Tales from the Mommy Trenches

Halloween should be on a Saturday every year. I came into Halloween with a really bad attitude, but it actually exceeded my expectations. While the men folk watched the (extremely disappointing) GA/FL game and the girls napped, my mom and I channeled our crafty sides and made the girls’ costumes. I decided Rhea was going to be the sun and Wren was going to be Minnie Mouse. Rhea has a yellow June and January romper and Wren has a Gap polka dot dress that served as our starting points. I paired Rhea’s romper with her gold moccs and Wren’s dress with her black tights and silver moccs. We only had to make their hats. We glued some felt circles and a polka dot ribbon  to a headband and voilà! Minnie Mouse hat.

For Rhea, we made some yellow and orange foam into a crown, and presto change-o, our little Rhea sunshine.

For the older two girls, we merely packed a trunk full of the play costumes we already had and let the girls choose whatever they wanted. Rose wanted to be Cinderella (Ruth’s costume from last year) and Ruth wanted to be Spider-Man. My sister very craftily made a felt spider to put on her shirt to add the finishing touch.

We went to trick or treat in my parents’ neighborhood. They live right next to an elementary school and this year their cul de sac was hosting the neighborhood Halloween block party, so going there was a no-brainer. It was fun having all of our neighbors that watched me grow up meet my children. Pretty surreal, too. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was playing on our cul de sac as a child. Now for the shameless photo dump.

 Scott couldn’t get over how cute Wrennie looked.

 I couldn’t either.

 Blurry, but I mean . . . . . .

Anyway, moving on with the photo dump.

 You should have seen Rosie sitting ever so still while my sister was putting on her makeup. Ruth said superheroes don’t wear makeup. Scott put on my old Minnie Mouse hat that we got from Disney World back when we went when I was a child. We found it in my parents’ basement.

Sweet little Wrenna bird just toddled along after her sisters the whole night without a single wimper. After someone gave her candy, she would politely say, “thank you!” Ruth enjoyed distributing the candy at my parents’ house and telling the children that they had “lovely costumes.”

 If Halloweens keep going this well (and cheaply) I might just grow out of my grinchiness toward it. Did you make your kids’ costumes? Or just let them pick something out of their play costumes? It seems to cure the fickle toddler “I don’t want to wear that costume anymore” syndrome.