The Scary House

This was definitely my favorite Halloween with the kids so far. I'm sure it will get better and better as they get older. Addison was totally into it this year. She has loved to dress up every year but has not been so into the trick or treating part. We enjoyed the build up to Halloween by making Halloween shirts, carving pumpkins, making chili (btw, am I the only one that thought chili had two L's in it? chilli?), and driving past "scary" houses. Addison anticipated and enjoyed driving past the "scary" house everyday. It was a house just around the corner from us that had a spider web in the front yard and a zombie.  However when I suggested that we could go trick or treating at that house on Halloween she freaked out. She wanted to just keep driving past it but not trick or treat at it. Though this was the house that she considered the "scary" house, I learned that any Halloween decoration could make a house the "scary" house. So when we finished carving our pumpkins and set them on the porch she squealed with joy and said, "Now we have a scary house too!"

I happened to pick the thickest pumpkin ever.

When Halloween talk started in September Addison told me she wanted to be a ballerina...easiest costume ever. That's why when I opened my mouth a couple weeks later I kind of wished I hadn't. Addison has become a little obsessed with the show Phineas & Ferb. It's a pretty hilarious cartoon if you haven't seen it. Well, in this show is a girl scout troop called the fireside girls. Addison longs to be a fireside girl in real life. She walks around the house singing this song. I informed her that when she got older she could be in girl scouts but that wasn't soon enough for her. So I said, "You know you could be a fireside girl for Halloween." The gasp that came out of her mouth told me that this thought had never occurred to her. And so she not so patiently waited for me to figure out her costume. At first I was going to borrow some girl scout accessories from a friend. And then I actually sat down and looked at the fireside girl costume and realized it was not like a normal girl scouts uniform. I procrastinated, after all, Halloween was a couple weeks away. I knew she had a brown skirt and brown shoes, and knee high socks. I happened upon this yellow/orange shirt on the clearance rack at Old Navy and thought it would be perfect. Now I just needed the sash and the hat. Still I had til next week and even thinking about the hat gave me a headache, since I had looked in every store I could think of for an orange beret. And then there it was the Friday before Halloween and Addi had dance in two hours when I suddenly remembered her teacher saying they can wear their costumes to dance. Uh oh. I scrambled through my fabric and to my surprise (since I had no recollection of buying it) came across some yellow fabric. I pulled out my sewing machine and quickly made a sash so she had something to wear to dance. I cut out some felt shapes and glued them onto her sash for patches. Good enough for now, we would worry about the hat later. Her teacher asked her if she was a girl scout and Addison went into her spiel about how she was a fireside girl. Of course if you have not seen Phineas and Ferb you don't know what a fireside girl is. So I would just say, it's like a girl scout. (Later I kind of wish I hadn't said that.) Well, after dance I still had 5 more days til Halloween so I concluded I would just have to make a hat. I went back to the clearance rack at old navy and bought another shirt to cut up and make a hat out of, so it would match her shirt. I googled how to make a beret and found a tutorial that did not make much sense to me but it was enough to at least give me some idea of how to make a beret. I made most of the hat but then was so confused about how to attach the top to the bottom so I just put it away. Finally the night before Halloween I just held my breath and went for it. Addison was already in bed for the night so I would have to make sure it fit in the morning before I finished it completely. So Halloween morning she got in her full fireside girl ensemble complete with her hat and I could not have been more pleased. I may or may not have patted myself on the back.

Pretty awesome, right?

I had good intentions for Eli's pirate costume. But you know what the road to hell is paved in. So, his costume consisted of a bandanna tied around his head, and an eye patch made out of felt. Well, nobody noticed and everyone went on and on about what an adorable pirate he made and how they couldn't believe he was keeping his eye patch on. My trick? Candy. We just gave him a piece of candy to hold and he gnawed on it until he got it open and then we replaced it with another unopened piece of candy, and his eye patch stayed on until I took it off. After everyone went on and on about Eli, they turned to Addi and said, "Well, aren't you cute? Are you a girl scout." I imagine after a while Addi got tired of her fireside girl spiel so she started just answering, "yes." I don't know if her answer bothered me because I was the one who justified to people that she was like a girl scout and she had given up or if it was because I made sure to make her look just like a fireside girl and there was more effort in it than just a girl scout. Oh well, when she came home from preschool that day she squealed, "Mommy, Ms. Cindy and Preston knew what I was!!!!"

We spent Halloween parading it up at Addi's preschool, then trick or treating at daddy's office carnival where there were plenty of animals to be held and petted as well. Then we came home, ate some chili (one L) and trick or treated one block in our neighborhood. Why only one block? Because Addison was just as excited to pass out candy at our house as she was to get it....that is until the scary mask came to our door. This mask was the scariest one I've ever seen so Addison is probably traumatized for life. For the rest of the night she hid in her room every time the doorbell rang. 

 Since Halloween I've learned that Eli. loves. candy. Nerds are his favorite at the moment. He chews through the box and then gobbles them up as fast as he can until I catch him.
Let the rotting of 6 teeth begin.