Happy Halloween

We enjoy Halloween at our house. We don't happen to be of the belief that Christians can't enjoy costumes and trick-or-treating or decorating the yard and porch for the holiday. Steven will probably fuss at me for saying this, but he reads my October issue of Martha Stewart Living every year to find new Halloween ideas. He makes fun of my love of Martha, but even he thinks she's #1 with the Halloween stuff.

Just about everything in our Halloween decor is a Martha project. The wooden cats flanking the walkway are a Martha project that Steven lovingly made for me.



I loved the cat mask on the pumpkin idea when it came out one year in Martha's magazine. A trip to Kinko's, some scissors, ribbon, and one of those craft pumpkins were all it took.



And of course, there was the year the mice templates were in the magazine. Steven placed the cut-out mice all around the porch. I thought the mouse on the doorbell was a nice touch.



We have spider balls, ala Martha, hanging from the ceiling of the porch, too. For better pictures of our stuff, go here.

In the second photo with the cat mask on the pumpkin, you might notice a little portable CD player. That was Steven's new idea for this year. He scoured the internet to find some spooky sounds to download and play on a loop. He played something with crickets, frogs, and owls, which I really liked. Then came a recording with some demonic-sounding voice. I told him we can't have anything too scary because we want little kids to still come to the door. He laughed and said, "So, the demonic voice saying, 'Welcome to Hell,' is out?" Um, yeah.

I told him that nothing says, "This household loves Jesus," like a devil voice saying, "Welcome to Hell," as kids walk up to ring the doorbell!

We're sticking with the frogs, crickets, and owls.