Happy Halloween!!!

Every year I keep expecting Jessie to say she is too old for trick or treat.  And every year I am pleasantly surprised when she wants to dress up and hike through our little town collecting candy.

 

This year her and her bestie wanted to be a box of nerds.  Of course, they mention this the weekend before Halloween.  Kelseigh's mom was stumped, but we quickly came up with this:

 

 

2 cardboard boxes, spray painted for the base coat, and then the girls drew and painted the rest of it.  I brought some webbing (like what you would put on a tote bag) at JoAnn's and cut holes in the boxes and safety pinned it all together.

I had the brilliant idea to buy white tights and use RIT dye to get them the right colors, but actually, sweat pants and sweat shirts from Aeropostale worked just fine!

We ended up with 3 adults and 6 kids walking around.  It would have been 4 adults but our trick or treating was postponed from Wednesday to Sunday evening due to Hurricane Sandy and all the rain we had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  And Todd left on a hunting trip on Saturday so he lucked out.

We did decide the nerds costume was pretty fitting for Jessie and Kelseigh.

I think herding cats would have been easier than keeping track of these kids!

Tyler wanted to be Michael Myers.  So a pair of blue dickie work pants and a blue work shirt were sewn together and we painted his face white and put the blood on it.   This picture was a couple weeks ago for his Boy Scouts Halloween Party - which I did not put as much "blood" on him.

This was last night during trick or treating - much better!

I've been busy painting and cleaning - I'll be back later with any luck to show my finished sewing room!

The Natives are Restless

As with past Halloween's, my kids had varying wishes for what they wished to be for trick-or-treating.

This year in 5th grade, Jessie has been working on a report and shelter model for her Native American project. Let's just say....it's been a trying month here at home. One or the other wouldn't have been bad, but when it's a 15 paragraph report with pictures, illustrations, table of contents and a bibliography AND a shelter model which includes the shelter, landscaping and cultural aspects all made out of natural materials....well......hmmm. More on that later - the pain is still to fresh....


But they FINALLY settled on being Indians. And I had a week to pull the costumes together. Plenty of time.

Tyler needed his for boy scouts the Thursday before Halloween. So I got up Thursday morning at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. and whipped out his shirt and pants. Fortunately, the local costume store supplied the headdress and the tomahawk.

Jessie's? Trick or treating was at 6:00 on Sunday. I sat down about 3:30 p.m. and whipped up her dress. No pants for her - she wanted to wear her leggings and her boots. And again, the costume shop supplied the wig, even though I had to braid it. And the kids had friends coming over for pizza beforehand......


Jessie and Blair had to play cowboys and indians before we left:


And then we had to get a group shot:


We covered the entire town for trick-or-treating, and met up with other kids throughout the night. At one point we had 3 cowboys, a witch, 2 indians and a teen. We ditched the drunken rock star 6th grader as soon as we could:)

All in all we had a blast. And the kids have 2 more costumes to add to our ever growing collection!

Trick or Treat

Saturday night we went to my Mom's so the kids could go trick or treating. This was the easiest year I have had on costumes:)

Every year (up until this year) I have made the kids their costumes. There have been the ladybug, raggedy ann, a bear, a firefighter, a ghoul, a witch, a cheerleader, a flower fairy, a devil, a football player, a victorian girl, numerous princesses.....

But this year, Tyler wanted to be a football player. With REAL football pants and a REAL jersey. And Jessie wanted to be a REAL huskies cheerleader.

Fortunately for me, the sporting goods store in Ashland had a pair of white football pants in Tyler's size on the clearance rack, and an honest-to-goodness husky cheerleader outfit for Jessie on the clearance rack.

I did have a few hard moments upon realizing that I didn't have to make anything for halloween, then rejoiced because I was not up at 1:00 in the morning finishing costumes.....

Here's to hoping everyone had a good Halloween!
Kris

Family Traditions

One of my traditions (insane though it may be) is that I make the kids' their Halloween costumes every single year. It all started when Jessie was 3. The year before she had been a devil, which was a costume that I think my Mom had made (or had someone make) for my brother.



Since then there has been no turning back.


From Raggedy Ann, to a fairy princess, to a Victorian era girl, to a firefighter, a bear and a pirate, I drive myself insane every October making costumes. One year I could not find a football player costume pattern, and that is what Tyler wanted to be. So I had to buy the pieces for that one, and felt so bummed and guilty buying it when I should have made it.


It's certainly not cheaper than buying costumes. I think it's one of those things - someday (hopefully in the far distant future) I will have grandkids that I can pass these costumes onto. Although who knows, by that time they may not know what a Cheerleader or a Football player are.


So yesterday I went to Wal-mart to get fabric, notions, thread and a pattern:


And last night, I got these started on:



The cape is done, I just have the orange dress and witch's hat to go. I did start the dress, and ran out of fabric!

Usually I am organized enough to have them done long before Halloween. But it so happens that this fall we've been busy, and time has slipped away from us. At least they both picked easy patterns for this year!



We'll see how many late nights I have to pull to get them done - hopefully none. One year, Todd was out in Colorado hunting elk, Todd's mom was making Goldilocks and the bears costumes for all the grandkids (Jessie was Goldilocks and the 5 nephews were the bears). We were going trick or treating at their house on Wednesday - she called me Tuesday night at 7:00 with an I'm not going to have Tyler's costume done - he was 6 mo. old. What did I do??? Pulled the bear fur fabric out of my stash, and made him a complete bear costume. Suit, head, mittens and footies. I was up until 2:00 in the morning making that stupid costume. Couldn't be unfair to Tyler now could I and not have a costume for him, right? Todd thought I was insane that time.

I know there will come a time when both kids are too old for a costume made by Mom, but for now......I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.


Kris