I love fall. I love pumpkins and crunchy leaves and crisp air and sweaters. I love the warm earthy colors and spicy smells.
And I love Halloween because it means going "booing" and making pumpkin waffles for breakfast, and singing "Have You Seen the Ghost of Tom" with my kids, but especially because of the costumes. I love costumes, and Halloween gives me an excuse to dress up in costume where it's socially acceptable, even encouraged to do so. I don't like the candy or creepiness, but I love costumes.
And on that note, I am proud to announce that the family costume theme survived another year.
2013: Wizard of Oz
Arthur: The Wizard
Sharee: Glinda the Good
Dallin: The Yellow Brick Road
Daphne: The Wicked Witch of the West
(Or as Sydney called her, "the grumpy green witch")
Sean: The Tin Man
Hayden: The Scarecrow
Sydney: Dorothy
Bennett: The Lion
I borrowed costumes for the four youngest (the most brilliant thing I ever did). I ordered costumes for me and Daphne, and for Dallin and Arthur, I remade some Good Will finds.
Pics from the Ward Trunk or Treat:
Friends at the Trunk or Treat:
What fun, cute girls!
Me and Tamera. Both witches. And my dark roots are showing.
It was kinda fun being blonde for a night. :)
Sydney, who was a splendid Dorothy.
Bennett had this facial expression pretty much all night.
Doesn't it look like he's thinking, "Really, Mom?
I'm wearing this stupid lion get-up and you're trying to get me to smile?"
More of Dorothy and her perfect ruby slippers.
(She pulled her socks up like that.)
"The Wizard and I"
Back home and just had to get individual costume pics of everyone:
(except Bennett and Sydney who were done with pictures.)
Wednesday morning before the School Costume Parade
Daphne orchestrated this pose.
I don't think Hayden and Sydney knew they were supposed to be scared.
The Costume Parade at the Elementary School:
FHE: Pumpkins--We had a lot of sick kids at our house the weekend before Halloween, which resulted in a lot of extra laundry and cleaning, so the last thing I wanted to do was cut open pumpkins and scoop out the guts. So this year we painted our pumpkins.
Well, Hayden felt a little gypped. So when he brought home this tiny pumpkin from his class party, he went to work carving it. I wasn't sure if it would turn out very well, but it ended up being pretty cute.
Halloween Night: We ate delicious chili and cornbread with our friends the Shepherds, and the kids all got in their costumes together. We both went to the legendary Steel's house to trick-or-treat. They have a bunch of creepy people dressed up in their front yard, and none of the kids wanted to go up to get candy. I finally went up with a few brave ones. Hayden and Sydney. Sydney said, "I'm really freakin' out, Mom!" But she made it up to the door where Brother Steel gave her candy, and even took off his mask for a minute so she could see who it was. After the Steels, we headed back to our own neighborhood for trick-or-treating there. We've typically been a pretty good tick-or-treating neighborhood so I felt like I should be home to pass out candy, but this year was pretty slow, and I was wishing we'd just stayed in the Steel's neighborhood.
Dallin & Cole--They've been friends since Kindergarten, and Cole & the Schmutz Family have been trick-or-treating with us for several years. Well, the Schmutz's recently moved to the East Mountains and had their own plans for Halloween this year, so it was a little smaller group this time, but Cole still came with us.
Here are the kids enjoying their spoils. We watched the Halloween edition of Studio-C while they ate some of their candy.
We also went over to our former neighbor, Barbara's house to show her the kids costumes and visit with her a little bit. The kids were soooo tired, but she LOVES them to come show her their costumes, and always has a special treat for them and invites us all in for spiced cider. She requested a song before we left, so they sang "Have You Seen the Ghost of Tom" in a round and sounded so cute. Wish I could get videos on my blogs. Barbara loved it!
And that's a wrap on our 2013 Halloween Festivities.
I cannot believe that we are in November already.
