Boo!

My favorite Halloween things this year:


1. This gorgeous European garden spider and her web above my parsley patch. She is huge. Bees and flies fear her, with good reason. Gnats are beneath her notice.


2. My new favorite candy bar. Yes, I think it might even be better than Reese's peanut butter cups.


3. Not bothering to carve a jack-o-lantern, instead having two whole pumpkins on the porch along with the big fake plug-in jack-o-lantern I bought at Stop & Shop. I do, however, have fond memories of the cool white pumpkin that Andrés and I decorated several years back. I downloaded the witch pattern from Martha Stewart's Web site and transferred it to the eerily pale gourd; Andrés filled it in with black paint. You can almost hear her cackle! (The witch; not Martha. I think.)


4. Caroline's first Halloween costume. Little ladybug, you are the cutest treat ever!