Now that I'm noticing these things, I've been seeing more and more off-color, obnoxious baby tees around. Who would put their kid in a onesie that reads "I met my dad on Maury"? or "Hung like a five year old"? I'm not a prude, but that's just an abuse of free speech. It's not like the baby can read his t-shirt, but his older siblings might have a few questions about it. There's a big difference between a funny onesie and an offensive, tasteless, not so funny onesie. If you put your kid in a shirt with a message that you think is funny, but 99% of the world sees as indecent and distasteful, the message is clear: You're a nincompoop, and hopefully your child can overcome the countless additional bad decisions you'll make for him!

We make (what we think are) funny onesies. We are proud of the baby clothes we carry, and our babies have worn many of our ideas proudly on their chests! Some of the shirts don't apply to our family, obviously. "Future Ballerina"? With three boys, probably not. "Future Mac User", now that's a shirt I know will apply. In fact, 2 of the 3 are already now Mac Users!  They are hooked on PBSkids.com, a great site with tons of fun learning games. We've got their little eMac's set up so they can't go anywhere besides a few chosen websites, and all they want to do anyway is play Super Why's games.  At 15 months, Bodie is not quite yet a Mac user. A funny onesie idea for him would be "Mac Abuser". His idea of computer usage is to bang my mouse until the batteries come out, put the parts into the office trash can, then climb onto my chair and start wailing  my keyboard like a pipe organ, re-naming the files on my desktop if possible. He has many virtues, but a tactful approach isn't in his playbook.

Our boys have always had cool baby clothes. Sara and her sisters have made sure of that. Now that Sara is in the business of making baby t-shirts, I notice different designs everywhere I go. To be honest, I don't think I ever paid attention to whether or not other parents' kids had hip baby clothes or not. Little did I realize that all these little baby clothes accessories would become such a big part of my life!

I get a lot of ribbing at work from the guys. Mostly because I'm a part-time baby onesie maker, and partly because they want to see us get a little edgier. They always come up with ideas for us - sometimes in jest, but mostly I think they really want their vulgar slogans on our baby onesies. They are a great group of guys, and a riot to work with, but their ideas can be pretty crude and tend to be mostly boob related. One of my buddies was in DC for the weekend and saw a group of topless protesters in the street with signs proclaiming "Boobs NOT Bombs". He came back on monday practically begging me to use it on our funny onesies section. I told him I'd put it in Sara's suggestion box. 

Garrett accepted his spider costume without much fuss. He really wanted to be a goose. Gavin was psyched about his very traditional ghost costume. Bodie didn't have a choice, his costume was the third revolution of our hand me down skeleton. It's a classic - and it matches my glow-in-the-dark Misfits skeleton shirt!

We trick-or-treated up and down our little street, then ventured beyond into the neighborhood. There seemed to be less houses observing Halloween this year. I can see that if there aren't many kids in your life, October 31st is just the last day of the month. We only patronized the homes with spooky decor, to be sure that they were aware trick-or-treaters would be coming. Last year we hit a couple houses that had their lights on, but they had forgotten it was Halloween. I remember the shocked looks on the faces of our neighbors, then their rummaging through their kitchens for emergency treats! We ended up with a few granola bars and ziplocked oreo cookies. 

This has been a very Halloweeny week for our family. Tuesday night we went downtown to the Battleship Bash on the USS North Carolina. It's a huge (and apparantly haunted, as shown by the Ghost Hunter show) WWII battleship permanently docked on the Cape Fear river. What a setting for a Halloween bash! It was another perfect excuse to wear their costumes. Gavin was so excited to scare people, he started right away in the parking lot. Everyone we passed by would get a loud "BOO!" from him when they got close. It was so funny! "C'mon Garrett! Try to scare some people!" he said. What a hoot.

On the ship they had several spots to get candy. Our kids were really taking the scaring business seriously. The place was crawling with costumed youngsters. The highlight of the evening was the big bouncy house at the bow of the ship. We waited in line for 20 minutes. The boys had to take off their costumes and shoes to bounce in it, and Gavin was so funny about it. He was really hesitant to reveal his identity, and when he finally did he shouted out "Look everyone, I'm not a ghost! Its okay everybody, its just me! See? I was just wearing my halloween costume" He was really serious. That was the funniest thing I think he's ever done! People in line got a good chuckle out of that.

 The aquarium was a bunch of the same. Scaring, laughing, and candy looting. It was more fun for us parents because it was not as mobbed, and we could actually keep track of them while enjoying the incredible exhibits.

The boys are super excited about Halloween this year. Gavin said it is his favorite holiday, but we'll see if it takes a backseat to Christmas in a month.

Sara asked the boys what they wanted to be this time, and Gavin knew right away. "A spooky ghost!" he said. Great! That's about as simple as it gets. Garrett, always the contrarian, wants to be "A goose." A ghost and a goose are very similar in Garrett's mind, but with his silly twist. He likes everything to be just like his older brother's, but with his own little spin on it.

We searched and searched for a goose costume, but could only come up with ducks and chickens. Unfortunately, Garrett can differentiate the several species of fowl costumes we presented him with, rejecting each with a "That's not a goose." Sara had a solution.

We've had this great little spider costume from Old Navy in the attic for 2 years. It was too small for Gavin when we bought it so Sara's been anxious to use it on Garrett. When we first put him in it to try it on, he was excited. Then it slowly dawned on him that we intended for him not to be a goose, but rather a spider. He stomped around the house in that little costume for awhile, unleashing a torrent of objections and grievances, but finally he has accepted the costume and is happy with it. I hope.

Gavin's artwork of late is almost always Halloween themed. This is a great one he did of himself, trick-or-treating and scaring everyone! The black shape in the corner is a flying bat with wings in motion, and the pumpkin is a pumpkin house with candy inside, of course! He also tore all 4 edges of the paper in a fringe-like fashion to make it more "scary".