I Want Candy!

Although I've made some creative costumes for my kids in the past, this was not one of those years. I have had WAY too much stuff going on lately and despite the unique ideas I came up with in years gone by, I fear the creative part of my brain has ceased to function. Truth be told, I'm sadly lacking the Martha Stewart gene. I know people who can take a dirty diaper, a can of gold spray paint, and some pipe cleaners and create a lovely centerpiece. I'm not one of them. I would take the diaper, toss it toward the garbage can, miss , and knock over the whole can, spilling trash across the floor. The little kids would grab the can of gold spray paint and do some redecorating on the family room walls, and the older kids would take the pipe cleaners and stab each other with the sharp wire ends. Nope, taking a pile of junk and turning it into art is not something I encourage at my house. I guess they could've gone as Crazy Pickle Arm Man - "Look at me! I have a pickle for an arm! Now give me some candy!"

So here are the notsocreative costumes of 2007.

"You dress me up in this stupid outfit, you stick wings on my back AND you expect me to smile? I think not."

"You've got to be kidding me. You want me to leave this thing on my head too? You're pushing your luck, lady."

OK, so we walked to our neighbor's house. The kids went up to the door and rang the bell. Brooklyn stood, a look of confusion on her face.

"Let me get this straight - you put this ridiculous outfit on me, you took me outside in the cold (because it's always 30 degrees on Halloween in Chicago) and now we're standing here at the neighbor's door? Why? Why would we be doing this?"

Just then the neighbor opens her door, exclaims how cute the kids are and gives them candy.

"Candy? I got CANDY? Just for standing here in this silly costume? Wow! I can get into this! Why have we never done this before???"

Remember that little crying princess? Here she is with candy...


Amazing how a little chocolate can put a smile on your face, isn't it? I know it works for me.

After the first "score", she happily ran up to each door. She never quite learned how to say "trick-or-treat", but she got really good with "thank you". She ran to the house yelling, "Thank you!" She yelled, "Thank you!" as candy was dropped into her bag. And finally, one more "Thank you!" was shouted out for good measure as she walked away from the house.

Ummm, I don't know. She wore her softball uniform (Yay, I didn't have to buy or make anything). Then she gave herself a "black eye" and "bloody scratches". What can I say? Softball's a dangerous game.


Here we have the Mermaid Man costume. This thing has had four years of use now. I think it's time to retire him. He sponginess is flaking off, his eyes have several rips in them, and it looks like he's growing mold.


My little monkey.


Cinderella


A scarecrow


A really creepy scarecrow! This is my oldest. He sat out there and waited for big kids to come by. When they did, he jumped and scared them. When little kids came by, he took off his mask and passed candy out to them. I think he had more fun doing this than he's ever had trick-or-treating.

Oh yeah - I want to apologize for deleting a couple dozen comments today. I inadvertently hit the "reject" button instead of the "publish" button. I'm sorry if your comment was accidentally rejected. Oops!

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Snow Miser, Vomit, and ABC

I had fun reading about everyone's favorite costumes and homemade costume ideas! I thought I'd share a few more pictures of my totally creative sister's costumes.


It's Heat Miser and Snow Miser from Rankin and Bass's The Year Without a Santa Claus.


Here she is as Edward Scissorhands.



She made this Vegas showgirl costume. Yeah, I know, she stinks. Of course, she hadn't had any kids yet in this picture.


And here she is as Marge. You can't really tell from this photo, but she actually dyed her skin yellow for this!

And how could I forgotten this costume I did! I guess you'll only recognize him if you live in an area with a Six Flags Amusement Park. A couple years ago, they played commercials with this little old man dancing to a fun little song. My son carried a small tape recorder and danced around to the song while trick-or-treating.

