Halloween

Low-key.

That's how we played it this year.

Well, as low-key as you can get with three days of festivities.  Saturday was our church party.  Chili and cornbread and a bounce house and games and activities and a trunk or treat. 

Sunday we had the traditional potato soup served in a pumpkin bread bowl. (white bread that has been dyed and shaped to look like a pumpkin)  We invited a friend over, she brought cookies to decorate, and helped us cut out our jack-o-lanterns. (she's so much fun the kids prefer to think of her as "aunt Chelsa" cause then they have more of a claim on her.)  

On the actual night of Halloween we had our usual little get together at a neighborhood park for dinner.  Soups and rolls and chips and cupcakes.  I love living in a neighborhood that does those kinds of things.  It was fun.

Madison wanted to be a 50's car-hop.  Roller skates and all.  She even talked one of my more creative and talented friends into helping her with her costume. (Chelsa)  But alas, the cast wasn't ready to come off.

They did take the old green one off, but Madison was in tears as the doctor was asking her to move her arm, so they put another one back on.  And if you think she picked pink, (cause I got lots of comments from people saying they were surprised her cast was green) you'd be wrong (again).  She picked orange.  For Halloween.

But having a cast on for Halloween means no rollerskates. The car-hop costume would have to wait.  Again. She wanted to be that last year, but then I found the "Thing" costumes, and made an executive order that they would all be Things for Halloween,.  We played to our strengths and she was a hospital patient, or a car accident victim, or whatever.

I knew Christopher was going to be difficult.  I figured I'd just dress him up in Zach's old Thomas costume, but I couldn't find it.  I probably gave it away.  LAST YEAR.  Probably because Zach wore it when he was both 3 and 4 and now Christopher's 5, so I figured the window to recycle it had closed.... But I did manage to scrounge up Zach's old Spiderman costume from when he was in Kindergarten.  Minus the hood/mask thing, but Zach never wore it, I knew Christopher would never wear it, so I didn't even bother looking for it.

Of course at our church Halloween party on Saturday night, he would have NOTHING to do with it. He went trunk-or-treating sans costume.   By Sunday though, he had enough time to digest it all, and wanted to wear his costume around the house.  He even added my witch hat for good measure. 

By Halloween night we had no problems getting him into his costume. 

Zach wanted to be a Lego mini-figure.  I didn't know how to go about doing that.  He thought that I could just buy one of the costumes you see on people walking around LegoLand.  As in, the professional "character" costumes that the people wear, and the kids line-up to meet them and get their picture taken with them.  Sorry.  Not in the budget. 

Since he couldn't come up with something reasonable, I had him recycle Madison's old whoopie cushion costume from when she was in the 4th grade.  

Of course they had the parade at Zach's and Maddie's school at the same time as Christopher's school, so I had to choose between them.  I picked Zach's and Maddie's because I could support two kids, this would be Maddie's last parade, and it was closer, I could walk there instead of trying to find parking at Christopher's school (which is impossible).  Plus, I figured I'd be a distraction for Christopher anyway.  

So much for supporting two kids.  Zach elected to not wear his costume.  It sat rumpled in his back pack all day long.

Nick also recycled his costume.  He was Thing 1 again.  He tried to talk either of the other kids into being Thing 2, but to no avail.  We might have put more effort into finding him a new costume, but he didn't seem to care, and he was going to miss some of the festivities anyway. 

Did I mention he's working on the school play at the High School?  He's one of the spotlight guys.  As a freshman he's just an intern, but last Saturday night (the night of the church party) he got to run the spotlights himself as the more experienced person couldn't make it.  He's pretty jazzed about the whole thing, and it keeps him busy now that cross country is over.

 He really only dressed up to take Christopher Trick or Treating.  Which was great cause this was probably John's and mine first Halloween ever that we got to spend together.  Normally, it's more of a "divide and conquer" thing.

So after the little neighborhood gathering at a park (we have the best neighborhood), Zach ran off with his friends, Madison ran off with hers, Nick took off with Christopher, and John and I were left alone, hanging out on the front porch, giving the littlest kids too much candy despite the parent's protests, watching Halloween shows on the ipad in between Trick-or-Treaters.

The kids made it home safe and happy.

