In my house, Halloween prep begins in late August or Early September.  A little background for you about our family:  I am married to a Halloween-crazy man who puts on a semi-famous
haunted house in our basement every Halloween.  When I say he creates a haunted basement, I don't mean the "stick your hands in a bowl of peeled grapes" type of home haunted basement.  In my husband's haunted basement the children of the neighborhood are scared-to-death by the following:

• A tunnel that they must crawl through while monsters outside the tunnel attempt to grab them
• Monsters that grab them as they go through the basement maze
• Grim reaper that leads them into the haunted basement
• Fake stairways
• Fog everywhere
• Werewolves, Vampires

Tim's haunted basement has turned into a wonderful family event for our friends and family.  Our basement is where children of all ages get the peewad scared out of them the Saturday before Halloween every year.  We have almost as many Halloween decorations and items as we do Christmas decorations.  Don't even get me started on Christmas.  That is a post for another day.  But if it gives you an idea of our Christmas decorations, the neighbors refer to us as "The Griswalds" during the holiday season, since we have so many lights on our house.  Mr. Halloween is ALSO Mr. Christmas but that is a story for later. 

So Tim and his assistants (my oldest daughter, a few friends, some other dads and some friends he begs every year) spend days creating the perfect scary basement.  Rubber heads, french fried fingers, loads of fake spiders and more start coming out of the basement in September.  Every year the box of faux bloody arms and legs grows larger while I make brain jello molds and dirt coffin cupcakes for people to eat.  The best part of this story is that I am a total wimp and am scared of my own shadow. I get scared on kiddy roller coasters.  My daughters make fun of me because I'm the one that closes her eyes tight at the scary movies.  In other words, I am a complete weenie.  A scaredy cat.  A wimp.

This natural wimp married a Halloween fanatic and now we have two Halloween loving girls.  Especially my older daughter, Grace, who is old enough to help dad plan the haunted basement. She's so into Halloween that when she picked out a kitten for her 13th birthday, she picked out....a black cat.  Stormy, the black cat is the photo you see in this post.  I will be sure to give you guys updates as the fright fest grows. 

Check out Disney Family.com's group Halloween blog, The Ghoul's Guide, for more stories and tips.