Whew! Another Halloween aka costume-making-frenzy has come and gone, and we have 5 candy-filled pumpkins to prove it. I always wonder if I should schedule the kids' dentist appointments after October....
Our tradition is that each child gets to pick his or her own pumpkin from the local garden center, but it has to be a pumpkin he or she is capable of carrying to the weighing station. (Mom and Dad do not schlep gargantuan pumpkins for 4-year-olds.) I pick the one for the baby.
The kids design their own pumpkins and help clean them out, as much as they can. The girls are almost completely independent, aside from the occasional advice regarding design or execution. This year Joseph tried his hand at carving and did a fairly decent job, I must say.
I still ended up cleaning out about 4 1/2 pumpkins.
For lunch on Halloween, Daddy made ghouled cheese sandwiches:
For dinner we had Smilin' Jack Casserole (ground beef sauteed with bell peppers and baked in a pie pumpkin -- grown-ups loved, kids hated), and Dirt for dessert (chocolate pudding with crushed gluten-free oreos -- everyone loved). :)
We agonized for MONTHS over our Halloween costume theme this year. I think we (and by "we" I mean "Katie") started brainstorming around July. Finally we came to a consensus:
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword! Mr. Pickles will play the game while the kids watch -- it's something fun they share together. So I got dragged, kicking and screaming, into my first cosplay, if you can call it that.
Miriam was, of course,
Princess Zelda:
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| Katie made the harp, everything else was recycled costume |
Katie was
Fi, the manifest spirit of the hero's sword or something:
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| you can't really tell it from the shot but her hair is spray-painted blue. I made the cape -- threw it together in an evening while Mr. Pickles was on Baby Duty. The ribbons got ditched halfway through trick-or-treating -- they kept falling around her ankles |
Jojo was the hero's friend,
Pipit:
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| shirt: 50 cents at Salvation Army, turned inside-out to hide graphic. hat: I made (whereupon I learned that I despise sewing with knits). sword: party store |
Daniel was our hero,
Link!
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shirt: recycled costume. hat and sword: same as above. (we got a sword for Andy too so he wouldn't shriek and pitch a fit feel left out) |
Action shot!
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| Oh -- Katie made Jojo's scabbard too (Daniel's was a repurposed quiver). She spent all morning in the basement with cardboard, scissors, string, and tape |
Andy was a character called a
Remlit. By day they are adorable little mewing kitties, but at night they turn into fierce attacking monsters. (Appropriate for the dual nature of a 3-year-old, I thought.) We dressed Andy as the day version:
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| big brother's hoodie, turned inside-out. felt ears safety-pinned to hood. tail: brown felt, stuffed, and wrapped with masking tape to look like stripes. and safety-pinned on. |
Even the baby dressed up. He went as a
green Chuchu, a blob-like creature with a large slimey mouth:
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| note the large mouth. (this was his cranky time right before he fell fast asleep, and slept alllll through trick-or-treating like a good little blob). costume: baby bunting I think I picked up at a consignment sale ages ago. |
So as you can see, my cosplay style is whatever-I-can-get-away-with-that-looks-authentic-enough-yet-requires-as-little-effort-as-possible-from-me. Is there such a thing as Scruffy Cosplay?
We went trick-or-treating with friends -- it's always more fun with a big group of people! The weather cooperated bee-yoo-tifully, too -- it was perfect Fall weather.
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| the friends were a present, a dragon, a giraffe, and a pumpkin (the irony is that the pumpkin's name is Peter!) |
The hospitable houses were few and far between this year -- what is wrong with people?? -- so the kids had to cover a lot of ground for their haul. There weren't a lot of trick-or-treaters out, either -- maybe because there aren't too many young families in our neighborhood? -- but that did work out to our advantage because each house was giving away more candy, trying to get rid of it! For the first time ever, we actually had part of a bag left over. (but since Mr. Pickles bought the good stuff, Mrs. Sweet-tooth-is-my-middle-name Pickles didn't mind one bit -- usually I have to raid my unsuspecting children's loot to get anything)
Once again, fun prep and a fun evening! It did make me miss sewing for fun (instead of mending pants, which is all I do now).
And just because he was so cute, let's see Andy again:
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| The End |
