Halloween 2012

In light of what's been happening on the East Coast I feel a bit ridiculous about posting pictures of my elaborate Halloween festivities. And yet I will because October is my favorite month of the year and our family LOVES Halloween. Still, I don't know about you but I feel very blessed and grateful at the moment. And that is saying something considering Halloween marked Steve's first official day of unemployment.

***

This Halloween season my world was turned upside down by a piece of scrapbook paper with flags of various Halloween items. There it was, on one of the gorgeous displays at Ben Franklin, best craft store in the world. All I had to do is walk away but no....I HAD to have those little flags for my entry way! It was, unfortunately, only available in a pack of other papers so buy the whole pack I did, and that was my undoing.

Inside the pack were countless amazing papers and stickers but the one that caused the BIG problem was an invitation to the voodoo queen Marie Laveau's Halloween ball. And there were the coolest postal stamps. Evie and I decided it would be so cool make it into an invitation and use it on our magnetic scrapbook frames in the entry way. We also found a mortuary toe tag. So we fabricated this story that Kerry Mehoff (get it, get it?!) was invited to the ball and died there on Halloween night. I even put red food coloring on the toe tag for blood. The kids thought it was creepy and I loved it.

That was good for a few days until I had the idea that we could recreate a scene from the ball the in the dining room. (We'll just have to imagine that at this ball they also had a sit down dinner.) I figured it would be easy enough but of course nothing is ever as easy as it seems before you start. The optimist in me gets the better of me every time. I looked everywhere for a round tablecloth for my spooky scene but couldn't find one even on the internet so then I spent 2 days making one from a sheet.  As I experimented with coffee grounds and tea staining I had that too familiar deja vu feeling of "WHAT the HELL am I doing?!"  But it was too late, I was already started and my creative demons were loose. In the end I usually think it's worth it but the process is QUITE painful. 

I was super excited that I was able to find a second use for my Medusa pinataconsidering the time it took me to make it (I can't believe I never posted pictures from the crazy Percy Jackson Camp Halfblood party). I'd also always wanted to do a potions table for a Halloween decoration so again my past efforts paid off and I was able to reuse a lot of elements from the Harry Potter Party potions for my "Marie Laveau" scene.

Before I came up with this crazy idea I also planned on doing a few other things: Made a mummy head (like my friend Janet's that I borrowed and coveted but had to return), made a talking mummy doll (from a doll found at a thrift store for $1.29 because Evie said it would be too creepy to use one of their old dolls). And make a witch silhouette like the one bought many years ago but never got from marthastewart.com on post-Halloween clearance. (The order was accepted but they ran out before they shipped it and I've been mad about it ever since.)

So take that Martha! I made my own from a little black poster board.

This mummy baby really is creepy, especially when it says "MaMa, MaMa."

***

We were so busy with all this craziness that we carved pumpkins the night before Halloween and that was cutting it a little close. Especially when we realized that Evie had ballet class from 7-8 but what are you going to do?!

We got our pumpkins from Remlinger Farms this year and wow they were thick!

Ainsley had a great time scooping guts in and out. She kept signing help so between saving seeds for roasting, helping her and taking pictures I never carved my pumpkin.

I wasn't about to have an uncarved pumpkin at the door on Halloween so I bet Evie $5 that she couldn't carve that giant pumpkin in 5 minutes or less. I set the timer and she DID IT! I didn't think she could, I just wanted the pumpkin carved and FAST. She was so happy, she's now that much closer to paying me back for her Red CD. It was a cat and she even carved a tail on it's bumm. The girl's amazing.

The finished pumpkins.

Just one more.

Evie's Harry Potter pumpkin complete with wand.

***

Now let's get to the actual day. I will start by reminding you that I'm not a morning person. So getting up at 6am to help Evie with her costume was painful because you know I was up late.

Ginny Weasley with pygmy puff.

See, there she goes off to school. It's DARK. You ask, why couldn't she get herself ready?

Because of this.....red hair. Note to self that future Halloween costumes CANNOT require colored hair unless I've budgeted for a WIG! And just a little tip for you: Don't EVER use colored hairspray in the house.

