Halloween!

I don't know how the rest of the moms I know manage to take such great pictures of their kids in Halloween costumes.  I usually forget to take pictures at all, so it was great to have John's phone at the ready to capture our group halfway through the trick-or-treating.  (Of course, I also planted us directly in front of the setting sun.  Sorry if you feel blinded.)

From oldest to youngest, we have John, the Bad Doctor (he's our supervillain); me, Witchtastic (and I really wish you could see more of my awesome black-and-orange tights); Olivia, The Speedy Paintbrush; Naomi, aka Magnificent Mimi; Bella, aka Fireballa; and the small and daring Mad Madame Maddie.

 My mom and dad joined us for the whole week of Halloween.  However, my dad is the world's biggest Halloween Humbug, so he didn't come along for the trick-or-treating.  (He stayed home and handed out glowsticks to the two trick-or-treaters who bumbled along to our house.)

 We posed heroically.

 We dashed heroically out of scary houses (accompanied by Mario and Rainbow Dash).

 We posed heroically again.

 We delighted heroically in the enormous piles of candy we were heroically gathering.

 And we talked, heroically and at length, about our superpowers.  The Speedy Paintbrush can wield a magic paintbrush and make her paintings come to life.  Magnificent Mimi scores well on spelling tests and saves people from falling rocks.  Fireballa throws balls of fire at bad guys, and then she runs really fast.  Mad Madame Maddie mostly just runs down the halls of houses yelling her name.  (I'm sure that terrifies supervillains.  The Bad Doctor regularly finds himself stymied.)

P.S.  My sister also escaped Provo with her darling boyfriend, and the two of them were the champions of the extended trick-or-treating that my two older girls accomplished.  I have Annie and Shaylor to thank for the sugar high we've all been riding the past few days.  I

Happy Birthday to Me!

This year I was super lucky on my birthday because there was a new performance group in town.  I mean, really new.  They'd only ever done small gigs before--nothing big-time like my birthday.  But they agreed to do it, in full costume, just for me.  (Because I'm awesome like that.  And because they love me so much.)

You can see how they were interpreting nature through their costumes--channeling flowers with the head tutus and goggles.  

 This smallest performer was both enchanting and energetic.

 I think this oldest performer had been moonlighting as a make-up artist.  I loved the judicious application of lipstain on all the participants.

 There was acting, and singing, and many happy birthday wishes.

 I was especially enchanted by their original musical compositions--songs about flowers and growing.   The harmonies were novel and interesting, almost atonal in nature.

 Plus, again, I have to say:  I just can't resist tutus on heads.  They could have just walked around the room, and I would have been thrilled.

Happy Birthday to me!

Happy Halloween!

Here's the final look at the birdies.  (Aren't you sick of them yet?)

First we have the swan, the epitome of grace and beauty.

And goofiness.

Next, we have a rare shot of a peacock in a tree.

Plus a good shot of that magnificent tail (sturdified with heavyweight interfacing and boning, and it still wouldn't stay up, so it had to be a relaxed peacock tail.  Plus can you see that one goofy feather?  Who knew that boning had a right way and a wrong way?  I do now).

Now we see the notorious canary-turned-chick.  This is one stubborn little bird, determined to sport pink legs rather than yellow, like the rest of her kind.

And the smallest, yet loudest, of all.  The screech owl.

 Most owls, of course, prefer to eat mice.  This particular owl, however, has discovered the joy of the Dum-Dum sucker.  Sticky plumage, here we come.

Trick-or-treating was a lot of fun, though unseasonably warm.  (Isn't that how it goes?  When I make an effort to get everybody a cozy costume, that effort turns out to be unnecessary.)  I desperately missed our Indiana neighborhood as I was walking with my girls.  Halloween was always one of my favorite times.  Darn it.  Here's to hoping I feel that way about Roosevelt in three years.  :)

Chicken Run

Well, actually, it was a Bird Run, even though Bella has a hard time remembering if she's a chicken, a chick, or a "canawy."  The cross-country team has a "Spook Scoot" as an awesome fundraiser, and you know I love me a good race.  However, my foot was really hurting in our training for a 5k at the end of the month, and I couldn't be sure how it would feel, so I just sent the big girls out with the wolves to run by themselves.

Their costumes were a big hit.  You can see the swan, the peacock (whose tail was not yet attached--to hard to run with a tail), the canary, and the grumpy, screechy owl.  

