Halloween Shenanigans

Over the past couple of years, I have been able to recycle old Halloween costumes and the kids were more than happy with it. Matthew was a dinosaur for three years in a row and last year Emma inherited Matthew's old monkey costume (with a little bow embellishment added by me to make it a bit more feminine). My Mom, after seeing the Halloween pictures last year, made the comment that I needed to let poor Emma dress up in more girly costumes since she is all about frills, skirts, rings, and bling. Well, this year, I took the kids shopping at the consignment store and let them pick their own costumes. Emma got her wish and was a princess for the day.

She had a bit of trouble deciding which princess she wanted to be. She found Belle, Ariel, Elsa, and Snow White costumes and made me help her try them all on before finally deciding on Cinderella. I was very pleased with her choice because Cinderella has always been my favorite princess. The skirt reached all the way to the floor so she was able to wear her rain boots without anyone noticing. Halloween night was a bit nippy, so I had her wear a white turtle neck underneath her dress and she didn't complain at all. The first time she tried the dress on at home, she also put on quite a few accessories to pair with it. When I tried to suggest that she wear a toy crown along with her outfit, she firmly refused because "Cinderella did not wear a crown." Very true.

Matthew wanted to be a Ninja Turtle. This came as no surprise to me considering his obsession with the turtles for the past three years. When we went to the consignment store, we found many, many turtle costumes but none of them seemed to fit quite right. Most of them were very small and Matthew began to get a little disappointed that he wasn't fitting into any of the costumes he liked. However, we did eventually find one in a size 10 - just as we were about to give up - that seemed to fit him decently well. It was a little big, but Matthew is quite lanky and tall so it was actually really great that he had a little extra length in the legs as opposed to previous years where his costumes were a bit on the short side. For his mask, we found a Michelangelo face since that's his favorite turtle but he pointed out to me that his costume is actually for Raphael. So, he was a mismatched turtle but he could have cared less.

And Lucy...well, we recycled costumes again for Lucy. She was a duck just like Emma was when she was 18 months old. I still think the duck outfit is one of the cutest costumes we have. I love the fluff in the back of the costume to mimic the backside of a duck.

Attempts to get all three of them in a picture together is getting more and more difficult. I should note that all these images are from the week before Halloween when we went to the annual ZooBoo. Everything was too rushed on Halloween night for me to snap a few shots.

The kids were a bit more picky about their pumpkin carvings this year. Emma adamantly wanted a cat face on her pumpkin whereas Matthew begged for a T-Rex design. Lucy was fairly silent on the subject so the kids chose for her, insisting that she would like a minion on hers although I'm fairly certain she hasn't a clue what a minion is.  I told Matthew there was no way I was going to get a T-Rex on his pumpkin because I can't even draw one on paper. However, I told him I could probably do a stegosaurus and he was happy with that. I almost cut my finger three times while carving that out for him but was thankful that he scooped the seeds out for me since I absolutely despise that part. I designed Emma's kitty pumpkin and Paul thankfully took over the task of carving it for her. Lucy's minion was a hacked job by me but the kids were pleased with the results.

Our friends Lindsay and Jack came over to trick-or-treat with us that evening. Matthew was pretty tired from school and was not as energetic about walking the neighborhood and begging for candy as I thought he would be. He had gotten up super early that morning and had a parade and a party at school that day. He can only take so much excitement. Emma, on the other hand, was fully alert and completely happy throughout the entire evening. I was very proud of all the kids for being so polite, always saying "thank you" and "Happy Halloween" as they moved from house to house. Emma was particularly proud of herself because she braved walking up all by herself to the house down the block that is completely decked out in horror decorations, complete with blood-splattered windows, a fog machine and a CD track of screams, howls, and groans. After she claimed her candy, she ran back to me as fast as she could and told me: "I did it, Mommy! I was so brave!" The little old lady who lives at that house apparently gave her three handfuls of candy for scraping up the courage to complete the walk up the driveway. I certainly wouldn't do that for a Kit-Kat!

Overall, it was a fun night made much more fun by the magical cider Paul concocted for the adults and portioned out into travel mugs before we headed out. The next evening, Emma asked if she could go trick-or-treating again. Thankfully, Halloween comes but once a year.

But, the damage has been done. My baby is now addicted to candy. I caught her sneaking treats from her big sister's candy sack. Thankfully, her sugar obsession is balanced by her favorite activity of all time: a good tooth brushing!