Halloween

Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday. No, wait. It is my least favorite holiday. Not because the kids get gobs and gobs of candy, and not because they stay up late wandering streets in the dark (of course, with Rhett or myself), and not because it's "The Devil's Holiday," but because I have to stress about COSTUMES.

In the beginning of our Halloween-life-with-kids, Rhett stepped up to the plate and made us some awesome costumes. These were usually thrift store, last minute masterpieces.

Like this one: Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Tinkerbell.

Or this clever super-hero one:

Or this one: The Kung Fu Panda crew (Po, Master Shifu, Po's dad, and Tai Lung)

Once the girls were old enough to want to be something for Halloween, we still did thrift store costumes for them, and we were a little creative for our own--painting our skeletons onto black jump suits. (Note baby Pippy's skeleton.)

We even got to recycle our's the next year, since I was pregnant again. The girls were bumble bees that year. I made them from Joann's fabric store--probably the most stressful Halloween for me because I was relying on Rhett to pull through, but with his work, he wasn't able to, and I had to do it on my own. (Though Claire makes the costume look smashing.)

This year, every time I asked the girls what they wanted to be, it was different. So Thursday night, on Halloween Eve, I asked them one last time. Summer said, "A purple cat." "Purple cat?" I asked her. "Yeah. From Brown Bear." Ohhhh! We have a book called "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?" It goes through many animals and many colors. And she picked the purple cat from it. Cool! And doable! Even better!

So here's what our purple cat looked like: (On the front of the shirt it said, "Purple Cat, Purple Cat," and on the back it said, "What do you see?" -- and Summer wrote the word "see" because that's one of her school sight words that she knows.)

And Claire, who loooooves unicorns, wanted to be a unicorn. We made a cone, spray painted it and glittered it up, then I made a vest from some weird white, furry coat we got in a giant costume bag at a garage sale years ago. I also sprayed it purple.

And Pip, well, she got to go as Tinkerbell. No story there. Just simple and quick.

Basil wore whiskers and Tai Lung's body suit. Throughout the day she switched between a baby cheetah and a baby leopard.

I feel a little insecure about my last-minute thrifty costumes. They are nothing compared to the fancy princess and fairy costumes at the stores. And they are nothing compared to actual home-made costumes that are sewn and ironed and look store-bought. Mine are hot glued, pinned, and stapled. But Rhett kept asking if the girls were okay with what they were dressed up as. They loved it. I guess that's all that matters. And it really was a lot of fun seeing the excitement in the girls eyes as each door was opened and a giant bowl of sugar was presented to them.

On the way home from school yesterday, I told the girls they could each choose a sucker from their candy bags. And, for a moment, I was "The Best Mom Ever."

Little did they know I was going to make them eat a carrot ginger soup for dinner. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha.