Snow on the Pumpkin Patch

We've been gearing up for Halloween this week. It has been several years since I have made costumes, I have told the kids they can raid the costume bin or come up with their own. This year, it was time to get a little more involved. The kids have gotten bigger and have outgrown much of our stash and the younger girls deserve a custom costume at least once in their childhood.

Geral was easy. She wanted to be a princess and was happy to wear the purple dress in our collection. We bought her a new foam crown and let her glue on some jewels to make it sparkle. Done. She looked fabulous for her parade at preschool on Friday and for trunk-or-treat at the church today.

Rachel decided she wanted to be a mermaid. She had a vision in mind and it was difficult to get her to tell me what it was but I finally made a sketch that made her happy. She helped me choose the fabric at the store and we were fortunate to find a green fabric called mermaid in the shade of green she had envisioned. While everyone was at school on Thursday, I set out to transform the fabric into a costume. Since the store was sold out of mermaid patterns and Rachel had a vision anyway, I was on my own to figure out how to put it together. Let me tell you, it was so nice to be working on it alone in a quiet house. I got to think and experiment without interruptions and without anyone getting alarmed when I scrapped one idea and went with another. I think it turned out cute. Rachel was on the verge of a fit when she got home and found I had created it in two pieces instead of one but I convinced her to try it on before she completely fell apart and she loved it! Whew.

William wanted to be a zombie. He just needed some old clothes to shred and some face paint. A little green hairspray completed the look of decay that he was going for.

Sarah wanted to be a pirate this year so we started from scratch making her an outfit. Originally we thought she would just wear a shirt that we had in the house but none of our white shirts was making the outfit work. Since I am too cheap to shell out $20 for one from the costume store we were still without a shirt this morning. She was feeling a bit more pressure than usual since she was invited to a costume birthday party for a friend today. I woke up this morning with a bit of inspiration so a $3 men's t-shirt and a pair of shoelaces became a pirate top. We were quite pleased with the results and it looked better than I thought it would so I was happy and Sarah was too.

Lauren and Steven ran into trouble since they both wanted to wear the batman shirt and cape. Compromise won out, Lauren wore it this evening and Steven will wear it on Monday when he has friends coming to trick or treat with him. Steven wore a shirt with a target printed on it and added a dart that looked like it was hitting the bullseye.

Facepainting at Trunk-or-treat

Pumpkin bowling

Costumes resolved, we were ready for Halloween. But what was this? Snow!?! It started out as a sleety freezing rain that turned into big wet flakes through the afternoon and evening. What should have been a perfect fall day with the leaves at the peak of color turned into the dead of winter. Our trees haven't lost enough leaves to rake yet and the little girls were ready to build a snowman. They were the only ones in the family eager to go out in the stuff and they had a ball for a few minutes at least.