Halloween

I love Halloween costumes. I don't necessarily love the spooky part of Halloween, but I have always loved dressing up, and as an adult, I really don't get many opportunities for dressing up in costume. Chalk it up to loving to perform. Or chalk it up to loving to sew something more creative. Or chalk it up to the fact that I have a screw loose in my brain. But there is always guilt hanging out around Halloween. I spend too much on these silly costumes. I waste too much time sewing them. I'm stressing myself out for something absolutely silly. This year, I especially felt the guilt because I had just had surgery and sewing five costumes was just way too much. But by the time October rolled around, I had had it with just sitting in a chair and watching everyone else doing stuff. I wanted to do something. And I also reconciled some to the expense guilt away--I'm making memories for my kids and doing something special for them, and I can't put a price on that. I'm not always great at playing with them, but I can make them feel special at Halloween. 

I started the season with every intention to take it easy. I was going to buy Rachel a Cinderella dress, a nicer one, not like the dress I bought last year that keeps fraying and falling apart. I felt like it would be a good investment since she wears her dress-ups all the time. I figured I'd buy Michael's too, but I really wanted to make Gabe's costume. I'd made the other two's first costume (I'm not really counting Hedwig since Michael was so tiny then), and I was determined not to short-change Gabe. I had this pattern for a super cute lion that I'd been wanting to make since Michael was a baby, and this was finally my chance. I decided Brian and I could dress up as Dorothy and the Scarecrow to go along with Gabe.I thought, "If only there was someone in the Wizard of Oz that was frilly enough for Rachel do dress up as." And then I remembered Glinda. As a little girl, I thought Glinda was the most beautiful girl ever. I even dressed up as her one year. 

I pitched the idea to Michael and Rachel when we were driving home one night. Michael was on board and requested to be "the robot guy." Rachel, who had never seen The Wizard of Oz, had no idea who I was talking about and said, "No, I just want to be Cinderella." So, I showed her a picture of Glinda. "Her eyes got big, and she said in an awed expression, "Oh! She's beautiful." She was on board after that. I looked online at Wizard of Oz costumes, and they were awful. There was nothing for it. I had to make them. 

I enlisted my friend, Cami, to go with me to JoAnn's to buy fabric. She drove and gave me the courage to ride the little driving cart around the store. We laughed about all the rough goes of it. I was so embarrassed, but that was the only way I was going to be able to do it, and I was determined. I should have had her take a picture with all the bolts of fabric sticking out of the front, but I only got her to take this one after checking out. 

 I found a sweet tutorial for making an awesome Tin-man costume. I sewed the vinyl and Brian glued the bolts and spray painted the costume.

Unfortunately, sometimes paint was not dry in time for Michael's first Halloween party, so I threw together this out of stuff in our Halloween box:

 This is at our friends', Ivie and Liam, house. The kids had a fun time doing the carnival style games and playing with Ivie and Liam.

 I wanted Rachel to be able to pull her costume on and off all by herself, so I made the top out of really stretchy Lycra. The pattern called for fitting, so it was a little rough trying to trim it down and get it to fit right. It turned out much better in my head, but Rachel loved it, so that's what really matters. And I feel confident that this dress is going to last because of all the French seams I did in it.

 Michael and Ivie:

Glinda and Dracula:

We decided we could handle carving 2 pumpkins this year, so we went to Wal-mart to search for costume supplies and bought these two huge pumpkins. Notice I'm in the driving cart again? Yeah, after the hip surgery, I lost all sense of dignity and pride. 

  We carved pumpkins the day before Halloween:

 Michael and I were on a team, and Rachel and Brian were on a team. Michael actually got quite a bit of the guts out himself:

 After Michael and I finished ours, I walked away to work on something else, and when I came back, he was trying to carve a Y into the side. I was annoyed, but Brian helped him carve it out.

 We also made sugar cookies. They were delicious.

 The cookies, however, weren't so sure:

Yay for our carved pumpkins. Notice the one Rachel is hugging. She told Brian she wanted a "girl pumpkin". So, Brian made one with eyelashes. I was pretty impressed.

 We made our full. family costume debut on Friday, October 28th at our Ward Halloween Party. I threw Brian's scarecrow costume together in the hour and a half leading up to the party. I also made Rachel's crown, and gave mod podge and red glitter and sequins to Michael and had him bedazzle my red shoes. It was the typical last minute costume stress, but everything turned out so great:

 My friend found this awesome yarn to make Gabe's mane while we were at the fabric store. I may have gone a little crazy with it because the mane is massive, but he was so cute in it. Here we all are in costumes that I put together, post surgery. I'm still kind of impressed with myself. It felt so good to take on a project again, even though it wiped me out.

  On Halloween, the elementary school does a Halloween parade. Michael's costume was still not dry. We figured out in the days leading up to the ward party that it was never going to dry because the paint wouldn't bond to the plastic of the vinyl. We sprayed a clear coat on top, which helped a ton, but it meant that the costume lost a lot of it's original shine and awesomeness. It also meant that I couldn't send Michael to school as Tin Man. He wanted to be Wolverine this time around. Here he is:

 We got a late start getting all of us in our costumes for trick-or-treating, so it was dark when we took pictures, but they still turned out great:

 What's the point of a pretty dress if you can't twirl?

 We still have sparkles all over the house and car from this dress:

 Our neighbor Sally was kind enough to take some pictures for us:

 This mane. It kills me. That's what happens when the baby is asleep and can't try it on until Mom finishes it.

 My goal with surgery was to be able to take my kids trick-or-treating. I took all three kids and we hit about 5 houses before I had to hand it off to Brian. He did the lower neighborhood loop and then brought Gabe back to me. Isn't he the cutest little lion?

We hope everyone had an amazing Halloween.