The End.

Halloween 2010

While visiting Orlando we stumbled upon the perfect (in our opinion) Halloween costumes for the kids.

Zach was a little upset, he wanted to be Luigi from Super Mario Bros. But other than that, the kids were happy to go along with it.

But when you come across "Thing 1, 2, 3, and 4" t-shirts, and you have four little things of your own, it's kinda meant to be.

I made John go with the theme and be the Cat in the Hat. I couldn't figure out at costume of my own, so I went as my standard- I threw on my witch hat that has served me quite well for several years. I did upgrade the ensemble and bought a new t-shirt at for $5.

I've put off this post because I have been waiting to get them all together, but for whatever reason, it hasn't been possible. yet.

Our big Halloween festivities included of a Halloween parade at the kids' school,

and a trunk or treat at our church on Saturday night.

and both Saturday night and Sunday (Halloween) night we got to spend some time with our friend, Chelsa. Actually, since she braved the ward campout with us a little while back, the kids have decided she's more like an aunt than just a friend. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

(if you think this halloween post is late, you should know that I still have 2 pumpkins the kids are anxiously awaiting to turn into jack o lanterns)

Now that's scary!

I came home from running errands earlier this month to find that some of the kids had taken it upon themselves to decorate the front of the house.

That's scary for several reasons.

a) I have issues relinquishing decorative control,

b) they used super cheapo decorations I had purchased the year before to decorate our car for our church's "trunk or treat",

and last, but certainly not least-

c) they enlisted the help of the 8 year old next door neighbor Braden to help with the staple gun.

"Oooooh butterflies!"

Halloween

We had a good Halloween this year. It was pretty cold for our ward's trunk-or-treat (I swear it was probably in the 50's!) but it warmed back up for the kids to go trick or treating. A good thing too, because all those costumes tend to lose some of their charm when they are covered up with a parka.

On Halloween night we had our annual neighborhood chili and cornbread party at the park before hand. I brought root beer as usual, and it totally rocked this year. (If I do say so myself) I had the fortune of having John run into a good friend of mine as they were both buying dry ice, and she had some great ideas for the root beer. Like adding a vanilla bean when you make the syrup, and instead of all white sugar, do half and half white sugar and dark brown sugar. I'd never seen that stuff disappear so fast. We usually have leftovers.

The two older kids ran off with their friends to go trick or treating and I walked around with the little ones. I pulled Christopher in the wagon and he chowed on candy the whole time. I've been enjoying watching him get into the Halloween spirit a little bit this year. He'll point out every "punky" (pumpkin) he sees and tells me things are "scary" but was never really afraid of anything. He was Mario (as in Super Mario Brothers). He likes to "play" with his big brothers when they are playing Mario Kart on the Wii. They give him a controller and he's happy as a clam to be included.

Zach found a pilot costume he liked- but as usual he wouldn't wear the mask. The only time he wore it was to pose for pictures. I don't know why he keeps picking costumes with masks.
Nick was Dwight Shrute from the TV show The Office. Apparently people thought he was Harry Potter instead. He was trying not to smile, cause you know, Dwight never smiles. "Showing your teeth is a sign of weakness."
Madison really wanted to be a devil. We found a website with the costume she liked for a pretty good price, but then I procrastinated and they were sold out. The only devil costumes that were left weren't appropriate for a nine year old. Her second choice was a Whoopie cushion. Thanks to Madison, she saw to it that one of us got to dress up as a devil. I won't show you the tail though. I have a policy against that sort of thing.

Halloween rants

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween. I love the parties, the atmosphere, the cooler weather, trick or treating with my kids, making treats to give to neighbors, serving homemade root beer to the kids whose parents let them take a home made treat from a stranger (we also have store bought candy), stealing my kid's candy while they are at school, other people's costumes...

That's right, other people's costumes. I love seeing what people come up with. I'm always impressed. But I hate, hate, hate, coming up with costumes for my family. Basically for costumes there are several categories- the over priced store bought things that make you question weather or not it will survive one evening of running around the neighborhood. The REALLY overpriced ones that are GORGEOUS, which might be okay if you only had one kid, but when you are trying to outfit 4, you'd have to take out a home equity loan to afford. There's the homemade ones, which take both skill, patience, and creativity, none of which I have. Then there's the costume that can be done running around to thrift stores and/or craft stores, but takes up an inordinate amount of time, and a whole lot of skill and/or creativity is involved.

