Enter if you dare ....(oh, go on, it's just a haunted house)

I realize I haven't made good on my intention to include Halloween-themed photos in my October posts. To make amends, I'm dedicating a whole post to showcasing the Halloween decor around our house.

The front porch. Amazingly, out of all the pumpkins on the front steps, only the large pumpkin and three small pumpkins were purchased. The rest found their way home as take-home treats from the kids's schools and the various parties and events we have attended.

A closeup of the Halloween pumpkin tree on our front porch. These are actually fake styrofoam pumpkins, since real ones would be much too heavy for the "tree", which is actually a branch that fell from one of our birch trees.

This is a new addition to my decor repertoire. It came about almost accidentally; I didn't want the kids or any of their friends playing in Alfie's unfinished patio area, so I decided to paint some "Keep Out" signs and rope it off with Halloween-themed construction tape. The skeleton rising out of the ground is wearing Alfie's skeleton shirt and gloves. Guess what's keeping him upright? -- a Diaper Genie!



The top of our TV console is Skeleton City. The centerpiece is the remote-control sailboat that Alfie got for Fathers' Day; that's actually its permanent display area.

For the fireplace mantel, I decided to remove all photos except for the one of me in an old-fashioned Philippine "Maria Clara" gown with baby Pea sitting on my lap. People have always said the photo looks a bit eerie, like Pea is some sort of lifelike Victorian "Chuckee"-type doll, so it fits in with the cobwebs and candelabra.

OK, just kidding, this isn't part of our home decor. This is the Left Bank at the Santana Row shoping center, where 3Po and CleanBoy went trick-or-treating this morning. I wish we had something like that, though, it's so cool!