Just Remember! Bee Yourself.

Jacob and I had a blast making our halloween costumes this year. Behold- the beekeeper and the beehive:

The beekeeper: painter's coveralls, gloves, straw hat, old screen.

The beehive: yellow yarn, fake flowers, leaves.

The bees: black pipe cleaners, yellow yarn, blue tissue paper, floral wire.

(Detail of fake flowers with swarming bees around my waist.)

Special thanks to Martha Stewart for the idea (really wish I could take credit for this one!), to Jacob's mom for doing my hair (I had no idea it would take so long!) and to Jacob for putting up with me.

Hooray for opportunities to be ridiculous!

It's Just a Matter of Observation

For Halloween this year, Jacob and I hosted a murder mystery dinner set in Chicago in the Roaring 1920s.

(invitation fronts and backs...with my address and phone number blurred out!)

(candles and Scott Joplin music set the scene)

(table place cards)

(The evening involved a three-course meal, lots of fake alcohol [it took place in a speakeasy, after all], and hours of unraveling clues, but by far the best part of the night was how much everyone got into it. From left to right: the fashionable gaming house owner, the millionaire gambler, the cheating baseball pitcher, and the dirty judge)

(From left to right: the sketchy flapper, the assassin jazz singer, the lying reporter, and the shady club owner)

(Classic.)

And thus is born a new family tradition.