Halloweiners

I fulfilled a long-time dream this year of proudly dressing myself and my family as the big nerds (slash big damn heroes) that we are for Halloween.

If you don’t know who we are dressed as, shame on you. A pox on your home and your herds! I’ve mentioned my love of Firefly plenty—if you haven’t watched it and the movie Serenity yet, you are missing out. It is my favorite show of all time.

I dressed as Kaylee, the mechanic and all-around sweetheart:

It was a super easy costume to pull together—I found the coveralls on ebay a month or so ago (they came to about $20, including shipping), and picked up a pink and purple top at the thrift store. Toss in some boots, natural-looking makeup, and loose wavy hair, and you’re set.

Forrest was the star of the show (literally and figuratively) as a teeny Malcolm Reynolds:

His costume would have been cooler if he would have worn the holster and gun I bought for him, but you know how 2-year olds are (in case you don’t know: uncooperative). The hardest part of his costume was finding suspenders—not many stores sell them. I finally ran into some in an adorable little children’s boutique called Sunday’s Child in Cottonwood Heights (UT). I used RIT dye (color: Wine) on a plain white button-up from the thrift store since I couldn’t imagine finding a toddler-size maroon shirt. Knee-high boots would have been amazing, too, but it turns out they don’t make those for boys. Weird.

Jeff dressed as Jayne, but wasn’t home in time for pictures. Rest assured, he is the proud owner of a pretty cunning new hat, crocheted in haste during Forrest’s nap yesterday, completed just in time for trick-or-treating.

Without a doubt, the highlight of the day was tweeting a picture of our costumes and tagging Nathan Fillion (one of my many celebrity crushes, he played Mal on the show) and Jewel Staite (Kaylee!), both of whom were 110% awesome in replying to my tweet. JUST IMAGINE THE GEEK OUT WHEN I SAW THIS:

But when I called Jeff at work in a tizzy to tell him that Nathan Fillion and I are besties now, he didn’t answer . . . so I of course kept calling, over and over in rapid succession, until he finally picked up in a panic since he thought someone must be seriously injured or seriously dead for me to call 10 times in a row.

I maintain that the subject of my call really was that urgent.

A whopping 2 people knew who we were dressed as when we went trick-or-treating through our neighborhood, and I think the rest didn’t realize we were dressed up at all. It didn’t help that Forrest’s costume was nearly identical to his standard weekly church outfit, but let me tell you something: when the very actors that you are dressed as approve of your costumes on twitter, you stop caring what your neighbors think of your ensemble.

Also, Forrest’s understanding of trick-or-treating seems to be a simple one: some exchange of candy happens when a door is opened. He never figured out who was supposed to hand over or receive the candy, and generally tried to empty his treat bucket into our neighbors’ candy bowls when they opened their doors, and even offered licks of the lollipop he was already sucking to quite a few other kids, and also dogs.

General rundown of how our trick-or-treating went:

Forrest: (knocks super softly, usually with just one finger, so it's more of a gentle tapping)

Person opens door.

Forrest: Chi-o-cheeeeee! (while trying to get past the neighbor and enter their home)

Person: Aren’t you cute! Here you go. (holds out candy bowl)

Forrest: (reaches into his own candy bucket, pulls something out, places it in their bowl.) Dank you!

Person: You can keep that one.

Forrest: Dank you?

Person: Here, you can take a candy.

Forrest: Chi-o-cheee? (Holds out lollipop for neighbor to lick.)

Me: Okay, let's go . . . thanks . . .

We’ll work on clearing up the details for next year.