In Disguise

The Queen of Hearts

The Indian Chief 

I loved Andrew's headdress because, with the exception of the front black feathers, it was made entirely of feathers he has found on his woods' walks.  

A snow princess

And a Backwoodsman

The fearsome foursome

Andrew suggested "Hey!  Let's do a crazy one!"  And then, when everyone else tried to do crazy he just stood there with  a calm, contented smile.  "THAT was your CRAZY, Andrew?"

 TRUST me, that boy can do crazy a lot better than that- he practically LIVES crazy.  (Maybe calm IS crazy for him?)

Attempt #2 at Crazy- for Andrew's Sake.  

I said crazy, Corynn...not frightening!  ;-)

 Well, it was a nice thought but Halloween didn't turn out anything like the night that I had envisioned.  No quiet evening alone drinking wine with my feet up and my fingers wound in yarn while Matt went traversing the countryside in search of sweets.  No sirree.

The van broke down.
The husband got home late (and maybe a bit grumpy) and then had to milk right during trick or treat hours.
The children and I had to do a fair amount of foot trekking to reach the nearest neighbors (in the pitch black and up and down steep hills...so steep the only way to get the kids to make it up them was to belt out REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE! in time with our footsteps.  Quite a sight- and sound.  But who was there to hear?!?)  Then all six of us crammed into Matt's company CRV (that has no backseat but is filled to the brim with work stuff) to drive as fast as we could to the furthest places (Grandma's church) before it closed it's doors (and then to pick up the van from the autoshop).  We got there five minutes late.  The drive wasn't exactly comfortable.  Or legal.

I would have nixed the whole thing if I wouldn't have had the threat of furious grandparents to thrust me forward.  (And four devastated children.)

But this is the life.  Things happen.  Rarely do things go just according to plan and even more rare are those quiet moments when I can actually put my feet up.  Such is life.  I'm kinda used to it by now.  And I know that someday, Lord willing, when the house is quiet and my loves are scattered in their own homes and sipping on a glass of wine with my feet up and fingers entwined with yarn could be an everyday reality- I will long for those crazy busy days of sticking rhinestones to faces and hot gluing feathers to scrap leather and hear dark eyed babies thank me over and over for making him a beawd like Papa's.  These really are the crazy busy, crazy beautiful, crazy lovely days.

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For you frugal pals~ Their costumes were fun to make- really low key.  I spent about $4.00 in total on Hallowen this year- on a few sticker rhinestones and two packs of black feather things (with an A.C.Moore coupon or two).  Everything else I had on hand.  Corynn used a church dress handed down from friends.  Adele's costume was the only storebought thing and was bought back when Halloween clearance would go down to 90% off- probably about six years ago (It was intended for Corynn to wear once upon a time).   The best I ever see these days is 75% off unfortunately.  But you know what?  95% of the fun of Halloween is coming up with your OWN costumes.  It is decidedly less fun to just wear something from the store.  The face paint was bought last year after Halloween.  The brown fleece and leather in Andrew's costume I have had for years and had intentions of doing something else with but never did, so...why NOT use it?  We didn't buy any candy for trick or treaters because we never get them.  One neighbor called the next day to see if we would take all the leftover candy that they had.  I have sorted a bunch of candy out from the Halloween bin to save for stocking stuffers so I won't have to buy candy at Christmas either.   Well, except for the Dutch Letters.