The 7 days of Halloween.... or something like that.

This year Halloween was a lot of fun and lasted for several crazy days and a couple of insane nights as well!

Every year the big decision is what to be for Halloween. We usually start discussing it a couple of months ahead of time in case they want to be something really intricate. This year was pretty straight forward. We had a vampire, a witch (the mean kind), Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and a pirate.

Taylor decided she wanted to be a vampire pretty early on, so I whipped up a silky red vampire cape. Having the big stand up collar was an important part of the costume and the only thing she really requested. But she was also pretty happy to wear her fancy red dress since we don't go to a lot of occasions that require wearing a fancy red dress. We made the spiffy necklace out of an old brooch I have and a silver chain we had lying around. She made up lore about the necklace and how it was the reason she could go out in the daytime even though she was a vampire. Its just not Halloween without a little made up lore to go along with your costume!

Taylor practiced this scary stare for a long time, don't look too deeply into her eyes!

Olivia at first wanted to be a pirate, but then she saw a cute Dorothy costume in the Spirit store and decided that would be the ticket. Of course what sold it was for an accessory you could buy a basket complete with Toto. She almost changed her mind when I told her that we weren't getting the Toto basket...I'm not paying 15 dollars for a stuffed rat dog in a tiny little basket! After discussing it she decided she could use one of the animals we had at home and borrow a basket from Diane. I made the dress for her so it would be adjustable and fit over her coat if it was a cold Halloween. (It wasn't)

Dee Dee wanted to be a princess because she is always a princess, but then decided to be a witch... "a Scaywee witch!" So I reworked the dress I made last year for Olivia, bought a new hat and daddy painted her green so she could be a super terrifying witch.

Lucas was the hardest... he wanted to be a fireman, no- a policeman, no -a delivery man, no -a UPS guy. We finally found a pirate hat for cheap and told him he was going to be a pirate. At first he wasn't too sure about it, but he got on board the pirate ship after I bought him a pirate tattoo.... I hope he's always so easy to bribe:)

For the week before Halloween they wore whatever part of their costume that they wanted, but the first day of Halloween was on Oct 25th when we visited the:

Haunted Sorority House...

It was a dark and snowy day in the city of Boulder when the children ascended the steps to the haunted sorority house. Inside they found a chamber or horrors filled with pretty girls, games, crafts and worst of all... CANDY!

Every year the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house hosts a party for the kids that benefits a local charity. The kids always have a good time and this year was no exception. They had fun winning cupcakes, making bats and hammering golf tees into a pumpkin.

The second chance to dress up and have some Halloween fun occurred on Fri. October 30th. We attended the trick or treat street in Olde Town Arvada. This is one of my favorite events, all the kids are so cute dressed up in costume and the shops always have a lot of candy to hand out to all the ghouls and goblins who are out wandering around in the dark. Its a fun night for the parents, the kids and I think that most of the merchants enjoy it as well.

That same night we went to a Halloween party and enjoyed snacks, games, (including doughnut bobbing)(pirates really are cheaters), a haunted house and participated in a costume contest (we didn't win)

The next day was THE DAY.... Halloween! We went to another trick or treat Street in Denver at Highland's Square and showed off the costumes to friends in the neighborhood. Had we mustered up the stamina we probably could have easily visited a dozen different venues on Saturday. Lucky for the kids Chris and I were pretty much wiped out at that point! So we went home and took the traditional Halloween nap...its an important part of getting ready for Halloween night.

FINALLY we went trick or treating for real in our favorite neighborhood as soon as it got dark. It was a little cloudy, a little creepy and a whole lot of fun was had by all. The kids collected so much candy they complained about carrying their pumpkins and we were out long enough that the kids were begging to go home. At that point Chris felt like he had won a small but important victory in parenting:) It's always nice when you can end a fun evening with the kids being grateful to get in the car and go home.

I think I'm still a little exhausted from all the celebrating and I'm glad it's over but I can't help but wonder what costumes I'll be making next year...

Trick-or-Teat!!

I think I may love Halloween more than my kids do, and that is saying a lot! I don't dress up, but I do love to see all the kids in their costumes, the trick or treating and staying out until all hours of night. This year was especially fun since the night was so unseasonably warm. In years past we've taken our kids out while it was snowing, raining, freezing and icy out... and that was just one Halloween night! Luckily our kids are marathon trick or treaters and they don't let the bad weather get them down.

Because of my excitement for Halloween I often go a little overboard with the costumes. We asked the kids what they wanted to be a couple of months ago and then I have an awful tendency to try and figure out how to do whatever they request. Usually its something easy... a ghost, a princess etc. This year, Taylor wanted to be a hatching chick, Olivia a witch, Dee Dee a Butterfly and Lucas wanted to be something scary... until he freaked out in the Halloween aisle at Target, then he decided he wanted to be something safe...a fireman.

Lucas' costume was the only one from the store, the rest we made at home. I thought Dee Dee's would be easy as well, I made the wings and just needed to buy some antenna to be a butterfly. Well, as it turns out, butterflies are OUT and fairy princesses are IN. It was even hard to find a head band to make our own antenna, so we went with a sparkly butterfly princess as her costume. She turned out pretty cute! It doesn't show in the picture, but we made her wings extra sparkly!

Taylor's developed from a fairly easy costume to one that was more complicated. The trouble started when I told DiDi that she was going to be a pink chick and that I needed a pink boa to finish the project. Diane had a hard time imagining a pink chick since chicks are usually yellow. I now realize I should have made the argument that she was a pink chick because for Halloween she was going as an Easter chick that had been dyed pink for that holiday. Unfortunately I didn't think of that argument until yesterday, so Taylor ended up being a hatching flamingo which was waaay more complicated. However, her costume got rave reviews on Halloween. I sewed the neck, the body and the wings, made the mask and sewed a store bought beak onto it, she also got a pink store bought wig for her 'hat'. The girls and I made the hatching egg parts from paper papier-mache. Even if I say so myself...it was a fabulous costume.

For Olivia I sewed her a skirt and shirt from some black fabric that Diane supplied. The girls and I made the hat from paper papier-mache and glued some hair from a wig onto it. Her face was from a makeup kit from the store that included an ugly, warty green nose. By the time Chris got done with her makeup, it looked like she was wearing an expensive and realistic mask. Olivia got tons of compliments for her costume as well, which she thought was kind of embarrassing.

For the first part of the night we went to Olde Town Arvada for their trick or treat street. After getting a ton of candy there, we went to a neighborhood so that we could completely fill up their candy bags. We were out for hours, the night was so warm and the kids were having so much fun. At a certain point, we realized it was just us and the teens still out and decided that it was time for us to go home and enjoy some of candy the kids had collected. I'm pretty sure, we'll have enough candy to last us until Christmas... or at least Thanksgiving!