Halloween Success

 It's no secret that I have to talk myself into Halloween fun every year. This year with trunk or treat on Tuesday and Halloween on Thursday, it took an extra dose of 'I can do this' to make it through. I will say with the kids getting older, it is getting a little easier and less stressful. Imagine that.

 This helped start my Halloween happiness before the trunk or treat. Owen kept stealing Nathan's nerd glasses. Side note- I think he's had approximately 32 Dum-Dum Suckers since our Trunk or Treat on Tuesday. He knows to sneak quietly upstairs and get into the older kid's candy. Smarty pants.

Three {two year old} Mickey Mouse boys

 This really, really put me in the Halloween mood. I couldn't wait for this costume to make it's third and final appearance. I knew Owen's reaction would be the similar to the other boys based on personality alone. Obviously, he did not disappoint me. He kept yelling, 'no Mickey!' and tried pulling it off of his legs. For the record, I will say Dane was by far the most mad about this costume. He kicked and screamed and cried and held a grudge for much longer than the other boys. Owen was bought off with....

 

you guessed it- a Dum-Dum sucker. He was really good at the carnival. He walked around and found enough candy to tolerate his costume the whole time we were there.

 Here we have what started out to be a gypsy and evolved into a Cleopatra type gypsy. At least that's what she was calling herself. She helped run the ward carnival with the young women and dashed out to the youth Halloween dance (they allow the 12/13 yr old crowd to attend this dance) before it was over. She came home happy as a clam. She danced every dance even though some of her friends would run and hide during the slow songs. Listening to her retell the night was the best. I'm so glad she had a good time.

This is our resident mobster. This boy is the hardest to please on Halloween. He likes none of my suggestions for costumes and can't come up with anything of his own. I went to visit an old roommate in Portland and found this cotton suit in the costume section at Goodwill, brand new for $6.99. Perfect! Now I just had the hard sell to Dane. Once I mentioned Nathan's fedora he was all for it. He liked when people knew he was a 'mobster'.

Nerd alert! This costume took some convincing too. He wanted to be a nerd but really he only wanted to be half of a nerd. He didn't want to wear short pants, he wanted his hair normal and he wasn't too sure about the white socks. The pants might be my favorite. He wore Dane's church pants and they were skin tight around his middle and oh so short. Without much effort, he slid right into character, ha.

 He was able to add the bow tie (after picture time) and it really completed his nerdiness. I did want to part his hair down the middle but he wouldn't have it. I guess he had some pride. After much begging, I was able to talk him into a comb over. I loved his costume.

 We found Kat's skirt at the Portland Goodwill too (she went with me for a little girl trip). Thankfully, she loves coming up with a homemade costume. We sewed elastic sequins to an old shirt and tied a scarf around her waist. I also covered an old necklace in ribbon and hot glue. There isn't another holiday that motivates me to spend on the cheap (or free) like Halloween does. I spent around $23 this year and that was for four different costumes (Nathan's suspenders were from a thrift store too).

Reed's costume was another one of my Portland Goodwill finds. A Mr. Incredibles costume from the Disney Store in perfect condition for only $6.99. This was a steal! Thank you Portland suburbs. I made the mask from some felt I had around here. He thought it was 'itchy' but he happily obliged for the pictures.

  The Fab Five dressed and ready for our ward carnival/trunk or treat. After taking such cute pictures on Tuesday, I didn't even get my camera out on the actual holiday.

 

 They asked if they could pose for a shot. Ok then. Kat and Nate are killing me here.

 A week before Halloween I saw that our grocery store was making cute donuts on Halloween . I went to the store looking terrible at 6:15am to buy these with some chocolate milk for breakfast. Why fight the sugar high? They loved them. The Frankenstein and spider donuts were my favorite.

We walked around Halloween night for an hour with some friends from our ward. Owen ran from door to door. He would lay down on the doorstep and throw a fit if no one answered. They came home with an insane amount of candy. I survived it all so I'm calling it another Halloween success. Until next year!