I went to a Halloween party a week or so ago. It was fun. Dressing up was optional, so I did what I have done for the past three years, I threw on my awesome greenish black witch hat purchased for $10 at Wal-Mart on a whim three years ago. I also added my "Of course I'm in a bad mood, someone dropped a house on my sister" t-shirt. You know, the one I wear every single week, the day after laundry day. And the witch hat necklace John bought me the first time I saw Wicked. Anyways, people commented on the mileage that hat was getting. This year Madison is taking my costume into her own hands. She has made me devil horns, tail and pitch fork out of red construction paper, paper towel tubes, and lots of tape.

I've always agonized over the costume thing. Once my mom made me a cute bunny costume. That was a favorite. And who can forget The Virus costume?

But then I got a little older and the responsibility to come up with a costume fell on my shoulders, and let's just say that it went downhill from there.

In the 5th grade I just raided my grandma's closet. I think I was going for "Rock Star" but I told people I was a gypsy.

6th grade wasn't much better. I found a multi-colored metallic wig and went as a punk rocker. Or something to that effect.

Do you ever look at a picture of yourself and get a little sick feeling in your gut? Like you remember thinking you were hot stuff at the time, (hence the fish nets) but now, not so much. I broke down and purchased three costumes for my three youngest. I procrastinated and this one website was having a sale, so they had to pick from what was available, and only Christopher got his first choice, but I still got them taken care of for less than $75. Which still feels ridiculous to me.

For Nick I ended up taking the Thrift store route. I had one of those rare moments of genius, the problem is just making it work. I picked up an outfit for him, but at Saver's it's not like beggars can be choosers, so I am hoping the Men's medium shirt I bought won't look ridiculous on him. Including gas, I still think I ended up paying as much as I did on each of the other kids.

Long story short, $100 dollars later, my kids are ready for Halloween. And apparently, thanks to Madison, I am too. And it only cost the price of a whole roll of tape. (You'll have to tune in later for the big reveal. Knowing me, I'll get around to it mid-January)

*My other big gripe about this time of year is the uncharacteristically bad allergies. Ugh. I spend most of my day wishing I could claw my eyes out. The weather is (Finally!!) gorgeous, and I can't enjoy it. It was in the 60's today. The 60's!!! That's practically jacket weather. It's definitely a take-Christopher-to-the-park day and hope some other mothers are doing the same. Instead I am hiding out in my house. Because my only alternative is Benadryl and that stuff kicks my tail like nothing else. If I pop one of those little pink pills I should just plan on nixing any plans for the rest of the day and hope Christopher stays safe while I am unconscious.

What I find on my camera

I've been going through pictures on my camera and uploading things, and deleting things I don't want or need anymore, and I came across some pictures that Nick took several weeks ago, so I thought I'd share some of them.

I'm not sure why he felt the need to take some of these picture, or why I feel the need to post them (boredom, housework avoidance?) but, oh well.

Christopher's Handiwork

Part of John's postcard collection. And my messy pantry. And cluttered fridge. If you want to see that in person, all you need to do is walk down the sidewalk in the greenbelt behind our house and you can see all the ugly details. All the time. The kids think the pantry doors belong open all the time. But the fridge is my fault. Sorry.We're working on teaching the kids German at FHE. The scribbling is Christopher's addition to the lesson.Our favorite Thanksgiving decorations. They sit on the coffee table in the front room all month long.

So wait, if it was mid-November when these pictures were taken why does the calendar still say "October"?

And what's up with the Halloween decorations still being out? Who's the decorator around here anyway? She needs to be fired.And the maid who is in charge of dusting. She's fired too. It's so hard to find good help these days.I have no idea why he took this picture. Maybe he relates.

Halloween 2008

The kids all had a great time this Halloween. This year Nick was the Greek God Apollo- It was pretty much assigned to him for a Social Studies Project- On Halloween day the 6th graders did a "wax museum" thing where they dressed up as a character from Roman, Greek, or Egyptian mythology, and they had to dress up and memorize a part to say when other school kids came through their classrooms. Nick's costume was pretty much a white sheet, some safety pins and a length of rope, the sheet was too big, and I think he looked a bit more like Socrates than Apollo. When he went trick-or-treating I just told him to tell people that's what he was.

