Halloween at the Chrysler Museum is one of my favorite things about the holiday. Each year, the staff dress up as works of art and wander the museum so visitors can find them. The costumes are always so creative and this year was no different, with staff dressing as works of contemporary and classical painting, sculpture, even glasswork! Each staff member gets to pick their art piece, and talking to them about how they came up with the concept of their costume is definitely part of the fun (this year's fave: the woman who covered herself in straw and roamed around as one of Monet's haystacks from the Agrarian Ideal exhibit going on now.)

The kids definitely enjoyed the special Halloween hunt, and marking off their finds on the scavenger hunt map (prize: candy) But they also enjoyed just spending time at the expanded play area at the back of the museum, and shuffling through the books, games, and toys there. Note to self: keep this in mind for blustery days this winter.

The Chrysler has some exciting programs for kids and families coming up this month, including Tickle My Ears, on Friday, November 3, and a wild-West themed Free Family Day on Saturday, November 12. More info here.

 This Halloween, we took costume inspiration from some of our favorite kids' books.
A. surprised me by insisting that she did NOT want to be Elsa (the first time in three years! Yay!) Instead, she wanted to be a flamingo. Flora and the Flamingo is one of her favorite books -- she loves to sit and "read" it by herself when she's in a quiet mood.


So we cobbled together a flamingo costume in an explosion of pink. Pink chucks, pink tutu, pink leotard and tights in the exact right matching shade of fuchsia (thank you, Rit Dye). A feather boa and a felt mask that is quite possibly my greatest sewing triumph even including the quilts I have made. It's hard to get a flamingo beak to curve in just the right way. And I have the hot glue burns to prove it.



Anouk chose Harold and the Purple Crayon to inspire Augustus's costume. It's also one of our faves. This one was much easier to put together: a blue sleeper and a felt crayon. Et voila. By the way, I must also point out that this book caused Anouk to lobby hard for Harold as Gus's name while I was pregnant with him. But obviously we're not into old man names for little babies so we nixed it.

I didn't have the time/wherewithal to make a costume for myself, but if anybody asks, I'm going to tell them that I'm Nobody. From Goodnight Moon, get it?

What are your kids dressing as this Halloween? Have a great & spoooooky weekend, everybody!

It's October, so we finally broke out the Halloween stuff, including some of our favorite vintage Halloween books. We wait all year for our Halloween books! Most of these we found while out and thrifting, but a few are leftovers that my mom saved from when me and my sister were little. It's only the second week of the month, but we've already read through most of these once and are looking forward to reading through them again and again. Below is a description of the titles (with affiliate links to where you can find them, but really, coming across them in a thrift store or secondhand shop is the most fun!)

The Big, BIG Pumpkin: Bear thinks of a creative way to use a big pumpkin from his garden.

Gus and the Baby Ghost: I remember this one, about a ghost and a museum director who adopt a baby ghost, as my favorite from when I was growing up.

Georgie's Halloween: A little ghost wins best costume on Halloween night.

The Pumpkin Smasher: The terrible Turner twins outsmart a Pumpkin Smashing witch who wants to ruin Halloween. Another one from when I was a little girl.

Clifford's Halloween: The big red dog and Emily Elizabeth reminisce about past Halloweens and some of Clifford's best costumes.

The Rabbi and the 29 Witches: This one is really a Jewish folktale and has nothing to do with Halloween but we break it out this time of year. A rabbi and a village run 29 angry witches out of town using nothing but their wits.

What are your favorite Halloween books? Have you made any good thrift store finds lately?

We've had a trying week -- not going to lie, it's been one of the hardest weeks I've experienced in a long time. On top of moving and getting our old house ready for inspection by the rental company, we had some burst pipes at the new house (which meant raw sewage all over our freshly sanded floors). Worst of all, our sweet little tabby cat managed to slip out during the moving process and is now unaccounted for (if you're a local reader, please pass this along to help us find him! Especially if you are in Norfolk.)

The good news is that we are officially settled into our new house and got to spend our first Halloween enjoying our neighborhood and getting to know our neighbors. Our new neighborhood really DOES Halloween: a trip down our street led us past three haunted houses, a punk-rock garage concert, and a tent where they were giving away antique books! (A friend of mine got a complete 1950s set of the Anne of Green Gables series -- I dithered between Lives of the Saints and a 1915 copy of Robert's Rules of Order and finally went for the latter). Nearly every house was decked out with lights and cobwebs and very ambitiously carved pumpkins and the kids were running to and fro like madcaps. It was a far cry from our old neighborhood in Northern Virginia, where we were lucky if we got one trick-or-treater all night. In short, I think we're going to like it here.

