Halloween! Part One

Oh, Halloween. How I love you. Hal and I actually decided not to dress up this year because neither of us were really in the mood and then, all of a sudden, it was Thursday and the kids were mad at us because I told them we weren't going to dress up this year and I had this realization that our crazy costumes are a part of THEIR experience, now, too, and that WE HAD TO RALLY! FOR THE CHILDREN! WE HAD TO DRESS UP AND BE TOTALLY BONKERS BECAUSE THEY LOVE WHEN WE DRESS WEIRD AND THAT IS SOMETHING I DON'T EVER WANT TO CHANGE!

So.

I prayed to the Patron Saint of Couples Costume Ideas and the night before Halloween, received a flash of inspiration and went out into the night to purchase two matching blonde wigs. (More on that, tomorrow.)

The kids chose their costumes early last month. Fable knew FOR SURE that she wanted to be something dark this year which I love because we all have that side of ourselves and on Halloween, if we so desire, we get to explore that... We get to show a little of that darkness in a way that's... fun. As a kid, I loved to wear masks for that reason. The scarier, the better. (Meanwhile, I had never watched a scary movie in my life. I was petrified of them.) BUT ON HALLOWEEN, I WAS A MONSTER! A SCARY SCARY VERSION OF MYSELF! And it felt totally awesome and fun and awesome.

Fable designed her own black-lipstick-sequined-face-makeup situation which I thought was genius. (The adhesive jewels are from the craft store and look incredible on faces. She wore them last year as well and they ruled.)

Fable was a "Bride of Darkness" and when I asked her who she was marrying, she said, "THE NIGHT! WUAH HA HAHAHAHAHAH!"

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Archer, too, was a scary creature. A ghost... a ghoul... a dark and stormy knight...

Archer + Fable's rainbow pumpkin which we bid on at the School Auction and WON. YEAH!

Bo and Revi, after flipping through catalogs and sitting on my lap to look at 9798917289217 costumes, decided they wanted to go as a King (Bo) and Queen (Revi.) SO! I purchased a king and a queen costume. About a week later, when Bo's costume arrived, she threw it across the room.

"I don't want to be a king anymore," she said.

I told her that I had already purchased her costume and that, once you decide that's kind of it. 

"However," said I,  "If you want to be something else for Halloween, you can put something together with what we have here at home. A King Spider Dragon, perhaps? A Princess Elmo Goldfish? Cousin Itt? (We have so many wigs.) A ghost? A BO...st?"

At first she was going to be a dragon. And then she was going to be "a three amigo." And then she wanted to be a bathroom, but I already wrote about all of that. 

Fast forward to Halloween night, when after three costume changes, Bo settled on being a spider. And then Revi, who was a queen, burst into tears because she wanted to wear the same thing as her sister.

And so she disappeared into her bedroom and reemerged as a spider, just like Bo.

This moved us all to tears, of course, because Revi (whose world is princess dresses and who was the MOST excited of anyone to dress up in her fanciest princess dress ever this Halloween) would rather be in sync with Bo than clad in velvet and a crown. Twins, man. TWINS!

As for our evening, it was magical. Something about a bunch of families walking around in the dark, pretending to be things... there are few things more fun. My parents came up this year and that was really special, too. My mom rocked some Little Red Riding Hood action and my dad wore my Elmo costume from years ago and looked extremely creepy and weird.

The kids each had a few pieces of candy before we said goodbye to their stashes, "switch witch" style, and I know that to some it may sound awful and totally cruel to take candy away from kids who have just spent hours walking around asking their neighbors for it, but we've been doing this every year since our kids were tiny, so they don't know anything else. We collect candy and trade it in for cool stuff like art supplies, sticker books, Legos... And everyone's cool with it. I mean, HELLO! Toys are the coolest! And new paints! And sidewalk chalk!

... and pumpkin "BOOterflies."

How about you!? Did everyone have a good Halloween!? What did everyone dress up as!? I LOVE HALLOWEEN, YOU GUYS. I wish Halloween was every day and we all wore costumes like clothes and every week we got to be different characters and bathroom costumes were available for purchase c/o a variety of Etsy vendors. xoxoxo

GGC

ED: Fable and Revi's costumes were purchased at Chasing Fireflies. The spiders were from Amazon. Archer's costume was purchased at a local shop.