I've been busy...

I was in the mood to make fun costumes this year. I tried to nail the kids down to what they wanted to be around the beginning of October so I'd have plenty of time to work on them. I like sewing, but doing it last minute is stressful, not fun. Sometimes we think we might do a family theme, but it never quite works out because everyone wants to be such different things.

However we sort of got onto a food kick this year. First Tyler said he wanted to be a pickle, because he loves them so much.

This is the one that took the most time to make. I didn't have any kind of pattern - just kinda figured it out as I went along. I started out with 4 tall, skinny panels. I sewed them together and just kept tweaking it till it looked right. I tapered the top and bottom, sewed in that stiff interfacing all around the top to make it stand up straight and along the bottom to make it look finished, cut holes for the face and arms and attached fabric facing for a finished edge. Once I got the body looking right, I made little balls out of a different green material. I ripped up a bunch of squares, rounded the edges a little bit, sewed a loose basting stitch around the edge and pulled it together. Then I filled them with pillow stuffing and attached them all around with a hot glue gun. I also hot glue gunned a panel of fabric inside the top to rest on his head so it wouldn't slip down. He LOVED it, and he looked great!

Then Brennan came up with the idea of being a peanut, since it's the scariest thing he could think of. "No really, mom, I have nightmares about them!" In case you didn't know, he's allergic to peanuts.

This one was pretty simple, and it took just one afternoon. I cut a peanut shape out of 3 layers of material - a tan faux suede, batting for the middle and tan cotton for the inside. Then I sewed them with right sides together, leaving a small hole to turn it right side out, like a pillow. I sewed the hole shut and sewed rows of irregular, rounded rectangles all over to give it a bumpy peanut texture. I made two of them - one for the front and one for the back, and used a hot glue gun to connect them at the shoulders and sides with black ribbons.

Spencer said bananas are scary to him too because he hates them. Plus he thought it would be funny, and he's all about funny. He even won the award for funniest costume at the middle school. I was going to make this one too, but I started running out of time and bought it online instead.

Dallin hates tomatoes, so the boys said he should be a tomato. But what he really wanted to be was a purple slinky. In case you're wondering, there were no slinky costumes online for me to use as inspiration, and I almost gave up a couple of times. But I went to Lowe's to get some ideas, and I ended up getting some irrigation tubing (the same size we use in our yard, so we can use it later), which was already coiled like a slinky, and some purple spray paint. Dave connected the rings together with fishing line and painted it, and then I attached some black material shoulder straps. It was a little cumbersome for him to get around in, but he was very excited about it.

Levi didn't want to be anything - he is not into dressing up, like all his brothers. I bought him a cute lion costume, since he loves lions. But he screamed every time I tried to put it on him, so I returned it. On the day of the Halloween party at church we took out our bin of old costumes and had him choose one. He got excited about the vampire bat and flew all around the house roaring.

I looked online for good pregnant costumes, and then I remembered my friend Carol being a pregnant skeleton a couple years ago.

I looked it up online and found an awesome tutorial that included a matching husband skeleton, so of course I had to make that for Dave. First I had to draw stencils for all the bones freehand onto freezer paper, using the online picture for reference. Then I cut them out, using suture scissors for the tiny little finger bones. I ironed them onto our shirts, which worked great. I want to find more freezer paper crafts to do! The easy part was painting all the bones, which didn't bleed under the stencils at all. I put paper bags inside the shirt to prevent it from leaking to the back. I did three coats and let them dry. It took about 3-4 hours, and then I just peeled off the freezer paper.

I love that they chose such unique things to be this year. It was a lot more fun for me.

Banana vs. pickle. Funny boys!!

Carving our pumpkins

Dave got off work a couple hours early Friday, so we decided to carve pumpkins. This worked out great because there was plenty of good lighting for pictures, and the rest of the weekend was too busy.

Tyler started planning his pumpkin weeks ago. He wanted it to be tall and skinny with a surprised look and pineapple top. How cute is that?