Someone posted a link to cool wheelchair costumes on the Trach forum and I happened to have a seldom used chef costume that was a perfect fit for Ainsley so then I HAD to make an OVEN. Yes come now and taking me to the loony bin. But wait. The day before Halloween I e-mail Ainsley's teacher because there was NO mention of Halloween costumes for her class. It turned out that a parent organized a party but I didn't get added to the e-mail list. It was mid-day, PARENTS WERE INVITED, and it was a POTLUCK. Like I didn't have enough going on without that. Luckily happened to have a box of pumpkin bread mix in the cupboard because I didn't have time to go anywhere while I was using spray adhesive to finish Ainsley's oven. Then the pumpkin bread came out crumbly.  So quickly I cut it into pieces and put it on a plate with the pumpkin seeds I thankfully had roasted and ran out the door.

It might have looked like I had it all together but if you were a fly on my wall you'd know otherwise.

 

Unfortunately every minute was booked and this last minute invitation meant that I would have to dress in my costume before I left for Ainsley's party otherwise I wouldn't have time to put it on before trick-or-treaters came and I'd gone to some trouble putting my costume together. I'm sure the other parents thought I was crazy but that's okay.

 She was having fun.

All seemed good until she got tired at the end and laid on the floor hugging my legs. The nurse and I looked at each other wondering what was up with that. 

Here she is after I got her up from her nap.  Poor kid spiked a 103 fever. I thought we were in big trouble. Oddly after a dose of Tylenol she was fine like it never happened and she was able to trick-or-treat.

She perked up enough to sit at the table for dinner our usual A-Z Chicken Alphabet Soup in a Pumpkin. It looked good but the pumpkin was bad (dry when we opened it) and left a bitter taste.

We aren't done yet. I had to respray Evie's hair because the hair spray can ran out of propellant (so the remaining spray wouldn't come out of the can) before I finished that morning. That meant I had run out of time and didn't do her freckles (so I had to do those at the last minute) and did a crappy job sewing on her pygmy puff. 

Add to the drama that Adrian was afraid to wear his Pokemon trainer costume to school because he thought certain mean kids would tease him (I won't name names but after all the worrying this kid wasn't at the bus stop). He was really torn up about it. I reminded him about Auggie from Wonder and I think that gave him courage. After many discussions he decided to wear it anyway. But then he forgot to wear the backpack (that I'd made using a green backpack from Amazon and a Pokeball patch ordered off Etsy. When he came home he seemed disappointed that kids didn't know what his costume was. Arrrgh. Well he didn't have half the costume on. I just can't win with this kid. His costume turned out great. In case you hadn't guessed he is a HUGE Pokemon fan. I was afraid if he didn't wear the costume he would regret it the rest of his life and that wouldn't be the last he let his fear hold him back.

Somehow it all came together and they were out the door with Steve for trick-or-treating, a little late but considering.....

I stayed back in my Cruella DeVil costume and passed out candy. Luckily I was sipping Jack-N-Cokes all night or I'd have passed out from exhaustion at this point. Caffeine is my friend.

When they got back Steve reported that people LOVED Ainsley's chef costume. In actuality a wheelchair just increases the opportunity to embellish the costumes. But I am hoping that this will be Ainsley's last year in one.

The kids had so much fun dumping out their candy.

With the recent feeding progress I'd hoped Ainsley might eat some candy this year. She didn't. She still had fun with her candy.

She bit the wrapped had us open it and then signed all done.

I was prepared with a lollipop which she gave one lick. And...

....sock monkey dolls that I picked up for under $10 which she immediately threw across the room (so I guess they're mine now).

When Evie said she'd take Ainsley's sucker she crawled across the room with it and handed it to her.

She had more fun just playing with the candy even though she couldn't eat it. It's always a little sad, but I guess I shouldn't let it bother me since she doesn't seem to mind. I won't buy any special Halloween treats for her next year. 

My best close-up of Ginny.

I love this picture of Adrian with his spoils.

Some more decorations.

The kids put out the bugs this year. They are getting older and quite creative.

  

We finished off the night by putting the kids to bed and watching Saw. Scary stuff.

I hope you got your fill of candy and had a fabulous Halloween. I know we did.