Olivia was nervous and intense at the starting line.

Naomi wasn't sure she could make it.

"One mile!  That's a really long way."

My parents and brothers were in town, so we stationed a cheer squad at the corner of each block, to make sure the little birds would keep going.  Olivia did awesome, stretching her long bird legs out and really running.

Naomi alternated between fits of slow-walking despair and manic fist-pumping "power bursts" (as she calls them).  They both did awesome, finishing in the top ten and winning a fancy medal.

I'm so proud of my little runner birds.

Halloween is for the Birds

Olivia is usually the driving force behind our Halloween costume theme every year.  Last year, she graciously allowed each of us to choose a costume for ourselves, even though they didn't all necessarily work together. (She did try to come up with a narrative, however, that would explain each character's presence.  Something like, "Well, when Mary's little lamb was lost then She-Ra came to help her, and the lion was the one who kidnapped the lamb.")  She's back in fine chief mode this year, and she has determined a bird theme for all of us to follow.  According to her assignments, which do take into account the preferences of each family member, I will be a flamingo, she will be a swan, Naomi will be a peacock, Bella will be a canary, and Maddie will be an owl.  John is to be a bird watcher, complete with notebook, vest, and binoculars.

Bella's costume is mostly done.  It just needs a beak and some eyes on top of the hood, and I still need to make her a pair of fleece leggings to cover those skinny little bird legs, but I think I'm going to make everyone's leggings in one go.  

Obviously, she loves being a bird.  This costume was my experiment, so there are going to be things that I do differently on the other costumes (and I may even go back and unpick *shudder* and fix some things on her costume), but I couldn't resist letting her try this on and go fly around the yard.  I've already had to wash it once, and I think it needs to be washed again.

I have the McCall's pattern 4618, and I have used it in one way or another nearly every year for the past eight Halloweens.  I love it because the hood is attached and the jumpsuit part is nice and loose.  Plus, it's super easy to put together.  For the birdies, I'm just making the legs much shorter, and then I'm tracing some of the girls' school leggings to make orangey-yellow fleece leggings to go underneath for warmth.

Bella's favorite part is the little feathers on the top of the head.

We Love Halloween!

I thought John would capture a full-body shot of my fabulous self in an orange pindot polyester leisure suit.  Can you believe he only got this?

"How blessed the day when the lamb and the lion shall lie down together without any ire."  I don't think we're quite there yet, do you?

From left:  Mary (of Mary Had a Little Lamb) not to be confused with Little Bo-Peep  (you can see she still has her sheep, right?)
Jaguar (she refused the elephant costume I had planned, but the jaguar fit.  Who am I to argue?)
She-Ra (store-bought costume not available since 1985, so this is what we put together on our own)

Close up on the Princess of Power.  Check out those sassy hips.

This costume was sewn in 2004 for Olivia.  As I was re-examining it this year, I was quite pleased with all the progress I've made in my sewing since then.  

We broke the plastic outdoor candy cane we had planned to use for a shepherd's crook, and drama ensued.  John came to the rescue with this pipe-insulation substitute.  And then Olivia refused to use it at the Trunk-or-Treat because she was sure people would think she was Bo Peep if she had a crook.  At the end of the evening, she indignantly proclaimed, "I didn't even carry my stick, and they still thought I was Little Bo Peep." 

Give it your best shot

Can you guess what we are?
John, Annabel, and I all dressed ourselves in theme this year for our church's Trunk-or-Treat.

We represent the title of a well-loved children's book. (And no, I am not the Statue of Liberty. My very wicked face is a clue.)

And I think this just may be the cutest costume I've ever made. (Or maybe it's just the baby, which I also made, so I'm keeping my pride.)

