Chili Feed. Jody brought JP down with her and we dressed the girls up, but we didn’t get any pictures of them in the costume parade. We then took them back, dressed them back in regular clothing and went for the Chili Feed.
Normally I don’t like chili but they made some without beans so I tried it. I must say, it was good. Part of the reason I “don’t like chili” is I ate a lot of it as a kid. I kind of burned out on it. That and we made it so spicy that one bite and your lips were ON FIRE. This was mild and really hit the spot!
Picture overload! Jody, her kiddos, my kiddo, and I went to a trunk or treat done by a local hospital. Then there was Halloween. Abug had the best time and this is really the first time she’s gotten the concept of Halloween. She had a bucket, said Trick or Treat, and Thank you. We missed a few of our friends, for that I’m sorry, but now… picture overload :).
The end of September I happened to be at Sam’s and they had these big pumpkins for $8.88. I couldn’t help myself and had to buy them right then and there. Don’t believe me how big they are? Look at the picture of hubby carrying them below…. One of them we weighed for the pumpkin carving and it weighed in at 25lbs. When I found them at a greenhouse down the road, they would have been $50 or $60.
So far, every year we’ve made it a point to take Abug to a corn patch; this year was no different. The funny thing is we’ve gone to a different one each year… but we may have found the one we’ll continue on with… maybe. The one we went to this year was pretty darn awesome!
But let’s back up just a bit. I made it a point we NEEDED to go either this weekend or the weekend before Halloween because otherwise we had too much planned and wouldn’t make it, so we went the 15th.
We met up with Jared and Karen for lunch that day and then went to Exeter, MO, via Rogers, AR. We ate lunch in Neosho, drove to Rogers, and then headed to Exeter. Sometimes our crew doesn’t always make sense, but we decided to go to the Williams Sonoma down in Rogers before heading to the corn maze.
Abug slept all the way to Rogers. When we got out, daddy grabbed her and her diaper leaked all over her skirt and his shirt. Yuck… lol. Don’t worry, I got some on me too. Luckily this is a shopping center so he ran to JC Penney for a new/clean shirt, we cleaned up in a bathroom, and then went to Crazy 8 to get the buglet some new clothes. Whew!
From there we headed to Exeter and that’s where our story really begins :).
We got there and bought our armbands. Abug grabbed my arm and immediately drug me to the zipline. Sadly she is too little for the zipline so off we went to the slide. I’ll bet we spent most of our time at the slide, but we convinced her to leave the slide and go to the little tricycle track for those 8 and under. She still hasn’t mastered riding a tricycle so daddy walked around the track with her.
I typically get sick twice a year… this year I think I’m at 3 times. Blech! I’m so over this! Anyway… A couple weekends ago we had our annual Underwater pumpkin carving. Yes, I said underwater, because who doesn’t want to carve a pumpkin underwater? Don’t answer that.
The surface temperature topped out around 78˚. The water temperature wasn’t bad at all either. I heard the thermocline was down around 30 feet. I couldn’t get past 3 feet because of whatever this is. My ears were jacking with me so I carved my pumpkin basically laying right under the surface of the water.
I’ve been bugging hubby for family photos all summer long so finally we found a weekend when we had Tbug and it just so happened to be this weekend. We got up early (although not as early as I would have hoped, my fault) and went to the lake to do photos. Not quite where I wanted to take them, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches and I was happy with how they turned out so it’s all good.
That morning it was a big chilly. Abug got cold so Tbug zipped her up in her jacket with her. I turned around and this is what I saw.
It’s so funny sometimes to watch what riles people up on facebook. Right now it’s the whole Thanksgiving comes before Christmas ordeal. Okay, here’s a surreal thought… there’s only 7 more Monday’s until Christmas. YIKES! I am a person who sings Christmas songs year round. In fact, last week I was listening to Christmas music before Halloween to keep myself calm the day of Comps. And one year we had our Christmas tree up 3 weeks before Thanksgiving. Why? Well… we try to decorate our Christmas tree with Tbug around. That year, that was the only weekend other than the weekend before Christmas that worked out. Who wants to put a tree up for just a week? It’s a lot of work, plus… all the Christmas decorations are awesome so… 3 weeks before Thanksgiving it was. My tree doesn’t come down until February most years anyway….
Anyway… that’s not the point of today’s post. Today’s post is talking about Halloween in November. ha! I may just have my days mixed up… or the fact that Halloween is the last day of October, hubby’s birthday is the 1st day of November, we had a weekend in there plus yada yada yada…. (=I wanted to participate in the 10 things to Smile about October) so here we are, the 4th day of November and finally talking Halloween.
Apparently I’m wordy today! I’m also picture happy. But what’s new there? Out of 85 pictures, I narrowed it down to 24. Who doesn’t like pictures. Don’t ask my mom… she doesn’t like to have her picture taken anyway.
Last year we weren’t able to carve pumpkins with Tbug. Don’t worry, we still carved pumpkins with her… what I mean is… we did her pumpkin one weekend and then hubby and I did our pumpkins a different weekend. When she’s there only so often, you work with what you can! She actually was working on carving on dry land so that the next day she could carve underwater. But that was last year… This year she was able to carve with us on the same day! We did wait until Halloween, but we all carved together.
There are a couple pictures of Tbug and me and we’re in the same stance at the same time. It’s funny.
I’ve always said that my falls just go by in the blink of an eye. I guess there is so much going on, but add three holidays in there and wow! Last year I really wanted to take Abug to a pumpkin patch and wanted Tbug to be there. This year same thing, but knowing how my October was the rest of the month, and the fact that we’re over halfway through the month already, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, it was a quick last minute decision to go to the pumpkin patch this last weekend.
This year we decided to drive to Welch, Oklahoma and go to Annabelle’s Fun Farm. A friend of mine went last year, she has a little girl who is 7 months older than Abug and then a little boy who is a couple years older and it looked like they had fun there last year so that’s kind of one of the decisions in this choice.
There was a petting farm area with a pony (which Abug hated… she loves horses but wasn’t crazy about the pony), goats (didn’t care for), pigs (didn’t like), rabbits (scared of) and birds (chickens, peacocks, etc).
Happy Halloween? Nicole have you fallen off your rocker? No, I didn’t do any of my weekend posts in order so why not keep it that way? I told you the story behind baby girl’s Halloween costume and if you read my 365 post for October you saw her. You also could have seen her via instagram. Baby girl and I went to daddy’s work and grandpa’s work to walk around and see everyone.
We were able to get Tbug around 6pm on Friday so we picked her up and then went to hubby’s dad’s house to see him.
The story. So obviously this isn’t my costume, I’m not 0-6 months old :). So a year ago October Tbug and I were walking through the store trying to find hubby when we veered off looking at the Halloween costumes. I should add he found us because we got distracted :). So I saw this costume and fell in love. I even said something to Tbug and then took a picture. I wasn’t pregnant at the time or didn’t know I was anyway. About a week later was when we found out I was… odd right? Then when I found out I was like dang I wish I would have bought that but at the same time, I just found out so… definitely didn’t know if I was having a boy or a girl. After we found out in January then I was like, dang it why did I buy this. Well they just so happened to have it this year! Yey! So we bought it back in like August or whenever the Halloween costumes came out into stores because I knew that’s what I wanted this beautiful baby girl to be 🙂