Halloween

The girls talked for weeks about costume ideas and came up with some pretty brilliant plans.  At one point they decided to be the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty, then I would be Maleficent and Daddy would be Diaval (the crow).  After a few days they had a great epiphany, realizing that next year we would have a baby and since they are convinced the baby is a girl, she could be baby Aurora.  So that plan is saved for next year.  Next they decided E would be a marshmallow, A and L would wear sandwich boards of chocolate and graham crackers so that together, they made a s’more!  That idea was my favorite.  But then they decided they had to be something more “Halloween-ish”.  L and A decided to be witches and E would be their black cat.

Our first Halloween event was a party at my cousin’s house for their daughter’s birthday/Halloween.  L’s witch costume looked so fantastic but A’s witch dress was too big.  (luckily I brought a back up just in case since we were borrowing the costume and if for some reason it didn’t work out)  So A wore the monster costume from a previous dance recital, sporting florescent colors and fur (it might be my favorite costume ever) and E donned her black cat costume, complete with ears, drawn on whiskers, and a pink tutu.  The party was a ton of fun, playing in the back yard with cousins and friends.  We had caramel dipped apples for dessert and the girls loved painting pumpkins.

Later in the week the girls got to celebrate Halloween at school.  And of course, all decided on new costumes.  So they raided the dress up closet and L went to school as a tiger, A dressed up as Elsa and E wore her Sofia dress.  L and A had a costume parade at school and E had a class party, getting to take treats to her friends to celebrate.

On Friday night, Daddy was back in town so we invited Grandpa, Grammy and Papa all over for dinner and pumpkin carving.  Pumpkin carving was a little chaotic but Daddy and Papa in particular were so patient to create exactly what the girls wanted.  Husband even got out a dremel tool so he could more exactly follow A’s drawing.  Papa managed to carve a Mickey (with E’s help), Minnie and Tinkerbell.  Grandpa helped L make a traditional jack o lantern and then a self portrait.  I carved a skull and crossbones and then Grammy and I made my favorite jack o lantern of the night—a fierce looking face eating a very distressed, tiny pumpkin.  Unfortunately I used A’s tiny pumpkin (from a class field trip) without her permission and she got really upset when she saw what I did.  The adults thought it was hilarious.  The children did not.

On Saturday morning I co-taught a launch class at the gym.  We dressed up as skeletons, with full make up and ratted hair.  It was so fun and we looked awesome.  After, A went to a friend’s birthday party while L went to dance rehearsal.  We ran some errands, made jack o lantern quesadillas for lunch, watched Halloween cartoons, visited the airplane museum and then got to do more celebrating that evening.  We all got dressed up again.  Husband and I wore our skeleton shirts—mine has a baby skeleton on the belly and husband’s has a burgers, fries and a coke.  L dressed up as Elsa, A wore and Anna dress and E very eagerly donned her new Olaf costume.  (unbelievably cute!)  But A was pretty reluctant so she only wore the Anna dress long enough for a family picture and then ran upstairs to change into the costume of her choice for trick or treating.  She returned in her Elsa dress.  So our two Elsas and Olaf eagerly raced outside to join their friends for trick or treating.  Husband followed them while Grammy, Papa and I stayed at the house.  A and E only lasted two blocks before they were ready to come home and then spent the rest of the evening racing to the door to pass out candy.  We had jack o lantern pizzas, a veggie skeleton and candy corn fruit cups (A and E had to be threatened to stay in their seats and eat their dinner before they could resume door duty).  L stayed out almost two hours, collecting a boatload of candy and finally returned home to eat dinner, full of excitement and so happy she could barely sit still. 

Let the candy rationing begin.