Halloween Extravaganza

I wanted to tell all my Halloween stories at once, so here we are. (This will be a long post--we did a lot for Halloween, and I'm not really known for my short-windedness.) The church's trunk-or-treat was Tuesday evening (as I have heretofore mentioned). John went as Bowler Hat Guy from Meet the Robinsons. (Seen here without the bowler hat--he has a curly moustache above that very un-Bowler Hat Guy smile). The "trunk" part of trunk-or-treat was omitted due to fears about snow, so we passed out candy in the cultural hall. (Unfounded fears, I should add. The weather was bee-yewtiful.)
I was the fairy godmother from Cinderella. Naomi was Nancy from Enchanted. (No, not Giselle, as you might expect, but Nancy--the other woman.)
Bella was the Pea. (Seen here in her post-flaming fit nap. I wasn't about to wake her to put her costume on.)
Some more friends (Halle as Aurora and Madison as a nice witch) on the cultural hall stage.
On Wednesday, Olivia decided she had a bee in her bonnet about making Halloween cookies for the neighbors. I decided that since John wouldn't be home until late, we could indulge this neighborly whim, and she and I went to town: making dough, cutting out spooky shapes, and baking all sorts of delicious cookies. Don't they look great?Well, maybe not, but the plan was to decorate them on Thursday after school and pass them out on pretty Halloween plates with friendly "From the Wells Family" tags. My visiting teachers (love them!) arrived after the baking was done, and I sat down to have a delightful chat. Olivia asked me if she could give some cookies to our friends, and I told her, "Of course!" She prepared a twist-tie bread bag of plain sugar cookies for each of my visiting teachers, and they were appropriately grateful. As we continued to chat, I heard the front door open and close, then open and close again, and again. I was curious as to who was going outside and what they were doing when Olivia ran back into the room, followed closely by Naomi, and declared, "I gave away all the piles of cookies!" I wondered what the neighbors (some of whom we had not yet met) had thought when answering the door to two little girls, dressed in spaghetti-strap fairy dresses and no shoes, delivering bread bags of plain sugar cookies. I decided to laugh rather than be embarrassed.
On Thursday, we had our Wives' Club Halloween party at Bonnie's house. We were supposed to bring Halloween treats, so the girls and I made spooky Oreo spiders.
They are very easy and fun to make, and I think the kids at the party loved them. (Who doesn't love Oreos, pretzels, and Reese's pieces?)When Olivia got home from school, we dressed up in our costumes again, and headed to the Fall Festival on Notre Dame campus. Where we ran into Clifton (the little boy in the middle) from Olivia's kindergarten class. He and his older brother were very fun, and a game of "run around the crowd" ensued. This was followed by fantastic face painting from the Notre Dame art students. (Olivia got a red sparkly heart on her cheek, and Naomi wanted a princess, but got just a crown instead.)We waited in line for both the bounce house and the haunted house, but the girls got sick of it just shy of it being our turn (both times!). They decided they were happy just to get a picture with this very spooky inflatable spider.As John was on call, we went to the hospital to eat with him, only to find him busy with an admission and unable to eat with us. So I braved the cafeteria as the only adult with three small children. Now that's scary! On the way out, the girls rolled down the wheelchair ramp in their beautiful princess dresses, as the refined and polite young ladies they are.
On Halloween day, I got both girls ready in their costumes first thing in the morning (this makes three days of dressing up--I think you can't ask for more than that, really). Naomi went with Kelly to trick-or-treat at the residency clinic--very fun! And Annabel and I went to Olivia's kindergarten class to put on the Halloween party. I learned these things:
*Pumpkin bowling is a huge hit. Everyone could play that again and again.
*There are moms who, when asked to bring a healthy snack to a class of 16 kids, are dumb enough to bring 12 cupcakes. Who does that?
*Kindergarten boys are at least 5 times as likely to cry over the outcome of a (non-competitive) game than kindergarten girls.
We came home and detoxed with a short nap, and then the girls and I made dinner. I found this recipe (if you can call it that) for mummy pizzas in Family Fun magazine. My girls are out on olives, so I just cut some pepperonis smaller for the eyes. Isn't it sad that the food never looks as good in real life as it does in a magazine-styled photograph? They were delicious, nonetheless. I would like to do an entire theme menu for next year's Halloween, a la my cousin Andrea. That looks fun!Then we went out trick-or-treating. It was fun to meet the neighbors the girls had taken the cookies to. We had three houses that had gotten a special treat just for my girls, to repay them for the "delicious cookies." I'm not saying that I'd have Liv head out to strangers' houses again all by herself, but it sure broke the ice.
One more time, with the princess dresses. Olivia's was made with the last of the bridal store fabric that I got last year when a woman in my ward in Toledo was selling her shop after 20-or-so years. I think it turned out delightful. I just had to buy the gold ribbon down the front and the zipper for the back. Practically free!So, that's it! Our Halloween adventures. It was a fun-filled, crazy-making week. I'm glad we did everything we did, and I'm glad it won't come around again until next October. Maybe I better start gearing up now.