My baby threw up in her sleep last night at midnight. She was lying on my bed. I stripped her jammies off, wrapped them in my puke-covered comforter and threw the whole mess outside in the rain. Then I put her in the tub and scrubbed her down. Gag! After that vomit extravaganza, I was afraid to go to sleep lest she get sick again, so I stayed up until 9:00 in the morning. I'm glad I stayed awake because she continued to throw up about every 45 minutes, all night long. I figure we'll all have it by next week when we leave for Florida. That should make for a fun trip. Needless to say, I'm tired. I'm heading to bed and hoping that no one wakes me up with buckets of vomit tonight.

OH! I almost forgot! One of my readers sent me this link to the ABC segment! If you missed it, you can see it HERE.



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You're Going to be Ghosts This Year

I just realized we have two weeks until Halloween! Only two weeks! That doesn't give me a lot of time to come up with six costumes. Now don't hate me, but I'm actually one of those moms who makes their kids creative costumes every year. I know, I know, your opinions of me have just lowered. I don't sew or anything, but I'm pretty good with a hot glue gun. Well, truth be told I'm not actually that good with a hot glue gun, (Do you know how badly it hurts when you get hot glue on your hands?) but I get by.

So, I like to make creative costumes and I secretly love it when my kids are the only ones in school with their costume. Does anyone my age remember the costumes we had as kids? They came in identical boxes and they all had the same components - a plastic costume with little plastic ties at your neck that would rip before you even got to school and a hard, molded plastic mask. The masks would have cut-outs for your eyes and mouth. Every kid had to stick his tongue out through the little mouth opening because, well, because it was fun. Inevitably, we'd scrape our tongues on the sharp edges of the hard plastic. The best part of those masks was, of course, the little rubber bands of death. You know - the tiny rubber bands that were attached to the mask with even tinier staples and no matter how careful you were, you always snapped yourself in the head with it. And of course, your face would sweat so much in that hot plastic that you'd have actual puddles in the mask by the time you reached the end of the block. Oh yeah, those were the days. Honestly, I can't complain because I only had a couple of those costumes. My mom was a homemade-Halloween-costume-maker herself. It's probably where I get my passion for making my kids costumes. I don't mind getting that trait passed down from Mom. :D Hee hee - just kidding, Mom!


Medusa from Clash of the Titans. What kid wouldn't want to be Medusa for Halloween? Now there was a movie with incredible special effects. My son had to watch that movie for school last year during their unit on Greek mythology. After seeing Harry Potter and Star Wars, the awesome, "realistic" stop motion animation in Clash of the Titans, just didn't seem so spectacular.


The Jolly Green Giant. I don't know about you, but I know I always wanted to dress up like the guy from the can of green beans.


Ahhh, Sleeping Beauty. Yes, I know she looks a little evil, but note that her plastic costume is flame retardant!


And the devil costume. Notice his teeth? Who knew the devil didn't brush and floss regularly?
Thank you so much Debra and Tracy for sending me those pictures from your collection!

My mom made some cool costumes for me and my sister. I've made some cool costumes for my kids, but my sister has made the ultimate costumes for herself over the years! They're absolutely remarkable.

Here are a couple of the costumes I've made my kids over the years. I wish I had more pictures of them on my computer. I don't have the time or the energy to do anything this year. I think they're all going to be ghosts.


Marge Simpson (it's bubble wrap painted blue for the hair.) I stole this idea from my sister.

A whack-a-mole game

Yeah, giving him a big padded mallet probably wasn't one of my better ideas.


A penguin and elephant I made years ago. I just used sweat pants and then cut up and glued sweat shirts. My mom did a little sewing for me on these.


Our boy genius, Jimmy Neutron.


I made a plain ole Sponge Bob costume for my oldest son way back before Sponge Bob was a household name. When we went trick-or-treating, people kept saying stuff like, "Oh look honey. It's a piece of cheese." He used that costume for two years and then we redecorated it to look like Mermaid Man.

Umm yeah, I had nothing to do with this. Gotta love a man who isn't afraid to let his hair down. (Yes, I did walk several paces in front of him)


Yep, that's a typical picture of my "princess".