happy halloween! {frocktober, the end}

This was the best Halloween.

We have a short but fun history of dressing up as Disney couples for Halloween. When we lived in Virginia, we participated in our church's Trunk or Treat for two years so we had to have costumes and a trunk theme. The first year we were Carl and Ellie from UP, and the second year we were Gnomeo and Juliet. It was a blast! This year we had to dress up, because coming up with a pregnant costume sounded like way too much fun...and how many chances like this will we get in life?

We decided a long time ago that dressing up as Pacha and his pregnant wife Chicha from The Emperor's New Groove would be perfect. I couldn't find much online in the way of costumes, so we figured it was a pretty original idea. We were thrilled when Colin and Victoria were totally on board with dressing up and walking around the small town of Blowing Rock during their Halloween festivities. They showed up with their Yzma and Kronk get-ups, and we were totally giddy. I love our friends. Victoria and I made our costumes (with the exception of my dress, which was a lucky find on Amazon for $20!). She actually found a blog which had pretty great instructions for easily putting together costumes for Kronk and Yzma. I made the poncho for Pacha out of fleece from JoAnn's, and my mom whipped up the weird little Pacha hat. I made my necklace out of the same material as the hat for a geometric collar, and then made the earrings out of wooden discs from Michael's that I painted dark brown. I also bought the bright green headband at Michael's. All in all it was really inexpensive and very fun to put together. 

It was incredibly entertaining seeing who recognized The Emperor's New Groove and who had no idea who or what we were trying to be. We began to realize that this movie seems to have only caught a handful of people in our exact age group. Any younger or older and it seems to have passed them right by. Which is a shame, because it's the best. 

Kronk, pull the lever!

Blowing Rock was decked out for the festival. There were hay rides and decorations around every corner. Once it began to get dark, most of the little shops were passing out candy for trick or treaters. The streets were soon full of kids and adults alike, and the temperatures began to drop drastically. We walked around and grabbed some coffee, and heartily enjoyed the many stares we received. 

We shopped around a little bit, buying some local spices and wishing we could buy every little bizarre trinket and Christmas ornament we came across. Towards the end of the night we jumped onto the tail end of the Main Street parade (which was basically just everyone in costume walking in a big line down the street). We counted it among our more prouder moments of life. 

Squeak, squeakin'. 

The night ended with us back at the house, delaying getting out of our costumes for as long as possible. After taking a few more pictures, the lure of pajamas and s'more-making finally won out. We settled in and made a fire and got cozy with s'mores and freshly made fudge. It was a fantastic day. Best Halloween ever.

It also signaled the end of Frocktober 2015. Another great month of dress-wearing. I wasn't sure how this year would go, being pregnant and growing steadily out of all of my regular clothes... but I feel pretty good about the challenge! In honor of Frocktober I will be donating quite a few clothes in the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to having a much simpler wardrobe and being a lot more intentional in what I buy and what I allow myself to keep over the years. Cheers to Frocktober, friends, festivities and the best Fall yet.

the end {frocktober, day 31!}

Happy (belated) Halloweeny, friends!

I had so much fun yesterday dressing up at the office as...can you already guess it?...The Book Thief!

I was maybe a little too pleased with my last-minute literary pun costume, but everyone at work loved it. It was also great because I didn't have to buy anything! (It's true, I had this leather mask lying around from my 1998 trip to the Renaissance Festival, coincidentally the same year that Zorro came out in theatres...). The comfy striped sweater (remixed here) was perfect for the criminal look. I love creative costumes that are assembled from things you already own!

We didn't have plans to dress up for any evening Halloween festivities this year, so I just enjoyed the costume throughout the day! We went to a little harvest festival at my parents church and then came home to watch a movie and drink butterbeer floats (because Halloween and Harry Potter go great together). Not much to complain about there!

I hope you all had a really fun and safe Halloween. I look forward to one day having little trick-or-treaters at our door, and decorating our house and handing out candy. Growing up we never had any trick-or-treaters because we lived so far out of town, so it will be a big change if we move into a neighborhood next year and have to worry about buying bags and bags of candy to give out to all of the little zombies, witches and ghouls!

As always, I am sad to see Frocktober go. I obviously won't be boycotting dresses because they're still my favorite thing to wear, but the daily challenge is at an end. Time for cold weather (pretty please, Arizona!), skinny jeans, tights, boots, sweets, sparkly sweaters.
Enjoy your week of candy and sugar highs!

Happy November!

happy halloween {frocktober, day 28+29+30}

Outfit 1: Dress (remixed 1 / 2 / 3): Modcloth, Lace Top: LOFT

Outfit 2: Dress: gifted, Denim (remixed 1 / 2): Old Navy

Outfit 3: Dress (shop!): Sheinside

A collection of Frocktober days to prepare for the very last!
I just purchased the third dress from an online shop called Sheinside! I ordered some fun things for my birthday, and just received them this week. The clothes are inexpensive and super cute, but they also ship from China and are sometimes not very well represented in the shop photos, details and reviews. It's kind of a gamble! I went ahead and just went for it, hoping the clothes fit! This dress pattern is incredibly vibrant and fun (see it online here), and it actually has 3-quarter length sleeves. It's really comfortable, too. My only qualm with it is that the waist seam is very oddly placed. I'm hoping to wear it again soon and get better photos of it, but the actual seam is about 2 inches below where I belted it. It's not low enough to be intentionally drop-waisted, so it creates a rather strange poof unless you belt it. But all in all I'm excited about playing around with it!