So without further ado, here are some photos from around the house and from last night's Halloween spree! Happy weekend -- here's to a wonderful week to come for all of us. x

^^ Pinata for our playgroup party & our newly refinished (and cleaned) floors ^^

^^ So much bigger than last year! (and sulky because Mama won't let her eat all the candy) ^^

^^ Everybody who went by -- adults and kids both -- had to try our neighbors' hopscotch ^^

^^ Reminds me of being stuck in traffic on I-95 ^^

^^ Dada on candy duty ^^

I feel a little guilty about Halloween this year -- it's the first year that Anouk really understands what's going on, but with the big move in progress, I haven't decorated a bit. All of our Halloween decorations are boxed up and are waiting to be unpacked in the new house.

A. has been looking at all of the decorations in our neighbors' yards, and the pumpkins sitting on their stoops, and asking, "Where's our Halloween stuff, mama?" So on a trip to the grocery store the other day, I picked up a few mini-pumpkins and brought them home to scatter around the house.

But that wasn't enough for Miss A. She rummaged in the craft box for supplies and declared, "We have to paint them." She also pulled out some unopened packages of googly eyes and that was our inspiration for our mini-pumpkin monsters. We used whatever caught our attention to monsterfy our pumpkins -- paints, pom-poms, pushpins for antennae.



I love the way they turned out. These monsters are definitely of the cute rather than scary variety. And now our mantle has some Halloween spirit. Everybody's happy!

Have you decorated for Halloween yet? What's your favorite Halloween swag? (I'm definitely a fan of those fake gravestones with the funny names on them. Al B. Bach, indeed!)

Time for a quick fall craft (the only kind we do these days it seems, with everything else going on). We're thick in the middle of painting over at the new house, which means we've used about a million rolls of painter's tape and have empty cardboard thingies hanging around everywhere. Anouk was walking around with them stacked on her arm like bracelets and a craft idea was born.

We broke out the poster paint and got to decorating. We tried to use fall colors only -- lots of reds, browns, yellows, oranges, and deep purples. I went for more of a Halloween theme while Anouk's look was a little more abstract.



They aren't perfect but I still love them. Sometimes these are my favorite crafts, the ones that you do on the fly, from materials you find lying around.

We still have approximately four dozen empty tape rolls lying around. What should we do with them? Ideas?

Since summer is officially over, I thought it would be a good time to share some of our favorite fall places, crafts, and treats from last year. If you have any suggestions you'd like to share, from your own blog or around the web, please link in the comments! Also, if you do any of these, please write and let us know how you enjoyed it. :)

I'm cuddled up under a wool blanket as I type this and I love love it. Welcome, fall!


GO:

-Bergey's Breadbasket: Quite possibly the best petting zoo in the area, with a PYO pumpkin patch and a delectable bakery attached. Bergey's inspired our apple dumpling recipe (below).

-Hunt Club Farm: The photos at the bottom of this post is from our visit last October (look how small my Nou was!). Their fall harvest fair runs through Nov. 1 this year and you can bet we'll be there again.

-Apple Picking at Martin Vineyard & Orchard: A recent trip that's going to become a family tradition. Apple season ends in November, but I would call ahead to make sure they're still open (their website doesn't seem to be updated frequently).

-New Earth Farm: A beautiful farmer's market in Virginia Beach, with probably the most interesting and delicious organic and seasonal produce in the area.

-First Landing State Park: So gorgeous this time of year. Try the Bald Cypress Trail, an easy hike for little legs.

-Big Woods State Forest: Some "real wilderness" hiking just about an hour away in Sussex County.

-Bennett's Creek Farm Market: Bennett's Creek is a treat in any season but fall makes us hungry and when the weather turns cool, we crave their she-crab soup.


MAKE: 

-Apple prints: we made wrapping paper!

-Pumpkin pie playdough: Adding pumpkin-pie spice makes everything feel more festive.

-Gravestone rubbing: A spooky craft to get older kids interested in family history.

-Grateful chain: just in time for Thanksgiving

-Pinecone prints: This is a great time of year for nature painting.

-Fall-themed bracelets: Using painter's tape rolls

-Leaf rubbings and painted leaves: two super-easy fall crafts


COOK:

-Maple cinnamon marshmallows: Dresses up hot cocoa; a lot easier than you'd think.

-Marlborough Pudding: basically, fancy applesauce but from a colonial recipe.

-Apple dumplings: A quick and easy version of the famous ones at Bergey's Breadbasket.

-Pumpkin quinoa: The perfect breakfast for fall mornings.

-Sweet potato and apple hash: A savory-sweet treat.