There are plenty of things I got from my mom and one of them is definitely DIY costumes. From the family pictures I’ve seen and from what I can remember, my mom always pulled out her sewing machine when Halloween season came around. For our first Halloween costume, my mom came out strong and made my twin sister and me into tomatoes. I have no idea why tomatoes and not pumpkins but that was my very first costume. Some years, when she wasn’t creating our costumes, she would simply reuse outfits that could play off as costumes. For example, one year while I was in elementary, I was a cheerleader - my mom had me wear my older sister’s high school cheer outfit and called it a costume. Fast forward to my teen years and I started creating my own costumes. Some of them worked out better than I envisioned and others came out pretty poorly.  But overall, I still very much enjoy the process of doing my own costume and look forward to it every year. 

Here's a flashback to a year where I got most of the family involved! 

Happy Halloween week everyone!! 

When I was young, my family adopted this Halloween "tradition" that seems to be unique only to us. My parents wanted me and my brothers to have the fun experience of trick-or-treating on Halloween night... but since they were more health-conscious, they despised the resulting haul of candy that lingered in the house afterwards. So at some point, my parents starting offering us this deal: that after we went trick-or-treating, we could choose 10 pieces of candy to keep, and trade in the rest in exchange for a present. 

We eventually always traded in; I can't remember once instance where we didn't exchange for a present.  The tricky part was that you couldn't see the gift first—it was wrapped—so you just had to gamble. However, the caliber of gifts offered for this Halloween exchange was smartly chosen by my parents so we'd feel like it was worth the trade (they had to be good enough gifts to encourage a child to sacrifice a sack full of hard-earned candy after all).

So after dumping out the night's haul on the dining room table, we'd carefully select our 10 pieces or barter with each other for candy we liked better. As we got older, we knew which houses to hit that gave out the best candy to maximize those 10 pieces (hello rich houses on the hill that doled out full-size candy bars)... plus there was no rule on how much we ate as we went trick or treating (though you can only each so much)! 😉

I'm pretty sure this was my mom's idea, and we never knew exactly where she took our candy that we traded in... she would never give up that secret, and to this day I still don't know!

Hi ghouls and goblins, happy scary month! October is my absolute FAVORITE, I love all things creepy, cringy, and spooky.

Scary movies are amazing all year round but they're especially good in October. Even the classic cheezy ones! My love for scary movies started around Halloween when I was six years old. My dad thought it would be funny to put on The Exorcist and show me a few scenes (thanks dad...). I'm sure he expected me to run away after two seconds, and even though I was mortified, I couldn't stop watching. I had absolutely no idea what was happening to this poor girl but I wanted to help her and I wanted to wait until I knew she was helped! 

The Exorcist traumatized me for YEARS, I couldn't sleep without a light on for at least two or three years after that. Every time I heard a noise while trying to fall asleep, I knew I was done for, I was about to be possessed. 😂

I love scary movies so much but to this day, I have still never rewatched that movie. Company movie-thon anyone?