Halloween

The kids were SO excited for Halloween, and they weren't disappointed.  It was such a fun day.

An explanation about costumes... I love theme costumes and I kept talking to the kids about what they should dress up as that would coordinate well.  The first plan was Star Wars.  They'd all just recently seen the first movie for the first time, and Cat was eager for Luke to dress up as Luke Skywalker.  But after brainstorming for a couple of days, the list of things Cat had come up with to complete just her costume (Princess Leia) was pretty ridiculous, so we thought of other options.  The next plan was for everyone to be a Christmas-y character.  Cat would be a sugar plum fairy, Jack would be the Polar Express, Eliza would be a snowman, I would be a Christmas tree, Ben would be Santa, and Luke would be Rudolph.  But the kids backed out of that idea within a few days.  

After the kids (mostly Cat) coming up with a long list of things we would "have to buy" for any of the costume ideas we had so far, I finally decided I wouldn't buy anything for Halloween, and we would all make costumes out of boxes, of which we had plenty from our recent move.  We looked at different ideas online, and thought about everyone being a box of candy - Jack could be Cracker Jacks, Cat would be a Kit Kat, Luke could be Sugar Babies, and we hadn't decided on Eliza before the plan changed again.  Jack wanted to be a robot.  Fine.  Eliza could be a pink robot.  Great.  Cat still wanted to be a Kit Kat, and she spent a long time trying to paint a big box red.  I prepared robot costumes for Jack and Eliza, and they looked awesome.  But shortly before Halloween, a neighbor asked Cat if she'd like to wear a princess dress she keeps in her dress-up collection for grandkids.  It was a beautiful dress with a hoop skirt, and Cat immediately decided she had to be a princess.  So then Eliza had to be a princess also.  We didn't have a good princess dress in Eliza's size at the time so Eliza borrowed one from a friend of hers.  This meant.... no family theme.  I mourned.  But I did my best to at least pair the costumes.  We had the girls as princesses, so I decided Luke's costume should go along with Jack's.  In the end, I decided he would be an inventor, with the Jack-Bot as his invention.  I drew glasses on him (they looked really wonky because, believe it or not, it's hard to draw anything on a wiggly 6-month-old) and spiked his hair and dressed him in overalls.  But everyone still thought he was Harry Potter, haha.  Oh well.

Anyway, that's the Evolution of the Costumes.  Maybe I should start the process of figuring out this year's costumes now...?

I curled Cat's hair before school.  Not bad, right?

We started the day off with the costume parade at Cat and Jack's school.

No trouble spotting Jack.

Cat was too cool to enjoy being on parade and walked as quickly as possible,
half hiding behind her friends, who were probably trying to hide as well.

She did reach out to Eliza, though, who was also dressed in her princess costume.

Jack's Class - the IA is trying to get Jack's arm to stay on.
He kept having trouble with it because he insisted on wearing it for days
leading up to Halloween, though we told him it would be hard on the costume.

He had a robot shirt on under his costume, so that he could
still enjoy the class party.  (Notice the IA is holding Luke in the
background while I was helping kids do coloring pages.)

Measuring things using candy corn, with Eliza next to Jack.
It was great that she got to enjoy some of the party as well.

The ceremonial lighting of the Jack-O-Lantern.

At the last minute, we decided Jack should have a jacket on under his costume.
It worked out really well that he wore his fireman jacket, because half way through trick-or-treating,
his arms were hurting from having to be held out while wearing his costume, so he wanted
to take it off.  With the fireman jacket on, it looked like he had another costume ready to go.

He got extra candy from several people because his costume was so creative, but
it was comical to watch him try to get candy into his bucket because he couldn't get
his arms close enough together.  Oops.  He eventually figured out that he should
just hold the bucket out for people to put the candy directly into it.

As usual, I was pressed for time, so Cat put makeup on herself and Eliza.

Cat and her friend were so excited to trick-or-treat together!

  

When Jack and Eliza got tired of walking, we took them back and let Cat continue
trick-or-treating with her friend's family.  Jack and Eliza loved getting to answer the
door when trick-or-treaters came to our house, though.