Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make

Last year, the kids got really into Halloween. They agreed on a family costume and were super (pun intended) into dressing up as many times as possible for photos.

This year, Lincoln decided he HAD to be P.T. Barnum from The Greatest Showman. He is beyond obsessed with that movie, we’ve watched it multiple times a week ever since it came out. Caroline was fully on board with that as a family costume, since she wants nothing more in life than to join a circus as an aerialist. The rest of us agreed we could live with being assigned other characters, which Lincoln was happy to choose for us.

None of these costumes are available straight from the store yet. I had hoped that Chasing Fireflies might have them when this year’s catalog came out, but I think most kids still want to be superheroes or unicorns instead of characters from a musical with a pretty flimsy plot line. But I am not afraid of hot glue and sequins, and once I realized that wasn’t quite enough I learned to use my sewing machine. None of it would pass a close inspection, but for trick-or-treating (or photos!) they worked great.

So for Halloween 2018, I officially present:

Lincoln…as P. T. Barnum

Caroline…as Anne Wheeler

Evan…as Phillip Carlyle

Finnegan…as The Tattooed Man

And me…as Jenny Lind

These photos aren’t going to win any awards for technical perfection – taking pictures inside dark spaces is NOT my specialty, four kids is a lot of kids to pose, and toddlers are not the best listeners. But that doesn’t make them any less fun. None of the kids care if the pictures are a little grainy, all they care about is seeing their dreams come true.

Sources (all Amazon affiliate links):

Tiny tuxedo
Red vest
Pink wig
Purple leotard
Sparkle tank top
Cream bolero
Hoop skirt
Black hat (this is the only one of several I ordered that actually fit Linc!)
Red Hat
Temporary tattoos
More tattoos
Girl’s dance tights

All the trim and fabric is from Joann’s. One stick is a dowel I painted, the other is from Party City. Evan and Finnegan owned most of their costumes, I got the vest at Goodwill and Finn’s undershirt at Walmart. All the sparkly jewelry is also from Walmart. Also a huge shout out to my amazing hairdresser Jackie at Wild Love Hair Studio for making me a redhead.

And the biggest thank you goes to The Garde Arts Center in New London. I sent an email asking about maybe possibly using just their lobby for some photos and within 24 hours they had found me a time to come in and use the whole theater. Carolyn was beyond generous with her time and resources (I think Finnegan wanted to go home with her) and I could not have made this magic without them. They are a non-profit organization that has worked to painstakingly restore this old movie house to its original glory. I made a donation to thank them for their time and we’ll be attending as many events there as possible, both because it’s an amazing building and because they’re a wonderful organization. (They’re having an awesome Halloween Movie event! You can take the kids to see Hotel Transylvania on Saturday the 27th!)

Happy Halloween!

Where it’s covered in all the colored lights
Where the runaways are runnin’ the night
Impossible comes true, it’s takin’ over you
Oh, this is the greatest show
We light it up, we won’t come down
And the sun can’t stop us now
Watchin’ it come true, it’s takin’ over you
Oh, this is the greatest show

My friends at How To Be A Dad asked if I had any childhood Christmas photos laying around for a post they were putting together and I tracked down one of me meeting a really bored Santa. I thought I’d share the rest of the photos my mom scanned for me, with apologies to my family. Remember, we all thought we looked AWESOME when these were taken.

I have that hat in the closet and the orange knit reindeer jumper upstairs. Caroline wore it last year.

That dress is in Caroline’s closet

Putting things on babies: Hilarious since 1982

I’m making that face because I know one day this picture will NOT be the height of fashion

Caroline wore the dress my sister is wearing to a party last month and ruined it. SAD FACE. But the red one is still upstairs!

MUFF

Candy cane dress is in Caroline’s closet

This one is my favorite.

This was the year we got our “American Girl” dolls that were just blonde baby dolls. My grandmother actually sewed all the outfits after looking at them in a catalog and my grandfather made the chests & beds. I still have all of it.

 We decided to bump Christmas back to the 26th so we could all enjoy being together, so I’ll be back on the 27th when I can sit and breathe and sort through the epic number of pictures I plan to take over the next 3 days. A Blessed Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and may your pants still fit in January!

So as I’ve mentioned a time or twenty bazillionty, I’m going to San Diego for a blogging conference this week. In theory I am there to learn more about how to be an awesome blogger (including a class on proper grammar and sentence structure so maybe I’ll learn to stop using words like “bazillionty”)(or maybe to stop interrupting myself with parenthetical statements)(that one’s probably not going to stick) but mostly I am going so I can finally put faces – and arm hugs – to all the ladies I’ve met through the internet and who are part of my life on a daily basis.

One of my biggest fears for the conference is that I will walk right past someone I desperately wanted to meet and I won’t recognize them. I am TERRIBLE at faces (actually, I’m worse at names, so that’s a whole other level of palm-sweating awfulness) and it gets extra hard because the only pictures I’ve ever seen of some of these women are teeny tiny camera phone pics taken from a super flattering angle and edited heavily with Instagram filters. People don’t generally post pictures of their “oh my God I’m so tired and I miss my kids” face or “wow I sure am hungover why is there no Diet Coke in this hotel!?” face on the internet. Hell, even my very own head shot took 40 rejected pictures (double chin! weird eye thing! too smiley!) and 2 Photoshop filters to look like that. And after dyeing my hair and my eyebrows (twice) AND losing 10 pounds (most of which seems to have come off my neck) I’m not even sure I would recognize MYSELF if I was comparing it to that picture up there on the left.

So to be as helpful and servicey as possible, I used my web cam to take some pictures that might make me easier to recognize. (Just pretend for a second I have legions of fans who are all sitting at home RIGHT NOW figuring out the best way to track me down and ask for my autograph in San Diego. PRETEND.)

This doesn’t just apply to BlogHer, by the way. I look like a weirdo in real life too, so this will be a helpful guide to the many faces of Suzanne you may encounter:

This is what I like to think I will look like when we meet, except with cleaner hair and some mascara.

This is what I WILL look like when we meet, because I’m going to be all OMG I LOVE YOU!

This is what I will look like when I’m trying to read your name tag because even though I read your blog EVERY DAY I totally forgot your real name and am trying not to call you by your kid’s name.

This is what I look like when I am trying to appear friendly and interesting. It’s unfortunate I come across so much like a psychotic baby-snatcher.

(Sidenote: I always thought I was imagining that my right eyebrow was way higher than my left eyebrow but IT TOTALLY IS. My face is lopsided. Great, now I can obsess about it until I accidentally pluck the whole thing out trying to make them even.)

  This is what I look like behind a wine glass <—– most helpful picture in this post

This is what I imagine I will look like in every single party picture taken.

This is my listening face. I know it LOOKS like my bitchface, but I swear I am truly a very nice person. This is also why I only have one friend left from college – I looked like this in all my classes.

(THAT EYEBROW. OMG.)

And this is my sexy dancing face. For some reason I think looking up at the sky is the BEST WAY EVER to look cool while dancing. Really, I’m just trying to avoid eye contact so I can’t see you laughing at me.

So please please pleasepleaseplease, if you see any of those faces, be my friend. I just want to survive BlogHer without making a total fool of myself – or at least be the kind of fool people find endearing rather than running the other way as soon as they see me coming.