Elementary School Costume Parade and Trick-or-Treating

The kids spent the morning of Halloween getting dressed up; some in their costumes and some only partially.

We tried to make the boys' hair dark to match their Angry Birds costumes. It kind of worked.

But not real well. They will be dark like their daddy someday, but it wasn't going to be this day.

We sprayed glitter into Rebekah's hair to go with her princess costume, but it didn't show up against her blond hair in the picture.

Daniel's too old for Halloween parades in middle school, so he went to school with his costume and took care of everything all on his own. It was a pretty easy costume so I knew he would be fine. Nathan's costume was the same, so I left him to it, too. And Leah's wasn't too involved, so I was grateful to let her take care of herself.

Rebekah's costume was a little more involved, so I had to help her get ready. I left Joseph and Sarah sitting on some chairs at the other end of the hallway. They were such good kids and each stayed on the chair I put them in for the 5-10 minutes I was out of sight.

Finally, the parade began. First came the youngest kids and when the first-graders came into view, we quickly found Rebekah. Yikes! This girl does not wear lipstick well! :) But such a cute princess anyway.


When Sarah first saw her big sister, she ran right up to her. It was very cute. And Rebekah made sure she went back to where she belonged.


Leah, ever thinking of horses, was a riding champ. We found this costume at DI a couple of years ago and have been holding on to it ever since. The little cowgirl in front of Leah is a best friend, Ariyah. She is just as bad over horses as Leah, if not worse!


Nathan was an Angry Bird. He just doesn't look very angry!


I had a giant spider web waiting for the kids when they got home. Joseph thought it was pretty fun. They had to climb through the bottom to get up the stairs to their bedrooms. It was fun until after dinner when it had to come down so Chad could put them to bed!

We (of course) had a Halloween dinner. It started like this.

And ended like this.
It needed more cheese. It also needed to cook a little longer. I guess it's lessons for next time! I thought it was yummy, but my kids don't really like meatloaf. I tasted good as a sandwich a few days later.

In addition to the Mummy, we had swamp creatures out of mac 'n cheese. It didn't turn out exactly the way I'd hoped, but we were running out of time. Besides, it's mac 'n cheese; that's not really gourmet food.

We were finally done eating and ready to go out trick-or-treating! There was a trunk-or-treat at the church, but we rebelled against the mass candy this year and turned the night more personal. We picked particular places to visit and then headed home for our own special treat.

Here we are in our costumes (for the 3rd time). What a crazy looking bunch!

We had to go to Daniel's teacher's house. We had to drive to another town to do it. We hit four houses in that neighborhood, one of which was an old neighbor we'd known before we moved the last time. I was a little concerned with the realization that Daniel looked like a thug from the back!


Daniel's teacher came to the door to see who it was that she was supposed to recognize. I think that was a fun thing for Daniel. :)

It was quite a chore to get everyone in and out of the car. We can't do that without fighting...even on a night that we are getting candy!

Then we had to go to Joseph's Primary teacher's house. She was so good to make all the kids feel special when we got there. (Who doesn't like being made to feel special?)

From there, we had one last stop to make. A friend told us to come by her house a week or so before the big day, so we made sure to include that house. She gave the kids a piece of candy on the way in and on the way out...something that Joseph remembered even a few days later!

Then it was home to shed our costumes and warm up a bit. I'd made a cake with food tint...hoping it would be really crazy inside. I didn't get exactly what I'd imagined, but it was still fun. I figured a piece of cake would be better than a bucket-load of candy.



It took some time to wash all that grey paint off of Joseph's face. I think the boys didn't get a shower until Saturday (remember, Halloween was on a Monday) and they still saw the water turn black from their hair paint. Even after Rebekah's shower, I saw glitter in her hair. Whew! Halloween is a big job!
We have a year to recover...thankfully. :)

School Halloween Carnival

We only had to dress up in our costumes 3 times this year! (Sheesh.) The first time was for the school PTO Halloween Carnival. A night of crowds and playing 50 cent games. Sounds like fun, right?

These kids were looking forward to it. Well, maybe Sarah wasn't.

Ah...that's better. She just needed to be in a picture with her sisters!

We went to the cupcake walk. We cheated the system (unknowingly) on this game. When we did this last year, they let you walk until you got a cupcake. So we kept on walking even though it was only supposed to be three turns per ticket. They finally called the number of our last kid just to get rid of us. Oops!

This was a golfing game. I can think of SEVERAL ways this game could have been improved! I think Joseph and Sarah (and maybe Rebekah) still had fun. Me; not so much. I had to keep picking up the "targets" because they would fall over with the slightest pressure.

The night also involved a benefit sloppy joe dinner and lots of people. There was a lot of stuff being raffled off, too. We left at 8:30 and were surprised it wasn't closer to 10! We are not good with crowds. Really.

Halloween Decorating

A holiday means decorating. I just can't help myself. I'm not big into Halloween, really, but decorating for it is a lot of fun.

I did put some vinyl on the front door. That was fun. The only picture I took of it was on my cell phone to post on Facebook. Hmm. I'll have to get that somehow.

I did make a bunting. I used my Silhouette to do this one (of course). Too bad I don't have a good place in my house to display buntings. This wall is the best I can do. Someday...


We had the necessary spider that drops from the ceiling when the door opens. (Leah took this picture.) This is one of our favorite Halloween decorations. Occasionally, we get a big spider on the head when the door opens and we forget to look up!


