Halloween

I figure a week late is better than never, right? Halloween this year was particularly crazy. I always feel the need to have really cool costumes for the kids. No store bought stuff, nothing that they will see other kids wearing, etc. I blame my extremely talented and amazing sister-in-law, Holly. She set the standard years ago with ridiculously good costumes and so it has now been ingrained in me. Anyways, the trouble with that is that it's really hard to come up with good costume ideas year after year (note: last year didn't count b/c I was such a wreck). It is getting closer and closer to Halloween that we finally come up with ideas and then I am having to rush to get things done in time. Plus they wear a different costume to school b/c I don't want them wrecking their *real* costume. I also am usually helping with somebody's Halloween party at school that I have to make up a game for. Anyways. 

So here are Duncan and Dayton in their school costumes. You can see I caved this year and just had Dayton grab an old Yoda costumes out of the dress up drawer. We got it clearanced after Halloween one year just to have around to fun. I think it's made for a three-year-old. But we were desperate. Duncan wanted to be a mummy and I had an old white crib sheet that I ripped apart for him. I spent a long time getting him covered just right that morning but by the time they had the costume parade at school a couple of hours later it was almost completely gone. Figures.

Tucker was fine with being a pirate for school (again, not up to the usual standard but as I am having more to do each year I am becoming more okay with boring costumes for school. He is a really cute pirate though.

I really had a dilemma with Ellie this year. I wanted to do something really girly since last year was a bust and she was just a stuffed pumpkin but everyone has taken a turn being the donut so far and I knew that next year she might be too opinionated and way more into girly things than she even is now so I decided that this year she should be the donut. It's tradition. She did have an extra little bit of fun though - pink hair!

The boys had a hard time coming up with any costume ideas that were fun. Duncan kept asking about being a scary/gross/yucky Halloween something but I wouldn't let him b/c it would freak Tucker and Ellie out. No one else really had anything they wanted to be and then one day when they were at my mom's house they sent me a picture of a boy in a homemade Ninjago costume they had found online. It was all made out of cardboard and my mom assured me that it came with instructions. So I said ok. No big deal. Jeff brought home some giant cardboard boxes from work and I figured I could get it all done in one Sat. Well, the "instructions" were just the mom saying that she copied the Lego guy dimensions and used a lot of duct tape. I was looking for an actual pattern or something. So I enlisted Jeff's help. I don't think he has ever had any part of costumes before so it was about time. He can make anything if he is willing to put in the effort. So he got them figured out and then we both helped put them together. He painted the base and the I did the designs. It was much nicer this year having some help! I think they turned out pretty dang good. They were fairly difficult to walk in, but they all assured me that it was worth it to look so awesome.

And Charlie was the fourth little blue Ninjago. Minus the cardboard and designs. Pretty much just blue clothes. I thought it was worth forgoing an actual cool costume for him so that he could match his brothers but not one person realized that he was supposed to be a ninja. Everyone just thought that he was all bundled up (even though it was like 60 degrees out). Oh well - I still thought he was cute.