Madison wanted to be Wilbur from Charlotte's Web. They've been reading that at school, and she just loves the book. I made the nose since the store-bought ones kept breaking.
Zach wanted to be a skeleton, and I didn't feel like running around from store to find a skeleton costume, and I was already feeling pretty crafty after that nifty nose I made, so instead I went running around from store to store looking for white contact paper to cut bones out of. Unfortunately by the time we had our ward's trunk or treat, (a week before Halloween) I still had found no contact paper so we went with the punk look and safety pinned poster-board bones to his black sweats. A friend of mine lent me some skeleton gloves, which he was super excited about but wore them for exactly 15 minutes. I found white contact paper by Halloween, and was up way too late cutting out his bones the night before. As far as a finished product goes, this is the best it gets. As a side note, if anyone needs any white contact paper, I have plenty. I finally found it at Home Depot. We figured Christopher could be Steve from Blue's Clues, since we already had the green striped shirt left over from when Nick was 2 1/2. We figured that would be a nice (free) costume, that he would probably love over anything else anyway, so that's what he was. However, the costume wouldn't be complete without an authentic Handy Dandy Notebook, and were able to locate one on e-bay (what on Earth did we ever do before e-bay?) so our cheapest costume became the most expensive one with the addition of one little prop. He however loves that thing and carries it with him all day long, and asks me numerous times a day to adjust the coil on the top because it tends to unwind itself, and he needs equal amounts of red plastic coil sticking out on either side of the notebook. (OCD anyone?) As I mentioned earlier, last week was the ward's trunk or treat, and Christopher wasn't much interested in collecting any candy as he was running around and into the parking lot. I spent my time chasing him. Then after the trunk or treat they had a chili contest and a dance floor, I was able to try a bit of the chili, but once again spent most of my time chasing him around. The other kids said they had fun though.

On Halloween night, our neighborhood had a little get together at the neighborhood park for some chili and rolls for dinner. We brought homemade root beer. I started making this 2 years ago for Halloween when I had to make some for Nick's class Halloween party. We serve it up in our front yard to the trick-or-treaters (along with store bought, prepackaged candy) who want something to drink (and know us and trust us). The dry ice is always a hit, even if people are wary of taking a drink from strangers. This year I was able to purchase the dry ice easily, but between John and I we went to seven stores to find the root beer concentrate. John finally found it at the third Wal-Mart we tried. The kids had a good time, Nick went off with some friends, I went around with the younger three, John stayed home and passed out candy. Christopher didn't mutter a single word the entire time, but held on to that bucket for dear life.

Past Halloween Favorites

Just thought I'd share a few of my favorite costumes my kids wore in past years. When Nick was little I was very diligent in taking him to kiddie kandids to get professional pictures taken. I only had the one kid, and he was so easy.

The other kids weren't that easy when they were little. Madison has since developed a love of the camera, but Zach and especially Christopher aren't there yet. I have to settle for snapshots, some years I get a cute shot, others, not so much.
This picture is from 2003- Madison was the cutest little thing, and Nick was so into Harry Potter. Probably my favorite Halloween costume was the year Madison was The little mermaid. I had a grandiose plan to dye her hair red instead of buying a wig. When I was in High school, I had a friend who had brown hair and dyed her hair red with kool-aid, and I successfully dyed my own hair green in high school (although I was going for blue). So I mixed up a batch of cherry and orange kool-aid paste, and worked it into her hair. She was such a good sport, but she said her head itched, so we didn't keep it on that long. I think the effect was rather nice, it was a pretty auburn, but it wasn't overly noticeable. And it smelled fruity. This was a few years ago, even though Zach's favorite thing in the whole wide world was Thomas, he still hated the costume. I think he thought we were all nuts. Also, I love that in AZ little girls can dress up like Tinkerbell, and not have to worry about fitting their snowsuit on underneath their costume.

And just for fun, I can't leave out John. What a babe. I'm a lucky woman.