My First Halloween

I might have said this before, but Halloween has always been my favourite holiday of the year.. I love the whole dressing up and eerie, mystical, spookiness of it all. It's so fun! Back when Halloween was a non existing thing in Norway, we threw our own small Halloween parties at home with our friends. Though they didn't quite get it, or understand much. It was an american/english tradition, that very few had heard of, if any. Everything is different now, as most kids nowadays is growing up with it. Celebrating Halloween is finally, just as natural as celebrating Christmas! Times has definitely changed..

It all started many moons ago.. When I was a little girl, my dad got a job offer in Montreal, Canada. We ended up living there for a couple of years. I did my first two years at school, learned english, made new friends, and I also learned new customs and traditions. One of them was, good ol' spooky Halloween.. And a passion was born!

I went as Litttle Red Ridinghood, on my first Halloween ever. My mom dressed my sister up as a witch, in homemade costume and scary makeup. With a big, black, pointy witch hat, that she had worked on for days. I remember it having cob webs and a spider dangeling down from it. I thought my sister looked super awsome.. My mother has always been of the crafty type and very good at it too. But she might have done, a bit of a too good job this time. It ended in tears, when my sister saw her own reflection in the mirror. She got so scared, that mom had to scramble together a cute pussycat costume, in the very last minute. I will never forget that witch costume.. Such a cool costume, that was never used.

What happend to homemade costumes, anyway? I always liked to shop around for my costumes. Put them carfeully together. Something old and something new.. I think that makes the best costumes.

What do you prefer? Ready-to-wear costumes,

or homemade? Scary or cute?



Me (on the left, as Little Red Ridinghood) and my sister, on our very first Halloween! Think we look pretty excited..

Childhood Memories...

As every Christmas, I was looking through the old family photos at my parents.. When it hit me; why not take some photos of my favourites, so I can look at them any time I like! I love flipping through the pages of the albums, it's like being transported back to my childhood.. So many memories with each and every caption. Except for the ones where I'm really young of course, like the kitchen weight..;) But I remember quite far back, for some reason. Down to a few itsy parts from my first year to more of my second, and so on.. I know some people don't remember anything from their first years...



A new born me, on the kitchen scale..

Stina and Tor-Finn, on the captions below, was my first best friends in life.. They lived in the appartment house next to ours, on the outskirts of Oslo, in my tiny little world at that time. We lost contact when we were still little kids, both their families moved away from the area where we grew up. My family stayed. Well, that's allmost true, we moved back after two years in Canada. When they decided to move. I had some contact with Stina during the first couple of years at school, but the distance made it hard to contain contact at that age.

Today I still have contact with a few of my childhood friends, but not Stina and Tor-Finn. Maybe we would have, if they didn't move away? People from the first years of your life tend to stick around. They become allmost like extra siblings later in life, at least that's my experience..

I sometimes wonder where they might be and what they are doing.. Even in our internet times, I haven't been able to seek them out. It could be fun to know, just to see that they're ok at least. Maye some day...

After fixing and adjusting some of the aged and yellowed colors a bit. I decided to make polaroids of a few of the photos.. Check out my Flickr album, if you want to see more of my digitalized, childhood memories:)

What is your favourite childhood memories? Do you still have contact with your first childhood buddies, or did you loose touch with them as time has passed by?



I was a real dad's girl and a tomboy. I climbed every tree and played with the boys..


My wonderful, crazy mom..


He is still hanging around..

Every now and then, me and Tor-Finn would take a break from our mischiefs, and have a tea party with juice and raisins...

Sandwiches & cocoa, listening with frantic joy to mom's stories, about the monster living in the kitchen kabinet..

Me and my sister ready for Gro's birthday party. I wouldn't go unless I got to wear a head band (all the big kids around had it), mom made me one out of some ribbon she had.. Early sence of fashion lol? But then again, I also thought fillings were the coolest thing..!


I allways had a passion for drawing and expressings myself through creating..


Ready for my first Halloween (Montreal, Qubec).. I won first price at school for my costume!


Mom carving the pumpkin.. Little did I know then it would become a life long obsession;)