I tried something new this year and painted the front window. The bats are of vinyl and the moon is just paper, but the rest is painted on. I only had black tempura paint to try with. I learned the hard way that tempura paint is not good for painting on windows. It looked great a few hours after I finished painting. It still looked OK when we left for church the next morning. But when we came home, huge pieces of paint had peeled and were fluttering in the wind. It really looked like a haunted house then! I got some washable acrylic paint at the craft store and repainted it. Yeah...that worked! I grabbed a warm moment shortly after Halloween to get a bucket of soapy water and wash it away.

Want one more scary picture?

Here's a preview of our Halloween costumes! :)

Jack-o-lanterns!!

The Monday before Halloween is always reserved for carving pumpkins in our family. I have to build myself up for the mess and stress that comes with it. (For this reason, I will never earn Mother of the Year. And also for my hesitation to let the kids do almost anything messy.)

But tradition cannot be ignored, so I swallow my fear of pumpkin guts and we dig right in (literally). The youngest one has always had the biggest distaste for gooey hands. Sarah was not exception (at least in this situation). She would much rather Daddy do the dirty work (that's my kind of girl)!

Joseph was willing to get his hands dirty this year. He had a pumpkin all to himself (our garden was good to us this year) and it was hard work! How nice that he could stand on the table to get a better view!

There was a pumpkin for each of us, but some of us were busy recording the moment or actually helping, so we only carved 6 pumpkins. Those two pumpkins left over were donated to another family. :)


OK...So our party of the countryside is windy. Really windy. And our front door faces the wind. We tried and tried (while we froze) to light those darned jack-o-lanterns! We never did get them lit. Oh well. They looked good, though!

Happy Halloween 2010!

It really seems important to me to get Halloween finished up and out of the way before December. So I have 2 hours left to get it done.

In case I haven't mentioned, we have six kids. This means that we'd have to live on a secluded mountain peak to avoid Halloween and all the fun/terror it brings. We start talking about our costumes at the beginning of September. But I refuse to do anything about it before October actually arrives. And because I can't bring myself to buy a costume unless under emergency situations, we have a lot of scurrying around to make things right.

Luckily, most costumes survive the first few uses. For example, we had Batman for the 3rd time when Rebekah took on the character.


And it was perfect for Joseph. He really wanted to be Batman, but was only big enough for Boy Robin. That was close enough for him. We went to the school to join Rebekah in her Kindergarten parade. The Dynamic Duo must stay together!


And getting a sucker for his troubles didn't bother him at all. (He was pretty reluctant to join Rebekah at first. That "Collett Coma" keeps us in good manners in most situations, but it doesn't wear off before 10 minutes passes and it almost kept Joseph from participating!)

I was able to use old costumes for everyone, but Daniel and Nathan.

This was Nathan's costume. It is a copy of the costumes Chad and I made for ourselves in 1999 (our first Halloween).

It was plenty big on him. He could wear it again next year if he chooses to. Here is Nathan in the main parade that day. He was looking up at a ghost traveling across the hallway.


Leah was a mummy. This was Daniel's costume 4 years ago. She got to follow her teacher (a.k.a. Dorothy (Wizard of Oz)) which put a pretty big smile on her face.


The next night the school hosted a Halloween carnival (fundraiser) and we enjoyed ourselves as we played some games, won some prizes and visited with friends.

Rebekah is a dangerous bowler.


Sarah joined in the cupcake walk. She seemed so tiny next to those big high school kids. But she was not bothered by the difference. Even after Nathan was done, she remained and walked the circle, making those other kids trip over her. I should have pulled her out sooner, but it was so darn CUTE to watch!


There was a haunted house. The kids waited in line for quite a while. (It's a little tricky to get these 6 into the same shot!)

The three oldest decided that they wanted to go through on a scary run. We sent Rebekah and Joseph through a mild one.


As it turned out, Leah wasn't quite as brave as she thought. She came out a little early in tears and didn't want to talk about it. I thought it was a perfect time to whip out the camera. Mwah, hah, hah!


And there was a spaghetti dinner. Of course, we'd already done the cupcake walk and had dessert, so I had no bargaining chips left to get the kids to eat the food we paid for. Luckily, it was only $3 a plate.


And then the next night (doesn't Halloween usually last 3 days?) was the Trunk-or-Treat at the church. By this time, it was Day 24 of my no candy challenge. Ugh. That was hard.

Skeleton Nathan (A perfect costume for him...he's so skinny!)


Sarah was a stinkin' cute clown.


Here are all the kids at once. Daniel was Sherlock Holmes. That was an interesting costume to figure out. "Thanks" to my mom who gave me some helpful advice.


Trick-or-Treat!


Daniel collected candy and then put it into our bowl to pass out to trick-or-treaters. He resisted the temptations that were all around him! Amazing. We were giving out fist fulls of candy at the end and still ended up with a ton of candy (that I CAN'T eat)!

Our jack-o-lanterns were still doing pretty good a week after being carved.

I made an ice sculpture using a mold and colored water. Then I sat it on a small block of dry ice. It smoked and swirled as the trick-or-treaters came by. It got some fun comments! And then the dry ice gave the jack-o-lantern a 5 o'clock shadow. :)

And that is Halloween this year. Whew! It took me half an hour to type it all up.

December...here we come!