Halloween

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween.  Usually, at the beginning of the month, I get excited about the thought of decorating, and dressing up the kids.  I even juggle with the idea of dressing up myself.  I think of the costumes that some of my friends and family come up with.  They are truly talented at dressing up!  I'm serious!  Its a talent, that I wish I had!  The creativity is inspiring!

So, while I did not personally dress up... or put up decorations other than what Bunny and Bug hung up from craft day, I headed down the steep trail of making the girl's costumes.

*SIGH*

I HATE spending money on cheap costumes that probably cost no more than $5 to make.  I just couldn't justify spending that money, when we needed to focus on more important things...like food storage.  So, instead, I found some really pretty and inexpensive fabric.  Thus the project began.

Bunny (Big T) was an angel, and she knew she wanted to be an angel for months.  So, I thought up what her skirt would look like, I drew it out, measured her, and sewed.  It was fun to make...and it only took me a few hours!  She loves it and wants to wear it every day.  The nice thing is, it looks good enough to wear to church!  Yaay!  The cost you might ask?  Probably about $5 or so.  Her halo alone took me an hour to make!  Its a good thing that I decided to pass on making her wings...although, I had an amazing vision that dealt with white feather boas, and wire with tulle.  But I woke up from that dream real fast!  I think the pink wings give her great color for her costume anyway!  I don't think the end result was so bad.  She sure loved it!

It was hard to get Bug to hold still long enough to take this picture.  So this is the
best I could get!  She wanted to run off to trunk-or-treat!

Bug (Little H).  She cracks me up.  Every year, she starts out saying that she wants to be something cute and pretty like her big sister.  I mean... who doesn't want to be just like their big sister?  Here's the kicker.  Bug usually changes her mind no less that 20 times about what she wants to be, and she usually lands on being something scary or sinister.  This year, she skipped the cutsie costume idea all together, landing directly on the runway that was her mummy costume.  Originally, she was going to be a mummy from a little story she started to write.. the pink mummy, Emma.  But in the end, she didn't want to wear the pink skirt that I had made for her costume...but it doubles as a great church skirt!

Anyway, have you ever tried to make a mummy costume for your child?  A mother who wraps up her child's every limb, leaving just her eyes and mouth exposed is a truly phenomenal mother!  I started down that road, and again, I woke up from that dream real fast!  So, instead of wrapping up her legs, I just made her a rag skirt to wear over her pink leggings.  She really liked her end result though...so that is a plus!

Puppy (Baby K) couldn't care less about any of it (the nickname Puppy, is one I've been using for Baby K since he was a new born.  It just stuck...so it isn't completely circumstantial!).  I mean, he is only 1 1/2 or so... right?  The choice for him was between a puppy, or Superman.  I chose for him.  He was the puppy!  And he made a cute puppy at that.  He HATED the makeup that I tried to put on his face.  I had to finally just give up on it resembling a spotted dog.  Oh well!  He wore his squeaky shoes, so he turned heads everywhere he walked.  He caught on very quickly to the whole "I walk up to these people and they give me candy, which I put in my bucket."  He would just stand there, looking at them passively while they cooed over him, and finally gave him candy.  Then he was off!  He didn't care which direction.  He's a runner... not a walker.  Its run or sit.  Anyway, it was really cute to watch...and now I'm wishing I got it on video to experience as well.  He is so funny!  Come to think of it, all three of my kids crack me up, all in their own way.  Funny funny kids!

Here's the "gang" before we headed over to the church.

Hoss got off of work and over to the church just in time to eat the chile from our ward's chile cook off.  Then we trunk-or-treated in our church parking lot, and finally, Hoss drove us to the really nice trick-or-treating neighborhoods (He knows the city and the neighborhoods better than I do, since he drives them everyday)!  What kid doesn't want to get a full-sized candy bar!  I just hope they can hide them from daddy!  That will be the trick!

Puppy got to have one of his suckers.  Every time we go to a store, he sets his sights on those big 24 hour lollypops.  He always cries out for one.  I never let him have one...because let's face it, they are huge, and its a mess waiting to happen.  So he was very pleased when I handed him this one.  He finished it completely, then snuck a candy bar and some smarties while I was cleaning up.

All in all, Halloween was a success on our end.  I'm sure glad its over!  Now onward and upward to the best time of the year!

I didn't take pictures of our carved pumpkins...but that's no matter.  A pumpkin is a pumpkin.  I'll post later about our traditional pumpkin seed roasting, and pumpkin roasting to puree and freeze!  Yaay for pumpkin all year long!


















Today I had to initiate mandatory naps for everyone.  I'm thinking its due to the sugar hang over that the kids were on.  They were so tired this morning, that I knew they weren't going to make it through the day.  Its funny, I've heard of sugar doing funny things to your dreams if you eat too much before bed.  I think I was a victim of such things.  Last night, I dreamt of a freakishly scary clown chasing me around the church.  Then my dream morphed.  I was then running from some psycho on a train.  I had to hide in the hills.  It was frightening. :)



Sincerely,

Evelyn Curtis


How did your Halloween Celebrations go?  Any fun experiences?  Bad dreams?  Tummy aches?