Halloween with Little Miss Muffet and The Spider (not the Tuffet)

I love Halloween. Years ago, long before I had children, I told Pete many many times that I wanted kids for the sake of celebrating holidays. It seemed like such good fun to have kids from Halloween through Christmas, and then to return them just before New Year's like an unfortunate Christmas sweater. 

Still a fond dream of mine. 

I particularly love kids in costumes. Cute ones, not icky gross ones. This year I decided to continue the theme of classic children's literature characters by dressing Amelia as Little Miss Muffet and Georgia as the spider, but Amelia would tell anyone who asked her what she was going to be for Halloween, "I'm going to be Little Miss Muffet and Georgie's the tuffet." That pretty much sums up her view of their relationship--which is ironic considering how many photos my parents have of my older sister sitting on my head when I was a baby.

I made, or at least collected all the elements for both girls' costumes, something my mother always did and I'm going to try to continue to do. It was a fun challenge to gather ideas for how I could accomplish the look I was going for and actually get my sewing machine out and make costumes happen. I'm pretty proud of the way they turned out, except perhaps Georgie's spider legs, which, after she vomited all over them the first time she wore them out of the apartment, never were quite the same. But she looked pretty cute in her costume even without the spider legs. 

Since Georgia's birthday is so close to Halloween we decided to celebrate it at the Bronx Zoo, which she loves--particularly the Bug Carousel. We dressed the girls in their costumes and hit the zoo's annual Boo at the Zoo Halloween celebration. 

Told you she loves the carousel. (Thats a jeweled spider on her headband, which is the exception to my mommy-made-everything rule. It was just too cute to pass up.) The polka dot jacket is not part of her costume but was the only clean clothes I had to change her into after she inexplicably threw up all over her costume on the way to the zoo. 

I made the hat and pantaloons Amelia wore. 

The dress is one my mom made me when I was Amelia's age. 

In line for the 4D movie at the zoo.
Georgia loves the rumbling seats, 

the bubbles that shoot out, the mist and the big screen.

Love these faces.

Here are a couple with Georgia actually wearing her costume, but you can't really see the full effect. She had eight legs and a tulle tutu for a web. 

I'm glad I took as many photos as I did at the zoo because I didn't get any of the girls out trick-or- treating. I didn't want to carry around my nice camera and the ones I took with my phone didn't turn out. Too bad because trick-or-treating in Harlem is really worth seeing. The kids trick-or-treat up and down the streets at all the businesses (nail salons, cafes, laundry mats, convenience stores, etc.) and Harlem is one of the few neighborhoods in the city that offers trick-or-treating in residential areas. The beautiful old brownstones that are so iconic of Harlem lend themselves well to trick-or-treating, and all the houses that are participating tie an orange balloon by the front door signaling that kids are welcome. Most of the participating houses are decked out in full spookiness anyway.  It's such a great community event as everyone meets each other and admires each other's kids' costumes--Amelia's costume was particularly admired (although everyone thought she was Little Bo Peep. Oh, well.) Georgia was in the stroller happy as can be with a lollypop. 

So Halloween, and Georgia's first birthday, were a success. And now Amelia keeps telling me what she wants to be for Halloween next year. So far the list includes: Minnie Mouse, Peter Pan and Captain Hook, Cinderella, a wolf, Robin Hood and a scary witch. I won't start thinking about it for at least three or four months. 

My Baby's Birthday

Our little Georgie Porge is officially 1 and I made a video to mark the occasion. At 13 minutes long I warn you it's a bit of a time commitment, but it is pretty darn cute and I worked hard on it. So watch it anyway and enjoy the GeorgeFest.


Georgia's First Year from Charlotte Tidwell on Vimeo.

Until next birthday!

Retrospect: Pete's Birthday {The Old Boy is 30}

Birthdays are a big deal. It wasn't many hundreds of years ago that people didn't live to see too many birthdays, so we have to celebrate in big fashion whenever we do reach such momentous milestones; or at least in as big a fashion as we can afford.

When Pete turned 30 I wanted to do something he would remember. So 30 became the number of the day and everything we did was in groups of 30.

While Pete was at work I picked up 30 balloons and placed them throughout the apartment, each tied to one of his 30 birthday gifts. The first balloon was tied to the railing just outside our apartment door next to a stack of party hats and a sign that read, "Please Take One." When we got home from dinner at Patsy's Pizzeria, our fave New York pizza joint, Pete had to go throughout the apartment from balloon to balloon gathering gifts that ranged from Kit Kat bars and chocolate milk, to shirts, ties, baking tools and self help books extolling the virtues of self employment.

The 30th and last balloon was tied to a cake stand on which I had fashioned a donut cake (no, there were not 30 donuts, there were only 18. Why in the world would I want 30 donuts in my house??).

Even though I don't think Pete got quite as much of a kick out of the balloons as the girls did, I think he really loved his birthday celebration. He enjoyed having so much candy and junk food at his disposal, and looks pretty snappy in his new birthday clothes.

I wanted Pete to feel how much his ladies at home love and appreciate him, and in that respect think the mission was a success.