The Preslars: Halloween Hits Again

You know what was completely AMAZING about this Halloween? Emma had decided all the way last year what she wanted to be for Halloween. And she didn't budge from it for one single second! I can't believe it. My older kids, in the grand tradition of all children at Halloween, generally changed their minds once a minute as they planned their costumes, which planning usually started around October 31st at 9:05p.m. each year. I usually have to set a cut-off date by about October 10 and tell them that they absolutely can not change their minds after that. Of course that game plan hasn't worked out perfectly in the past....you may remember the great Romney-Costume disaster of 2015. I totally caved. Romney laughs about it now but it's still a little too soon for me. So yes, I was super impressed that Emma picked out her idea a full year in advance and stuck to it, never wavering. She wanted to be a raccoon. (Praise her for her simple wish.) The big kids had some various ideas and switched around a bit here and there but luckily they were both pretty simple. Romney started out wanting to be Jeremy from studio C. Her hair was just the right length that with a fake mustache and some glasses she looked alarmingly like him. It was so funny. However, she had one event early in the month and her costume wasn't ready yet. (It took us a long time to find just the right mustache and even when she got it she found it to be horribly uncomfortable. I was very afraid of a repeat of 2015 and a last-minute refusal to wear the costume we prepared for her.) The day of her early party she decided to just throw together a witch outfit and ended up liking it so much she stuck with the witch for all of her Halloween events. Chase wavered less than usual on his plan. During the summer he had coerced me into making him a sweatshirt modeled after the costume of a favorite anime character named Naruto. When the sweatshirt was done it was the dead of summer but that didn't stop him from wearing it pretty much constantly. All summer. And all fall. And now that Halloween is long over, he's still wearing it basically daily. I pry it off his huge teenaged body about once a week to wash it. He wanted to be Naruto for Halloween, and it was easy enough to track down some matching orange sweat pants and a headband. The biggest challenge for Chase's costume was the fact that he wanted his hair to look like Naruto's. Long and crazy spikes. He refused to get his hair cut for like three months. That kid has a head of hair thicker than a bear pelt. It got seriously shaggy and didn't cooperate all that well when it was time to spike it up and I attacked him with gel and hair spray. But I think it got the point across.

Our Halloween events included joining in the pumpkin carving evening at our church. Chase....tried to sculpt a Naruto face into his pumpkin. It didn't go quite the way he planned but I still think it came out really cool. Emma went with a spider web which I basically did. I feel guilty - I should let her do her own pumpkin. But when there was something specific she wanted to do but just didn't have the muscles or precision to do it I had to do most of it. Romney went with the classic jack-o-lantern and did it all herself. Fun.

Like I mentioned previously, the Halloween events crashed landed on Chase's birthday weekend. However, now that he's a freshman in high school, he's outgrown most of Halloween. Pretty much everything but the trick-or-treating. So on Friday night I took the girls to the school carnival. Romney still wanted to go, even though she's in middle school now. It was helpful to have her take Emma around so I could do my PTA thing. In a strange and sudden burst of festivity I decided to dress up. I went with fortune teller/gypsy and kind of had a great time. That's not like me. My mom must have been the Halloween angel on my shoulder.

On Saturday, after Chase's birthday celebrations, I again took just the girls to the neighborhood trunk-or-treat while he had friends over at home to watch a movie. We didn't have quite the awesome turn out that we did last year, but I'd still say it was really fun and successful. It was great sitting in the back of my car with some girlfriends chatting with me and handing out horrifying amounts of candy to many many cute children.

On Halloween itself we hosted a soup on the porch event for many neighborhood friends. We had a lot of people here. I kind of wish I had invited even a few more. It was a really fun night. I love our neighborhood and all our neighbors. We eventually needed to get going on the actual trick or treating though. Chase, despite his maturity and distain for childish things took no issue with staying out with friends gathering candy to his heart's content. I took Emma and Romney with my friend Ruth to go hunt down some houses of some favorite teachers and friends before heading back to our own neighborhood to pound the streets a bit. I'll say that one person we ran in to had an alarming enough costume that I will remember it forever. It was the dad of a little family and he was dressed as a terrifying clown. He was also wearing stilts that made him about four feet taller. My mom would have loved him. I felt like I needed to get away from him quickly and not let my girls get a good look at his face. After our candy gathering we headed in to Ruth's house for a few minutes of candy counting and warming up. It wasn't that late and the only real challenge was getting home and getting Emma's extensive makeup off her face. She had blackish eyebrows for several days. It was a really fun year for sure.