Halloween: In the Backyard

Well, since the children haven't taken me up on the blogging yet, I guess since I have a minute or two to spare, I will post the Halloween pictures.

This Halloween was a bit of a bummer because the two oldest of my children decided they were too old to go trick or treating.  Ordinarily, I would agree...except our 'trick or treating' looks more like visiting five or six of our elderly neighbors (because they ask us to) and calling it a night.  And there is no age limit on making elderly neighbors happy.

Besides- costumes are FUN!

I didn't fight it too much with Andrew.  I knew the only way he would come was if I were to somehow make an awesomelt realistic but super cheap Sasquatch costume.  It was the only thing he wanted to be.  I had a perfect fur blanket that I could have used...but then I would have cut it up and ruined it.  And I didn't WANT to waste a nice fur blanket.  I just didn't have it in me to figure that whole costume out.  So he went camping with a pal in an old, abandoned and ramshackle cabin with dead carcasses around it and in the middle of the woods.  The stuff of Halloween nightmares.

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Corynn was the one who put the 'too old' idea into Andrews' head in the first place.  But I begged and pleaded and guilt-tripped her so much that she eventually had mercy on me and gave in.  About 10 minutes before we left, she transformed into a tree.

All for ME.

She's a good girl, she is.  A good tree, too.

Total cost of costume: free.

Heart of Gold: worth untold millions.

Adele' was a moth.  

We totally forgot to have her carry the lantern and battery powered candle we have that decorates our porch.

 (Get it?  Moth attracted to a flame?)  Yeah- clever.  

Except we forgot...so...not clever after all.

Total cost of costume: less than $1.00 for the white fabric remnant.  

Muddy dog prints running down one wing: free.

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Ineke asked to be a blue butterfly.  I had BIG plans to make a theme of weather-related costumes but noooooooo.... I love Ineke so much I put that aside so she could have her wish.  (Even though butterflies are SO cliche.)

What made it not cliche was making the wings ourselves instead of buying them at the store.  Ineke enjoyed doing the 'hard thing' and helped to paint and glitterfy a scrap of black remnant fabric.  Err... I mean, WINGS.  And they turned out really beautiful.

I think this was her favorite costume year ever- precisely because SHE helped make the costume.

I panicked when I realized the bag of paint I had bought for her costume was lost...but I scrounged around and found enough glitter and paint that we already had to make it happen anyway.

AFTER Halloween, I found the bag of untouched paints and glitter from the craft store under a pile of stuff and returned it all making her costume cost only the price of a pair of black tights (which she needed for colder weather anyway.)

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Sweet Little Moses was the cutest snail ever.  

His costume consisted of packaging paper wrapped over shipping bubble wrap and cardboard.  Oh, and a remnant of leftover tulle from my fabric stash for the 'slime'. 

Total cost of costume: free.  Unless you count the amazon purchases that required bubble wrap and paper packaging. ;-)

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In going with the 'backyard theme', Judah wanted to be a praying mantis.  

His costume was the most fun (and time consuming to make) and also the most expensive.  It consisted of a TON of cardboard, some fabric and felt remnants and padding and pipe cleaners- all of which I had already. 

BUT!

I bought a can of neon green spray paint because I thought it would make painting the cardboard easier.

And I was very, very wrong.  

Turns out, when you ask a boy if he knows how to spray paint because you want HIM to do it because you are in the middle of doing WAY too many last minutes costume things, you should NOT believe him.

An entire can of (expensive!) spray paint was blotched and emptied all over ONE piece of cardboard.  

There was quite a bit of panic with that one- and maybe a bad 'tude from his mother- but we eventually found that we had *just enough* green acrylic paint laying around to hand-paint the cardboard.  And I mean, JUST ENOUGH.

Judah's costume required a neon green shirt, on sale at Michaels for $3.33, two half-dome Styrofoam pieces for .99c each and a can of worthless and wasted spray paint for $7.99.

But it made him happy so... 

I was a toadstool and used all supplies that I had on hand to make the hat.  

(It helps when your home is a fount of craft supplies.)

Total cost: free.  But also, I am not getting that sunhat back.  

Maybe people will see me gardening this spring in a toadstool hat.

Matt swooped in and transformed himself to a garden gnome seconds before we had to leave.

Apparently, "garden gnome" is his natural style because all he needed me to make him was a hat.

Felt piece: under $1.00

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Funny story: at the last house we stopped at, which happened to be Grandma and Grandpa's house, our van totally DIED.  Garden gnomes aren't mechanics, especially in the dark, and after almost an hour of trouble-shooting, to no avail, we had to borrow a vehicle to get ourselves home and into bed.  I was so thankful that if it HAD to happen, it happened when and where it did!

After all the fun and costuming was said and done, I caught two little trolls spying and sorting their morning candy stash.