Halloween '14

Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year. One would assume a Friday Halloween would be ideal--all week to anticipate, and then no alarm the next morning. But one would be wrong, if you're me. A busy week at work completely distracted me, and the (very unusual) 5:45 wakeup call from Lorelai the next morning had me completely regretting the extra candy and later bedtime.



We also completely neglected to get any real pumpkins, so I had to go with fake ones on the porch. We put off going to the pumpkin patch until the weekend before, and by that time, it looked like really slim pickings on the field (based on some fugly ones people were bringing back), plus we were busy doing other things at the farm. So I figured I'd just stop by the grocery store on the way home one day that week...but it completely skipped my mind. Who forgets to get pumpkins for Halloween?!

At least the costumes were easy this year. Lorelai had been asking incessantly to be Elsa, but I told her probably not--those costumes were expensive! But just my luck, my sister-in-law had a beautiful Elsa-ish dress that no longer fit Lorelai's cousin Luca, so she brought it to us when we met them at Great Wolf Lodge. Lorelai LOVES this dress. It also has hip things (no idea what they're called) but that makes the dress lean more towards the Cinderella side, so Lorelai left them off for Trick-or-Treating.






Since she couldn't do a bounce house at her school carnival or run around a park with a full hoop skirt, we put together a second costume with her butterfly wings and a tutu.




Aidan and Logan ended up deciding on beards from Target, without any real plan. They just really liked the funny beards. In hindsight, we totally should have gone the ZZ Top route because we have a couple of play guitars--oh well. People assumed they were Duck Dynasty guys, but they were just non-specific bearded men. Grandpa and dad, according to Lorelai. Or, bearded Man...Chester United fans according to me (since they wore their jerseys to go with their Man U beanies they had to wear to keep the beard elastic in place).





Since the kids got almost a whole bucket full of candy last week from ToTing at my work, we only hit a few houses on Halloween night. Then they just hung out on the front porch giving out candy. Fun was had by all!

Happy Halloween

Behold the creative genius of Aidan and Logan: a mohawked cyclops ghost. They sketched and I carved. Love it! (We only had one pumpkin big enough to carve this year)


From my Minnie, Creeper and Hawkeye to you--Happy Halloween!



So after several years "off" from making costumes, we ended up DIYing Aidan's MineCraft Creeper head and Logan's Hawkeye costume when we couldn't agree on any of the store-bought costumes that weren't $$. Sorry, but I don't want to spend $40 on something you're going to wear once, dudes.

But what we ended up with was absolutely perfect. In Adam's abundant free time (a perk to being unemployed? It gave him something fun to distract him, at least!) he used this tutorial to make Logan's bow and arrow set, and I followed her instructions for the arm band. We just cut the fingers off a cheap knit glove for the other hand. Grandma Cheryl sewed the fabric and zipper onto the t-shirt and I just ended up hem taping some grosgrain ribbon to the raw edges of the fabric so it didn't fray out of the stitching. Not too difficult, and it turned out great!


The quiver is just duck-taped thin cardboard; the strap is duck tape as well.



After we put the kibosh on Aidan's "scary jester costume" idea to the tune of $34.99, he decided he wanted to be a MineCraft Creeper. Adam just taped 12x12 inch pieces of cardboard together into a box and I spray glued/taped the printed out pattern. (I used the template from this youtube.) Bonus: that shirt from Target can be worn anytime!


Creepers gonna creep...



Lorelai was the easy one--once she saw that Minnie Mouse costume at Target, she put it in the cart and that was that. I just bought some slippers (I was going to get her some anyway since she's outgrown her old ones) and duck taped the bottom so she could wear them outside without damaging them. Boom, done.


mesmerized by a group of early trick-or-treaters...way too distracted to smile or look at me!




We had great weather for trick-or-treating tonight and made it to quite a few houses before our buckets were full (enough) and our feet were tired.



The kids also got to wear their costumes to my work for trick-or-treating, and to the annual fall festival at our daycare. Rave reviews on their costumes all around.



We had a happy Halloween, indeed! Now please excuse me while I go stuff my face with all of the candy Lorelai can't eat (and then feel gross about it later).

Pictures of Halloweens Past

My last post inspired me to take a trip down memory lane and reminisce about Halloweens past--from my pre-blogging days. I even had to dig up some backup CDs for the first 3 years, so it was nice see baby Aidan and baby Logan pictures again. :)


2004: Aidan was the cutest darn Elvis I ever did see! The idea was inspired by his naturally crazy hair. Also, my first-ever homemade costume, woohoo. He got rave reviews (although people also thought he looked like Evel Knievel, which I totally get).






2005: My mom made this pumpkin costume when my sister and I were little and it was handed down to me for Aidan. Not sure he was a fan. :)






2006: Dalmatian and Fireman. I painstakingly sewed every one of those felt dots to Logan's costume and made Aidan's coat out of a sweatshirt and duck tape. Duck tape is magical. I had some time on my hands while I was out on maternity leave that year.





