I'm pretty sure I set the bar high for myself last year with the Cast of Peter Pan costumes although I really didn't care about measuring up. I do love making costumes but this was definitely not the year for that task. We opted to tell the girls to check out their dress up bin & pick something, dressed the buckaroos as buckaroos & little man in a festive pair of jammies. "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy" as the girls say.
It was definitely a mash up & the combination was fabulous because it was next to nothing financially, no extra work minus 5 minutes on an Indian headband & cute as can be.
Here is the Fab Five...
We swore we would stop calling Owen "Cowboy Small" but could not resist for obvious reasons. He does resemble Big Tex a bit with the hand raised. Anson, oh Anson. I tried to take away the blankie but Robby & Uncle Kyle said to let him hold it.....you might think it was sewn to his hand. He would have made the perfect Linus ; )
My parents were in Nashville in early September & called to see who had cowboy boots that fit. I looked at the sizes of the girls old boots & found that Anson could wear Eloise's old ones leaving the other three bootless. They did some shopping & stopped through Dallas on their way home. I told my mom to not worry about getting a new pair for Anson & that he wouldn't even remember that his "new pair" were in fact an old pair. Boy was I wrong! It was hilarious when each of the kids were ooing & ahhing over their new boots poor Anson had a frown on his face while saying "Nooooo (with his adorable inflection) these aren't new boots! I want those boots!" He was of course pointing at Owee's awesome pair. I can't say his attitude has improved much since he pouts nearly every time the boots come out & he watches Owen get his on. Anyway, someday he can have a new pair!
The girls went in vintage costumes thanks to two lovely seamstresses. Eloise wore a costume my mom made for Uncle Scott when he was about four. I added a stretchy baby headband with a few feathers hot glued to it. I also braided her hair which is SO unlike me. For some reason I missed the boat on fixing girls hair & braiding is a skill I lack. When I sat down to fix her hair I said, "Mommy is going to try to braid it but it might not work & you have to be okay with that." Robby laughed & said "oh boy, I wish Aunt Jenny or Gaga were here" since they are braiding masters. I was shocked when it worked & then even more shocked that it stayed in place till bedtime!
Charlotte wore a twirling costume my Grandmother made for my mom in the 60's. I do believe she wore it in a talent show at her elementary school. The best part was that she went to Casa View Elementary so there was a "CV" on the front for none other than Charlotte Valentine! Charlotte is becoming much more interested in girly things such as hair bows, headbands and.....cheerleaders. Actually she could have cared less about cheerleaders until we saw a group of girls no older than 11 practicing near our house. They were adorable, quite uncoordinated & having a blast practicing jumps. Charlotte stopped in the middle of the street & stared until we convinced her to continue our walk. She talked the rest of the way home about cheerleaders & how she would like to be one but she couldn't because she didn't have blonde hair. Her daddy told her that I used to be a cheerleader & she was so excited. I didn't go into how awful I was....proof in a video of a Kingwood Middle School volleyball game but did remind her that my hair is not blonde & I still got to be a cheerleader.
She said she needed some pom poms so I ordered these. She couldn't hide her disappointment when she opened the box & sweetly said "This is not what I was expecting. I thought they would be pom poms that look like a puffy ball." I hated that for her but she told me she liked them anyway & she could still be a cheerleader. Such a sweet girl. We were cracking up because the second she had all the pieces to her costume she put them on & ran around the house yelling "Go racers! Go racers!" but we never figured out who the "racers" are. She also did a few cheerleading jumps that looked similar to mine in the aforementioned video. Last bit about her...she actually asked me to put her hair in a ponytail & clip on a sparkly bow. I willingly did this all the while thinking "who is this child?" The rest of the night she asked us constantly "is my bow cricket?" Too cute to remind her that the word is actually "crooked."
All Eloise cared about was getting a picture of her holding Arlo. We couldn't deny her & she did a great job! I can't blame her...I wanted a turn too! The girls & I made a quick trip to Old Navy that morning & came across only one Halloween related baby outfit & what do you know, it was a newborn size! It was also $3. So I think in total we spent about $20 to outfit five kids. That will be a hard to beat in future years.
Here's precious Arlo as "baby batman"...
It was so fun to have Kyle in town with us. An extra set of hand for an adventure such as trick or treating is so helpful. Around 4 we headed over to Lisa & Euan's house for a little pre- trick or treat party. It was a two fold celebration coupled with Euan's birthday. They did a fabulous job preparing all the delicious food & making it extremely kid friendly. We loved catching up with Lisa's parents & Euan's mom who was in town plus a couple other friends. The kids played inside & out, chased around a soccer ball with Euan who was dressed as a chef. His little Liam was dressed as a lobster or "lompster or monster" as the boys say. They were quite the pair & won the award for most creative costume at his work party that week. Anyway, the kids were all sugared up from the cupcakes & candy at the house before we even left to trick or treat. It was after six & close to sunset when we finished up at the bash so we decided to hit up the houses on their street. Best idea we'd had all day! Lisa's mom Nancy offered to snuggle Arlo after I filled up his tank. He was pretty content & she had him snoozing free of charge when we returned.
Euan had the kids do a few dry runs of ringing the doorbell & saying trick or treat at their front door before he & Rob walked them next door to try it for real. When they passed the test we were photo ready & off to collect some treats! I could not stop laughing when I saw this picture. Eloise looks like she is throwing up in her bucket! If we would have let the kids eat as much candy as they desired they would have all looked like that ; ) We probably would have too.
Our trip up & down the street in bullet points:
- Charlotte & Eloise were capable of running ten times faster than their bubbies who looked a little like Woody from Toy Story with knees that could buckle (and did) at any second. The boys kept yelling "Wait for me! I'm comin'!" The girls were so sweet to wait & even lift the boys up to ring the doorbell.
- As far as ringing the doorbell goes, we would tell the kiddos to ring it one time only. They took that to mean one time each.
- The buckaroos buckled at the knees every other house spilling a bucket of candy. Anson even rolled down a few steps but both were so concerned about their candy they spent all their time panicking about that & never acted hurt. Maybe we should carry those around the house all the time!.
- Once it was really dark we saw a kids bike that was hooked to another kids bike side by side, There was a ninja dad on one keeping the wheels rollin' very slow making it seem like there was a ghost on the other. It was pretty creepy but not as creepy as the next house. It was one of those houses where they leave a bowl out front & remind you that you are on video surveillance. The entire house was dark minus a room upstairs with pink lights & a large cat sitting on the window sill staring straight at us.
- At one house the man who answered passed out a bit to each kid then looked at Owen & said "You look a little small, here's some more candy." Ha!
- Charlotte was super pumped the whole time until we turned around to head back toward our car. She looked at me & said "This is the worst Halloween ever, I'm not having any fun!" then we stopped at three more houses & she said it was the best Halloween ever. Six year olds can be so fickle.
- The kids figured out they could ask for a second round of treats & people would't say no. When given the option to grab, the boys went for it, Elo was close behind & Charlotte was polite. This definitely showed in the amount of candy in each bucket.
- Anson kept telling us "I go up & jingle bell (rings the doorbell) & say special treat!" He almost had it down!
In closing, it was a really fun evening with friends & our little family. It was even more fun since Uncle Kyle joined us for the weekend. He came up from Houston to meet his newest nephew & he brought me 2 half gallons of Dutch Chocolate Blue Bell. What a treat just a few days before it was back on the shelves in Dallas. Here he is with the little babe he walked to sleep more than a few times.