It's Halloween, which means that today is my last day of intentional dress-wearing.
I will be celebrating by wearing another dress to a wedding tomorrow!

I love Halloween. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to love Halloween as an adult, because most of the fun is either of the over-the-top horror variety or from trying to be a kid again by going trick-or-treating, which you always regret because 1.) you look creepy amongst the neighborhood children 2.) all that candy just ends up making your adult body sick and unhappy.

But I actually love Halloween for very real, appropriate reasons.

1. Harry Potter

All Hogwarts holidays are fantastic, but there's something incredibly cheerful, festive, and magical about Hogwarts Halloweens. It's probably second only to a Hogwarts Christmas. They're legitimate witches and wizards, so they obviously have every right and reason to have floating candles, elaborate feasts, black garments, witch hats, and obviously copious amounts of butterbeer and pumpkin juice. When you're in the world of Harry Potter, the holiday ceases to have that foreboding, silly, American style of cheesy Halloweeniness.

2. Dressing up

I still love costumes. I love dressing up with my husband at a harvest festival, working a booth or a trunk for trunk-or-treat. The last two years we have been Disney couples (Carl and Ellie, and Gnomeo and Juliet) and it has been so fun. I'm a big fan of make believe and stories, and having a day where you can be silly and dress up is totally okay with me.
I'm currently wearing a black and white striped sweater, a black beanie, a black mask, and a tote bag filled with books...any guesses? :)

3. Carving pumpkins

I've accidentally carved cat-themed pumpkins for the last two years in a row, which means it should probably just be a solid tradition at this point. We had our pumpkin carving get-together with friends last night, and we deviated a bit from cats and carved ours into Pikachu. Close enough!

4. It's finally Fall

This wasn't true when we lived in Virginia, but I have definite memories as a kid of growing up in Arizona and feeling like Halloween was the first experience with a lovely, chilly fall evening each year. We would be walking around outside with our candy buckets and it would finally be in the upper 60's or 70's, and it would feel so grand. Sometimes we'd even be shivering (we're pretty wimpy about the cold out here). It would usher in November and all of the holiday dreams and festivities, and Arizona would finally begin to cool down!


I'll even confess to enjoying a few scary movies here and there, and liking some of the creepiness that always accompanies Halloween time. I'm the kid that loved weird dark movies like The Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, etc.

But mostly I just enjoy friends and the simple festivities of October's end.

frocktober: the end

Halloween dawned drizzly and melancholy, which I suppose was fitting for the holiday.

We actually took these pictures in the light rain that afternoon, but the beautiful tree above me blocked almost all of it.

I was imagining all the kids praying for clear skies before nightfall so they could trick or treat in good weather!

Our Halloween was simple. Candy, apple cider, pumpkin carving, and Children of the Corn. Can't get more Halloweeny than that!

I must say, I enjoy scary movies. But I'm very, very picky, because I'm very easily scared. So if I'm going to spend the night in total terror, I want it to be worth it. It needs to be a great movie. (Secret Window, The Orphanage, Signs...ok, ok, I know. Signs isn't that scary. But when I saw it in theaters at 14, it was scary enough.)

Or, as was the case with Children of the Corn, it needs to be so old and so cheesy that I can still sleep at night. 

Dress: Lauren Conrad/Kohl's, Top: Ruche, Booties: Urbanog

I've always enjoyed a little bit of creepiness. I enjoy cozying up with Dustin, anticipating the strange and terrible, plugging my ears and squinting my eyes if it's particularly intense. 

Even better is watching a great scary movie (or show -- have you watched Sleepy Hollow? One of my favorite new shows this Fall!) with a group of friends.

I don't celebrate Halloween, really -- I just like candy, and cider, and carving pumpkins. I love Fall, and that's all Halloween really is to me. It's wearing orange tights and binge-eating almond Snickers. It signifies the last big bash of my birthday month, my lovely October. It's the beginning of Thanksgiving time. It's a time to sit in the living room, jumping up whenever the doorbell rings, to see the cute groups of kids running around like I used to do, asking for candy. It's not evil, it's just imagination. I'm a lover of imagination, stories, magic, beauty, fairytales. 

October (and, in effect, Frocktober) was a beautiful month. A little sad to bid farewell.

But very excited for all the treasures of November! Even if the leaves aren't quite as bright, I'll just have to burn more candles and hang some glitter to make up for it. 

spider-lady of shalott

I love these tights.

They're a little whimsical and a little something wicked this way comes, if you ask me.

Halloween Eve called for a fancy dress in a toned-down outfit for work. 

I felt a little strange, because I had categorized this dress as date night only kind of attire, but I think it works here, too. It reminds me a little bit of Jess Day from New Girl, and her uncanny ability to wear party dresses on a daily basis and still look totally natural. She wears these amazing dresses and coats as her everyday look, and it looks great, because it's her. She just looks like she belongs in them. 

Dress: J. Crew, Boots (shop!): Urbanog, Tights (similar): Betsey Johnson

This ended up being possibly my top favorite outfit of the entire Frocktober month. It was a little bit out of my comfort zone, with the edginess of the tights, but the colors and the dress and, I'll admit, that little bit of fierceness made me feel like a rockstar.
That's why we put thought into our outfits anyway, right? To feel like rockstars, and have the opportunity for that daily bit of artistry.

These photos have almost a Lady of Shalott vibe, with a little bit of a Halloween twist.
The Spider Lady of Shalott, perhaps?