2007: Matching tigers. If I remember correctly, this was Aidan's request. Those tails ended up in their dress-up bin and have been worn countless times. Another ode to the magic of duck tape!







2008: Ninjas. Also known as the first year I bought costumes from the store and saved myself a bunch of time.





2009: Batman and Superman. Logan actually got that costume for his birthday because he wanted a cape so freaking bad. Another addition to the dress-up bin.





2010: As much as I wanted to find coordinating costumes for all three of them, Aidan and Logan insisted on superheroes again. Of course Logan being Wolverine (aka Logan) was perfect. Aidan was Venom. And I went the easy route with Lorelai and just stuck a bunny bib and some felt ears on her can called it done. Cutest bunny ever, though!





And then there's 2011 (the most random collection of costumes...until this year) and last year.

Ah, memories. I'm such a sucker for cute baby pics. :)

Halloween sucks for the peanut allergic

This is Lorelai's first Halloween that we've known about her peanut allergy (we suspected it last year, but weren't going to give her candy anyway) and after looking at her haul from last night, I realize just how disappointing this might be in years to come. There's literally almost nothing in her bucket she can safely eat.


what she got vs. what's safe for her to eat (not sure if milk duds are safe, but they're too hard for her to chew)

I remember back in the day, this was my ideal bucket. It's the "good" candy—none of that bubble yum or generic hard candy crap that I would almost always throw out when I was a kid (or give to my mom...).

Of course she doesn't need the candy at all, even if it is safe, so this seems like such a petty complaint right now. But because of the boys, she's already asking for treats and she knows what her candy is, so it's hard telling her she can't have it.



I also know that candy isn't the only fun thing about Halloween (just like Christmas isn't just about the presents), and she did have fun dressing up, trick or treating and decorating her pumpkin, but it's such a tease to tell her to go ask for candy and then take it away from her right away. It's like having her open presents and then taking them back. No bueno!



Not sure how we'll handle this in years to come, but suggestions are welcome! In the meantime, at least Adam and I have a ton of good candy to share without feeling guilty about swiping it from the kids. :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from my little ghouls!



The kids are in bed after a successful night of trick-or-treating, that's hopefully the last of the jerks who don't realize lights out means don't ring the doorbell, and I think I've finally warmed up. (It's not super cold, but I'm a wimp.)



I really considered only taking Lorelai around the cul-de-sac and then letting her stay at the house with my mom to hand out candy, but she was just so super excited to go to all the houses with the boys that I couldn't resist. By the end of the evening, she was waving to everyone and saying trick-or-treat right along with the boys.



I'm bummed because I don't think any of the photos on my good camera turned out so all I have might be these crappy iphone photos. At least it's something though. And I can always just console myself in the 3 buckets of candy we now have. ;)

Pumpkin carving

Is it bad that the only reason I was motivated to carve our pumpkins is for the seeds? Not for the joy of my children and allowing them to channel their creativity on this once-a-year activity, but because I like roasted pumpkin seeds. The fun my children had was just a bonus on top of my fall treat. :)

Ok, ok, I really did have fun, too. I honestly love it when we can all do something special like this together. It's not every day you get to carve pumpkins and dig out seeds. This is prime memory-making time, and it's impossible not to enjoy myself when my kids are having so much fun.

But let me just say that pumpkin carving would have been so much quicker and easier if I didn't want to save those darn seeds! Luckily I employed slave labor to separate the seeds in exchange for carving their designs into the pumpkins. :) No, I'm still not cool handing knives over to my kids...which is smart if they're anything like me and really bad with knives. Don't tell Adam, but I almost severed a finger trying to cut the top off one of the pumpkins. (Note to self: bigger knives are not necessarily better!)


ewwwwww!!! 

Anyway, the finished results were totally worth the slimy mess.

Aidan came up with a brilliant original design of a flaming headed vampire ghost (on the left). Logan needed some guided inspiration, so we googled and he picked his favorite. I traced and cut the pumpkins with lots of "you're doing awesome!" encouragement from the boys.

Confession: after gutting and carving 2 pumpkins, I was really not into doing it a 3rd time for Lorelai. But thanks to this inspiration, we worked out a way for her to participate in the decorating. I even had the tissue paper already out for something else, so it was super easy. I just used my shape punches and we were in business.

I had contemplated having her paint her pumpkin (the boys really wanted me to carve "boo" and their plan B was to paint "boo") but I didn't have the right kind of paint, so maybe we'll do that next next year. Regardless, she had fun getting in on the action and the boys did a great job helping her.



Easy + fun = my kind of project (even if it doesn't look as great as the YHL inspiration photo--had I planned this better, I would have tried to find a white pumpkin).


They're all currently hanging out inside, nice and protected from the wind and rain courtesy of Sandy.