Easy Halloween Costumes - Again

While I admire those who go all out and create fabulous costumes for their children, you know I prefer to keep it simple. I'm not a real lover of the holiday and with Christmas looming, I cringe to spend too much money for Halloween. Bah Hum Bug, I know.

Anyway, here's a quick review of my kids and their costumes this year.

Neal the Skeleton

We cheated on his costume and bought the entire thing at Target. It was on sale but I still spent more than I wanted. Neal was insisting on being something "scary" and he finally decided what to wear earlier this week. The skeleton was a compromise. It was just scary enough to be cool in the fifth grade but not too scary to bother his mom.

Amberly the Corpse Bride

Amberly has been planning her costume since last year. She adores dressing up for Halloween and we have a thing for Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride. She had a bit of a melt down in Target when I refused to buy the pre-made wedding dress costume. First, it was too expensive and secondly it was immodest. As if I'm going to let my daughter wear an immodest wedding dress--even for Halloween. I don't think so. I think the costume I threw together this week made it up to her though. The tutu and veil were easy. And I sewed lace around the neck and sleeves of an old shirt from Old Navy. It's pretty simple but I'm still impressed by myself since my sewing machine rarely every comes out.

She's pretty spooky though. Since they couldn't wear face paint to school yesterday, she went as an alive bride. Apparently she croaked sometime last night.

Thomas the Ghost

Thomas had definite ideas about what he wanted to be for Halloween. He's been telling us for months that he wanted to be a ghost. Here's our conversation:

Thomas: I'll just put a sheet over my head.

Me: How will you tell where you're going?

Thomas: I'll just feel my way.

Me: You'll get hit by a car.

Thomas: No, I stop and I'll listen for cars and then I'll feel the wind of the car as it goes by. Then I'll cross the street.

Me: I don't think we'll put a sheet over your head.

My friend loaned me a toga-like costume but Thomas refused to wear that, so I just bought him a white shirt. We painted his face and sprayed his hear white. Voila. A spooky ghost.

And Thomas is a pretty picky candy eater. He only likes the chocolate. I tried teaching him the polite thing to say: "no thankyou" but his versions turned out more like: "Ewww. I hate suckers. Why does everyone give out suckers?" I apologize for his rudeness.

Lilly the Care Bear

Earlier this month I was at my sister-in-law's house and she pulled out this Care Bear costume that her daughter wore a few years ago. She asked if Lilly would like it and I knew immediately that she would. First, it's purple and Lilly loves purple. Second, it's a Care Bear and Lilly loves Care Bears. When I brought it home Lilly was so excited to try it on.

She looks less than thrilled in the picture but that's more that she was overwhelmed by the crowds at our house. She suddenly gets shy and quiet around crowds. Lilly loved trick-r-treating tonight and even though it was raining like crazy, she was nice and warm as she ran from house to house. She's so cute. I could just eat her up.

Molly the Tiger

Poor Molly got to be the tiger this year because she's too little to complain and because I already had the costume in storage (both Neal and Thomas were tigers and they both looked as miserable).

Molly perked up while we were trick-r-treating when she figured out that people were giving her candy. She had no intentions of putting the good stuff in the bag and wanted to keep it all in her chubby little hands. She is a bonafide chocoholic and she did the funniest "happy dance" when we got home and pulled out the KitKats. She ate way too much candy and was so hyper.

I don't dress up. You know this. I did spray glitter in my hair. One of my sister-in-law's took this picture today and of course I doctored it up in Photoshop (just a little honesty, there).

This afternoon, before the rain, a lot of my family gathered for a little party at my house. My parents drove out for the weekend and 15 of the 20 grand kids were here in their costumes. We attempted to take a picture of all the kids with my parents. It was pretty dang funny.

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween.