This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

Trunk or Treat

 Poor fourth child, I totally failed to get a picture of Mystery Baby dressed in PS's old Sweet Pea costume (we're saying he's a green bean to make it more masculine).  Good thing I still have regular Halloween to get a picture of him.  Unless Hurricane Sandy messes that up...

Angry Bird, Bomb Bird

http://mckaylaisnotimpressed.tumblr.com/

US Olympic Gymnast

Soccer Referee

 At the Ward's Trunk or Treat 10/27/12

A friend from church captured this cute picture of Little Guy.

Trick or Treating

I stayed home to pass out candy and B took the kids around our neighborhood.  I downloaded the Star Wars theme song and the Imperial March onto my cell phone, pushed play, and threw my phone in Little Guy's treat bag so they had background music as they trick or treated.  And, I made B carry Yoda on his arm.

Frenchy

Fancy Nancy and her dog Frenchy.

Princess Sparkley is lucky she has such a nice little brother and that he loves pretending to be a doggy so much.

Rock Concert

Our kids love when we put on The Killers concert cd. They sing along, acquire rock star personas and it's all hilarious.

Halloween Party at Church

The kids were super excited for tonight because it was the ward Halloween party/carnival/chili cook-off/costume parade/trunk-or-treat. All squished into one incredibly long and crowded event.

But with it comes... the unveiling of costumes, and how their costumes came about:

Princess Sparkley as Pippi Longstocking
complete with freshly dyed (6-12 washes) red hair
PS wanted to be a character from a novel last year too, but picks books that only 6-8 year old girls have read and know about. This year, she actually wanted to be Annika, Pippi's best friend, and I had to explain that Annika was just a normal girl, like PS already is. She was very happy at the end of the night when she told me lots of grown-ups knew who she was. But with that comes the unspoken... not many kids did and she had to explain it a lot. Oh well, she loved it. AND, she won the "silliest costume" award, a little trophy, for her age group. Her dress is an oversized shirt from Walmart ($5) and mismatched socks from Target ($1 per pair). Everything else (other than the hair dye and wires in her hair) we already owned. I ironed on patches from scraps of fabric we had and called it good.


Buddy as an Army Guy
Buddy was almost a UPS man again this year. And almost a pizza delivery man. But he finally decided on an army guy. I chose to buy him actual camouflage clothing, rather than a costume. So after Halloween, his Old Navy shirt ($8 ish), Target pants ($9.99) and Kmart hat ($5) go into his regular wardrobe. Although I did inform him that he's not allowed to wear them all at the same time except for Halloween. He was a little disappointed that he didn't win anything, but there were a lot of great costumes there and the kid category was especially rough. I think he enjoyed that people kept pretending they couldn't see him, since he was camouflaged and all.


Little Guy as COOKIE Monster
Little Guy wouldn't agree to any costume. Finally we settled on trying to convince him to be a cookie. He turned that into, he being Cookie Monster and Daddy being the cookie. And Daddy agreed. I ordered his hat on Etsy ($8), bought Cookie colored sweat pants at Walmart ($3) and turned a Jayhawk shirt inside out and pinned a scrap fabric Cookie Monster mouth to it. Then we went to work teaching him to say, "COOOKKIIEES" in a funny deep voice. He can also sing, "C is for cookie..." I'll have to film it all. He did a great job at the trunk-or-treat and said trick-or-treat and thank you to everyone (which my older kids were always shy about doing at his age) and I even got him to tell one guy "Cccoookkiiess."


And Daddy as a COOKIE.
Two hula hoops. Tan fabric. Brown fabric. Iron on sticky stuff. Packing tape. A glue gun.





Oh, and I won "most original chili." This makes two years running my chili has won (different recipes, different categories).

Random Pics

Top left: Little Guy (what is it with kids and laundry baskets?)
Top right: Buddy, with help from Princess Sparkley, dressed as a pumpkin*
Middle left: I sewed this apron for PS's friend A's birthday. We got her some fun cookie cutters, some recipes, icing, sprinkles, etc. and this apron. PS picked out that fabric and then modeled it for me.
Middle right: Little Guy
Bottom left: Princess Sparkley
Bottom right: Buddy



*The kids, knowing that Halloween is the next holiday, even if it is 7 weeks away or something, have started planning. The other day they set up a Halloween shop and PS put on her witch costume from last year. Buddy's past Halloween costumes are all service people (mailman, fireman, UPS man, etc.) so he was disappointed that he didn't have a costume to put on that was more festive. So I dressed him in one of B's shirts, orange, and PS helped make a Jack-O-Lantern face and stem for him.

Cousin Weekend

I drove the kids down to see a play that our Richmond cousins were in at the end of their week of drama camp. We left B at home to study for his two big exams he has coming up this month for grad school.


Little Guy, "playing" Wii right along with the big kids. They were ALL lined up but by the time I got my camera, the line had disintegrated somewhat.


Uncle G was nice and gave Little Guy his own controls (that weren't plugged in or doing anything). He tucked one under each arm and waved it at the tv just like the big kids.

The county was having a kid pirate day at the park, so we got everyone dressed up and headed over. There was face painting, a "walk the plank" dunking booth, face paint, air brush tattoos, a pirate ship slide/jump, and treasure hunts.



You had to do the first three treasure hunts (letterbox style) in order to get the clues for the final treasure hunt. We did the first three and got lost trying to do the final one. "Lost" turned out to be the playground right where we parked so Aunt H promised them all a treasure of ice cream from Ray's and we went on our way.


cousin G


Princess Sparkley and Little Guy teeter-tottering






At Ray's, cousin G and PS both decided to get Death by Chocolate. PS made a bit of a mess!

Fun Stuff To Do: Dress up like Mom and Dad

B told Princess Sparkley to come up with a list of fun, Sunday activities to do this evening. For some reason, top on that list was dress-up in Mommy and Daddy's clothes. Okay? And then B got out of it by having a Stake Priesthood Meeting. I let them pick two outfits, or this might have gone on forever. Here they are:



PS's aren't horrifically huge because she picked a dress and then a shirt, that had ties in back. And in the second picture, the skirt is pegged and tucked into the shorts she's wearing underneath. Buddy didn't even bother with Daddy's pants.

Fashion Show

Princess Sparkley organized a fashion show.


Little Guy going down the runway.


All three.

Headbands

PS is really into headbands lately. Buddy even bought her a few more from Claire's for her Christmas present. Baby X finds them in her room and thinks of them as dress-up hats. Here he is sporting a hot pink sparkley one with a flower and a princess on the side.

PS dresses Baby X up

Trunk or Treat

Our Halloween celebrations began a week early with our church's Fall Festival, Chili Cook-off and Trunk or Treat. I won a golden spoon for veggiest chili for the cook off. The missionaries were the judges. I'm guessing I won because my chili had celery in it which is quite noticeable and a veggie. It was pretty good chili, but not necessarily prize worthy.


Buddy the fireman (he had a mustache drawn on with my eyeliner but decided against it).
Baby X the Dinosaur/Dragon, or as PS has named him "the diagon."
Princess Sparkley as a witch.


Sort of blurry, but I wanted one of them standing up so we could see height differences.



Donut on a string.



So super hilarious to watch. Buddy wouldn't do it.


Ahh... her lips are gone!


We were in charge of helping clean up, so B stayed in the church and helped put away tables and chairs. The kids took themselves trunk or treating. And this is how I entertained Baby X so he would stay in the trunk with me handing out candy.




Happy Halloween!