Zombies, spiked hair, a little lion, and unsung heroes

I am not a fan of Halloween, but I will admit that this year has somewhat revived my enjoyment of this strangely-evolved holiday of our culture for me. (All thanks to Joe and April 🙂

The years since my trick-or-treating days have been highly uneventful and unmemorable as far as Halloween goes. Aside from the year I wore my first pair of “heels” (quite ugly black 1″ high sandals, borrowed from a friend for my teeny bopper costume. I LOVED them.) and the year I first got to wear makeup (I went as Cleopatra to a friend’s birthday party and my mom put REAL eyeliner on my eyes), I have usually stayed home with my family or else escaped  from candy duty somewhere with pizza and a movie. 

This year, we were invited to several Halloween parties. For a pumpkin-carving party we went to on Friday night, we didn’t have a costume for Gabriel yet, so we put on some Halloween-themed pajamas somebody had given us and spiked his hair with water and hairspray. He was pretty cute 🙂

The highlight of Halloween this year for us was a zombie themed murder-mystery party hosted by some friends of ours. We had a blast! 

I was cast as intrepid and ambitious Zombie TV reporter Anita Storie, and Michael was out-of-prison-for-one-night inmate Willy Bolt. Neither of us had ever been to murder-mystery party before, but we both loved it and had a great time! We decided to give this new experience our best shot. And we weren’t so bad at it! In fact, I was voted “Best Actress” at the end of the night, and Michael lost “Best Male Costume” by one vote!

Michael’s costume was pretty cool. He dressed up as a thuggish inmate, complete with a red bandanna around his head, gangster-ish shirt, jeans and heavy boots, and real chain strung around both ankles, around his waist and between his hands! (Pictures below!)

And I forgot to mention we did some killer zombie makeup (pun intended :). We looked up a how-to video on YouTube and ended up buying a $2.35 makeup compact with black, white and gray eyeshadow, smearing it artfully all over our faces, and looking completely hideous. 

Good thing Gabriel was in bed before we did our makeup! We about made the babysitters jump out of their seats 🙂

Alright, alright…here are the pictures! 🙂

And here’s the sweet little lion who visited us on Halloween night. We just wanted to eat him all up he was so cute! Good thing we didn’t put our Zombie makeup on again to hand out candy…our zombie selves would probably have been overcome by the cuteness and have taken a bite out of his chubby little cheek! 🙂

By the way, Happy All Saints Day today! What a beautiful feast to remember all of the saints, both those we know and remember, and those “unsung heroes” throughout history who who lived humble, yet powerfully holy lives.