Happy Halloween!

Halloween Happenings

This is such a fun time of year. I've always liked Halloween and the feeling of the holidays just around the corner. I've enjoyed pulling out the decorations and getting the house ready. Some people can go crazy this time of year and I laugh when I see people out decorating their yards all day long on a Saturday to make them all spooky and scary for the big night. Maybe it is because we have young(er) kids, but I'm not really into the whole scare your pants off thing. I don't feel like I go overboard though. I have some decorations up and we put up the white fake spider web stuff out on the bushes. Wally and I were thinking how next year we need to turn our front porch into a dance party, complete with disco ball, and have music playing during trick-or-treating. Speaking of music, we even put together a Halloween playlist to play from our car during the ward trunk-or-treat. It was awesome.

If there is anything that we do go overboard on, it would be the costumes. I know that I could take the easy route and buy the costumes from the store, but my brain doesn't work that way. I don't know what it is about this time of year, but it makes me want to pull out my sewing machine and piece together costumes that are always harder than I think and I end up emergency calling my mom for advice. This year was no exception.

After thinking about what to make for Isaac this year, I came across a great idea on Pinterest: Rainbow Brite and her sidekick, Twink. I just had to convince see if Kelsie would be up for the idea. I didn't think it would be too hard, especially since she would love the idea of having her little brother as part of her costume. She was very excited about the idea and it was soon put into motion. Armed with a couple patterns I already had and with my 50% off coupon for Joann's, I found the fabric I needed. It didn't take too long and I had a couple of costumes mostly put together and it started to become more real. I realize that putting Isaac in a white furry costume with rainbows may have been a little crazy, but in the end, it turned out so cute. Kelsie loved having him as her sidekick and besides the fact that he looked like a marshmallow with antennae, we pulled it off.

Brandon decided early on that he wanted to be Jango Fett from Star Wars this year. I spent sometime online looking up costume ideas and what we could do to make it easier. We figured that we could put together the basic costume pretty easily, but it was going to be his helmet and armor, Jango Fett's most defining characteristics, to be the challenge. My solution? Wally. He spent a lot more time than he thought and went through more cardboard and spray paint than anticipated, but in the end, we had a Jango Fett clone in the house. We knew that it was worth all the effort when Brandon said, "This is the best costume ever!". That means a lot, especially coming from him.

Caleb was the only easy one this year. He's all about Star Wars and wanted to be Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi. We already had everything we needed for that one so it didn't take much to put together. He was especially excited to get his black gloves from the dollar store to complete the ensemble. He perfected his skills with the lightsaber and use of the force and he was ready to go.

These costumes were so much fun to make. What makes it even better is that we finished them a whole week before Halloween. Wally and I have both decided that we both really love a good challenge and project to do. We're already starting to think about next year.

Halloween Happenings

I realize that I'm a little late on getting this up here, but better late than never, right? We had a really fun Halloween this year! We started the morning off with pumpkin pancakes and a beautiful fall day! Kelsie and Brandon had a lot of fun celebrating at school with parties and their school-wide parade. They both came home pumped full of sugar and ready to head out for more! We had a great time trick-or-treating around our neighborhood and came home with bags full of candy! We let the kids eat as many sweets as they could for dinner while Wally and I ate our traditional chili and watched Halloween movies like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (the Disney version). Since Halloween was on a Friday this year, we let gave our kids free reign on the candy until Sunday night. We left their bags out all weekend and they just couldn't believe we didn't take them away. They did pretty good eating as much as they could all weekend long, and now we have a nice stash of candy for game nights and movie nights! We had a great time celebrating Halloween and are looking forward for the next holidays!

The Witch

Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi

Ahoy, matey!

A Jedi Knight takes his job very seriously.

I'll put a spell on you!