He made a small opening so the pineapple top could fit in there snugly. It worked great, although he didn't have much room for his hand to reach in and clean it out.

Dallin chose the fairytale pumpkin I got at Trader Joe's. I think this is what people use to make pumpkin pie, because it had a super thick wall. He had a heck of a time cutting it out.

Spencer chose a pumpkin with a good stem to be the nose, so he cut a hole out of the bottom to clean it out.

Brennan concentrating hard on drawing his pumpkin's face. He wanted it to be really scary, like a zombie.

It was so hard to get the top off of Dallin's pumpkin that Dave had to use a crow bar. That's one thick pumpkin!

Some of the seeds had even sprouted in there.

It was quite the group effort.

This may be my favorite pumpkin picture ever!

Tyler's so creative - I love the pineapple top! And I love having big kids - he did it completely by himself.

This red pumpkin has a lot of character, and Spencer was the first one done.

Which is good, because then he was able to help Dallin finish carving his.

They looked fabulous! Then we threw them out after the last trick-or-treater left last night because they were starting to get rotten and buggie, after just 3 days. I guess that's the downside to living in a warm climate.

I LOVE Halloween pictures!

What I love about Halloween are all the great photo opportunities. We went down to Avila Barn a couple weeks ago. Actually we went there the week before too; but I forgot my camera that time, so we had to go back for pictures. The boys didn't complain about going there twice.

Avila Barn is my favorite place to take Halloween pictures. There are so many great autumnal backgrounds!

Since Brennan was wearing an orange shirt, I put him in front of the white pumpkins.

After taking pictures with the piles of pumpkins, we headed over to the hay maze. I don't like to do it because it's too confining and stuffy in there, but they loved it and ran through a bunch of times. I forgot the Benedryl again, but no one got too snotty.


Levi was cranky when we got there (we went right after his nap), but he cheered up when we put him on the tractor. Then he didn't want to get off.




Making tractor noises.

Dave met us there after work, and we caught the last hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.

I couldn't get Levi to smile. Then he saw an airplane flying overhead - that made him happy.

There were way more pumpkins there the second time we went. Apparently they stock the pumpkin patch.

Heading back to the barn to weigh our pumpkins.

Actually we only got one from the pumpkin patch. Spencer wanted a red one from the barn, Brennan got one during our first trip there, and Dallin's came from Trader Joe's. Next up: carving our pumpkins!

Halloween

Last night was the Halloween party at church. We had an hour to get all ready after Tyler's soccer game, so luckily the 4 youngest boys had very simple costumes to put on. All of our boys have worn this frog custume - at least once.

Brennan and his cousin Eric wore matching astronaut costumes. He got lots of compliments.

Dallin as Iron Man. He couldn't wear his mask at church, so some people didn't know who he was. I think he's flying in this picture.

Tyler as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Spencer as a beat-up hockey player. Speaking of hockey, he had his best game ever this past week. He scored 5 goals! Parents and coaches from both teams were congratulating him. We went out for ice cream afterwards to celebrate, and then he got the stomach flu that night.

In case you missed it in the above picture: note the puck half, glued onto his helmet and missing front tooth. He's been planning this for months.

I actually dressed up this year. I never do, but my kids always want me to. I'm usually so busy getting them all ready that I don't get around to me. So I decided a month ago that I would plan ahead. We already had the white dress, and then I bought the wig from Target and some accessories from the sewing department at Wal-Mart. Pretty simple, and it was fun to see myself with black hair.

The party was a lot of fun - pulled pork sandwiches, an hour and a half of games around the whole church (there were 3 wards there, so it was huge), trunk-or-treating, and a big outdoor showing of Tom and Jerry. We were there for 3 hours, and then we stopped at our neighbor's party for more food and pictures. We won't be trick-or-treating tonight, since it's Sunday and Levi & Brennan now have Spencer's stomach flu, but I think we've had plenty of Halloween fun for this year.