Nah, never mind. Too hard. I'll just type away, and assume it's basically the same post as last year.
The kids picked some fun ideas this year for their costumes. Skippidy was so funny - I seriously think it was all the way last Halloween that she decided she wanted to be a devil this year. And she stuck with it. She didn't waver for a moment for the entire year.
Bitty fell in love with the movie Into the Woods over the summer, and since her favorite thing is to pick a horrible rotten villain to whole-heartedly portray, she picked The Witch From Next Door, as played by Meryl Streep. From ACT I when she's still ugly and wretched with snarled hair and disgusting nails. Bitty was very specific about her desires about this costume. We will return to this subject in a moment, because this was not the end of the story on her costume. (Cue a slight wisp of steam emerging from my ears at this point.)
And Cap. He was in the middle of a Star Wars kick in early October when it was time for committing to a costume. If you asked him today what costume he would really like, hands down it would be the guy from Jurassic World. But at the beginning of October, he was all about Obi Wan Kenobi.
Sigh.
I kind of love the great costume hunt - only rarely do I ever just go to the dang store and dang buy a costume. I always search here and there at second hand stores and craft places for bits and pieces to cobble together. I'm absolutely positive that just buying a costume would be easier and most likely less expensive in the long run, but it never feels as good to just go out and buy it. This was especially true for Cap - there are LOTS of Obi Wan costumes for sale, but seriously, they are either extremely crappy or extremely expensive. And Cap is a purist when it comes to costumes. The more accurate the better, which certainly puts pressure on me. I ended up feeling pretty excited with how Cap's costume turned out.
Not only did my friend Kalleen, the wonder-seamstress, offer to help me sew a Jedi robe for him, she found an $8 hideous brown tablecloth at Deseret Industries that, although was appalling as a tablecloth, made a beautiful robe with "great draping" according to her. It took us less than an hour to make, much to my shock. I have to come clean here - I have big guilt when it comes to this robe because Kalleen had actually fallen and broken her elbow earlier this fall and wasn't up to putting a ton of time and effort into her family's costumes. Her costumes are...are....magazine worthy they are so amazing. But she took it easy this year and her husband, who also happens to be the principal of the school where I work, teased me about getting her to do my cloak even though she couldn't do much on her own costumes. I immediately felt idiotic, but grateful for her help anyway. And...she offered! But I maybe shouldn't have taken her up on it. In any case, we ended up with an awesome Jedi robe.
I also found a linen tunic at the DI that was surprisingly easy to transform into a Jedi tunic, again thanks to a little extra help from Kalleen (I'm sorry Jared!!). (And sort of not sorry. Cap looked amazing.)
Bitty had a fun holiday - she spent her fall sewing classes making this darling Halloween banner that we loved hanging in our house for the month. I still haven't packed it away in the halloween box - it's too fun to just box up for a year. So ...it's in a drawer. I'm weird.
Bitty's costume on the other hand....Oi Vey. Seriously. In the following story you will see that I am a total spine-free wimp of a mom. The Saturday before Halloween our friends hosted a really fun Halloween/Birthday party for their two boys in their back yard and it was darling and festive and a great chance to not only spend time with friends but get a dry-run in with the costumes.
Here are Troy and Skippidy walking down the road to the party. I love shots like these:
Here is cute Cap having a light-saber duel with Rick, who was dressed as Anakin Skywalker, much to our delight. Rick's wife Elyse was dressed amazingly as Padme in her Chinese Umbrella-collar dress thingy (I will be going to Elyse's seamstress-aunt next year instead of mucking about myself with the costumes.)
Here am I, most miraculously dressed up. I confess, not in a very interesting or creative costume, but I did dress up by gum, even though I pretty much do no enjoy dressing up.
Here are some other party goers and a great group shot:
And where, you might be asking, is my middle child? My darling daughter Bitty? Not in any of these pictures, and not in a single Halloween picture at all in her costume that I spent the entire month putting together. No kidding, I worked really hard to put that ensemble together. You want a crazy wig with graying frizzled hair? Done. I got a wig. You want a black dress with puffed sleeves and layers of gauzy fabric on top? Done. I put together three different black dresses found at different locations to complete the creation. You want fake teeth? No sweat, I went to multiple stores to find the right ones that weren't fangs. Makeup creating the appearance of world weary aging? Got it. Fingernails that are every bit as long and disgusting as the actual witch's? Yes, I searched and searched for those, and we ended up buying plain fake nails that we HAND COLORED to match the movie's. Finally the party came and we dressed her up and Bitty looked AWESOME. Why oh WHY did I not take a picture at that very second?
Because I am a short-sighted moron, that's why.
Bitty stayed at the party for five full minutes before she was in absolute tears. The wig was itchy. The dress was too long and too hot. The makeup felt weird on her face, and she could not abide the fingernails. And she would not let me adjust or remove a single thing to attempt to make her more comfortable. She simply and absolutely refused to be a part of that costume for a single second longer.
Oh I was SO mad. (I hope she doesn't read this for a very long time. I'm doing some processing here that maybe she shouldn't see....) and of course I swore (I mean that I cursed AND made a vow) that I would not be spending one single second on another costume. No WAY should I put that much time and effort and money into a second Halloween costume.
But it's me. And....and....I have no excuse. I should have just sent her to our costume bucket, and I'm still kind of mad at myself that I didn't. But I was shopping late at night a couple of days later at Target and found the following hat in the $1 isle. I bought it. And take a guess....she LOVED it. And said she was so super excited to be a turkey dinner for Halloween. I half loved her costume and half hated myself for lifting even one single finger to make that second costume. I'm the worst best mother ever.
Facial expression matches perfectly how I was feeling.
Moving on, I would also like to record the fact that I helped out at Skippidy's first grade Halloween party and that her class is so awesome, we had more parents than we could even handle to help. It was darling. I was in charge of the photo booth and had a splendid morning.
It was a busy week. Immediately after school we packed up the car (which took three hours and we didn't make it out of the valley until very late but oh well) and began our journey to St. George for actual Halloween which I shall blog about ....tomorrow or in 6 - 8 weeks. As is my current trend.
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