After not spending much time with my brothers this year, they came into town & it was so fun! My mom has saved many of our childhood costumes including a number of ones that she made. I was Jessie from Toy Story my senior year in high school so I figured it might be fun to dress up! The waist did not quite fit the way it used to before four pregnancies but a clip fixed it up until I moved & it popped off. Robby threw on the old Captain Hook wig Eloise wore in 2014. 
The line up this year included a fireman for the second year in a row, but he had an addition the he received for his birthday a couple weeks prior. It was a backpack sprayer. For weeks, he kept our flower beds, Paw Paw & Gaga's flower beds & his siblings well watered!
I mentioned old costumes earlier. Charlotte happened upon a dress I wore in 8th grade & it fit her perfectly. I reminded her that I was unusually small & she is normal sized. We paired it with Gaga's heels, cat ears, a painted nose & some glittery eye shadow. She looked like the prettiest cat I had ever seen.
Eloise, oh Eloise. She was set on the idea of being a pirate. Here she is decked out in the costume she designed and Gaga made. All I contributed was the thing on her head. Fine by me! Leave it to the professionals! She insisted on the tiniest of gold triangles that they worked together to attach. Gaga also spent more time than she should have making felt boots to go over her shoes. She was adorable though & out of everyone, has worn her costume the most since Halloween. She has a great imagination!
She told Uncle Scott her plan & he looked up the names of some female pirates. He called her one afternoon and told her that she could call herself Sadie the Goat. She is said to be an American legend.
Some facts about Sadie the Goat:
- she was a vicious street mugger in New York
- her "move" was to get a running start & headbutt her victim in the belly
- she eventually had her ear bit off in a bar fight
- it was given back to her & she wore it in a locket around her neck
Hmm....thanks Uncle Scott! She was not aware of the details but took on the attack method & chased her brothers down to headbutt them. She also loudly declared when told to do the dishes, "Sadie the Goat doesn't do the dishes!"
The twins, hahaha. There has been this pair of glasses at my parents house for years. Arlo used to be so terrified of them that they were hidden up in the closet & he would ask before we even traveled to Kingwood if Gaga put them away. He's not scared anymore & he thought his big bros were pretty funny. They opted to dress identically & we were thinking about them adding white hair spray then decided against it because they were going to take a dip in the hot tub that night.
Gaga really did herself up nice too! Paw Paw hasn't had that much hair in years....or ever I guess!
It has been pretty wonderful to have my own mother just a few houses down. We don't dress like this everyday but wouldn't that be fun? She wore her costume in a tap dancing performance, minus the wig of course, ha!
Notice the skeleton hands Kyle and I replaced ours with. I got them at the dollar store, they were great for a game of don't drop the egg & then Arlo scratched the guinea pigs with them for weeks after. They would flatten out like pancakes and relax. Who wouldn't like that? 
We had yummy snacks....
and played an abundance of games including a scavenger hunt where they collected bones, assembled them & cracked the riddle to enter the door to the closet where they found a bucket full of candy. This fall for school we have focused on human anatomy & Arlo memorized the parts of the axial skeleton. He could point & name them on our model: skull, vertebrae, ribs & sternum. Too cute with his little voice!
We had a team competition to build bridges with "bones" Q-tips, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners that had to hold candy pumpkins. Scott showed off some skills with weaving pipe cleaners while Kyle the engineer couldn't help but build something I could have stood on ; ) Robby & Owen worked together & were able to support lots of pumpkins. Anson didn't like being my teammate so we didn't take a picture of our bridge that fell apart. I have other talents....not creative construction.
I didn't get any pictures of the swimming that followed for the little party animals. The hot tub was hot & the pool was sooooo cold! Once the fall rolled around & the pool got chilly, the lifeguard (Paw Paw), his wife, and all the kids started calling the dip in the pool a "Polar Bear Swim." There is a white float called "the iceberg" & every now & then someone yells "POLAR BEAR SWIM!" and everyone jumps in. I would hate that & be considered the party pooper but that's okay ; )
Bottom line, this Halloween was one of my very favorite! I think we might do it again next year!
