Halloween 2010

Before I get to Halloween, I have to share the exciting news! As of today, we have more than DOUBLED our original goal of 500 nets...and now have raised enough to purchase 1025 nets! That is truly amazing!

And, you should see my closet floor! We already have piles of supplies and candy coming from all over the place! You guys have jumped right in and are filling up our suitcases with fun for these kids! Thank you SO much.

That way my random posts about my children's Halloween costumes don't distract from the bigger, more important things happening across the world. :)

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Halloween 2010

Other than a stomach bug that seems to have landed on our family today, we have been greatly enjoying this fall day of cold and rain! It makes me even happier to blog about the Halloween fun from last week when I'm snuggled under my blanket, with my sweet sick ones watching a movie. Narnia, of course. More about that later...

For now, here's the fall update in a nutshell.

Last week, we visited a very fun pumpkin patch with Grandma, Aunt Jodi, Sophie, and Ty.

We had a fun day, and especially loved playing with sweet cousins. How cute are these pictures?? (Thanks for sharing these, Jodi!) Couldn't these cousins be our siblings?

Kendyll, Carlie, and I also got to help plan Abby Kate's fall party at school! It was fun having them as my little assistants and they did a GREAT job at helping the kids on their fall scavenger hunt and with making pumpkin playdough. Kendyll even served as my photographer...and I have TWO pictures to show for it. This is the better of the two. :)

In school, we have also had some fun fall projects lately. We spent a week at "the ranch" in Mineola and did a tree project, exploring what different leaves look like and trying to identify native Texas trees.

It was a lot of fun and the girls did really well finding over 10 different trees for their books!

We also spent last week studying pumpkins. Everything you could do with a pumpkin in science, we did.

We made pumpkin food, pumpkin projects, pumpkin graphs, pumpkin diagrams, and wrote pumpkin stories. I'll have to share those sometime. I was very impressed with the creativity!

But, the most expensive project we did, was this one:

We toasted pumpkin seeds for a snack one morning. And, then, like a total dummy, I put our unfinished helpings in the sink....to go down the disposal. Only the disposal said no. Apparently, Mr. Disposal doesn't like crunchy, salty pumpkin seeds nearly as much as we do.

And, $150 later, our sink was working again.

It was by far the most expensive week of homeschool...and the most memorable pumpkin snack we'll ever have. :)

But, what I spent on broken garbage disposals, I attempted to make up for in the Halloween costume department.

But, no such luck there either.

The girls could NOT decide what to be this year. It was quite the debate and we went back and forth...and back and forth...and back and forth. A nurse? A Native American? A frog?

None of those stuck. Instead, the girls decided to be Susan and Lucy from Chronicles of Narnia. The problem with this costume, is that it's not real easy to just pick up at Wal-Mart.

So, we decided to visit the Goodwill to see what they had in the "English clothes from the 1940's look". We found what we needed and were almost out the door for around $9. But, then they found the fur coats.

And, of course, Susan and Lucy did wear a fur coat for most of the movie.

So, let's go ahead and add $40 more dollars to that costume total. Ugggh. NOT the cheap Goodwill purchase I was looking for.

As they were trying on the coats, Abby Kate suddenly decided she was no longer happy with being Teiko the Frog. She instead wanted to be a squirrel....which was inspired by this beautiful vest.

I couldn't breathe I was laughing so hard. It really did look like a squirrel was killed for this vest. Right after she said that, the girls thought of an even better idea.

Abby Kate would be Mrs. Beaver (pronounced beev-uh, of course) from Narnia too! Oh my goodness, Abby Kate has never been so excited in her life. She was officially a beaver from that moment on. And, it kind of went downhill from there.

A beaver costume is not easy, especially when you're bent on NOT sewing it. (Lucky for Abby Kate, she has a creative Gammy!)

Her costume was made from a boy's t-shirt, some men's socks, and a bathroom rug. It was quite humorous when my mom and I were hunting for all of the random supplies at Wal-Mart, and were looking for just the right fur for the beaver tail as the last component. Until Kendyll looked at me like I was crazy and said "MOM? FUR for a beaver tail?? Beavers don't HAVE fur on their tails!!!"

Umm. Oops. I knew that. So, we found some "pleather", and attempted to make a beaver tail. I can't even express to you how much we laughed over this costume and how silly it looked as we tried it on her.

And, what's even funnier is that she was SO proud to be a beaver. She thought she was SO cute. (And, she was, of course!)

By the time Halloween hit, I was feeling more and more like we needed a little help with the whole Narnia thing. So, with the girls' approval, we added signs. Kendyll's sign said "The Land of Narnia". Carlie's said "Long Live King Aslan" and Abby Kate's said "I love Susan and Lucy" with a picture of Mrs. Beev-uh on it.

Add some more dollar bill signs for the scrapbook supplies to make the signs, and we are looking at MUCH more than a $4 costume that I first planned.

But, boy have these costumes been USED. They have worn them every day since the original purchase. And, I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

They are obsessed with Narnia and literally speak with an English accent most of each afternoon. They are getting pretty skilled at it, actually! Even Abby Kate!

So, Halloween was funny this year. We had a great time with the cousins (who looked so incredibly adorable this year, by the way.)

We had some great superheroes...Spiderman (Braden)

and his sister, SpiderGIRL (Avery)

and mighty-muscled Superman! (Aiden)

We had Mr. Pirate (Caleb-Matey) and his pet Parrot (Eli)

I love this picture as we attempt to get them all together. Notice everyone's heads are turned to the left, as they watch the Pirate choke his Parrot. It was hilarious.

But, lots of candy was collected, and lots of fun was had by all.

And, although most people probably had no idea who my kids were dressed like, this woman made our night, with a look of total excitement over them being the cast of Narnia.

Thank you, Mrs. Happy for helping my girls feel even prouder of their costumes...especially since we had lost the fur coats AND the signs by house #2!

I'm going to be honest and say that Halloween took me by surprise. I felt like Chase was missing. And, I guess I didn't realize I'd miss him like I did. I thought about what he would be doing at 13 months old, what he would have dressed up like, and how he should have been riding in the wagon with his cute parrot cousin, Eli.

Even the girls mentioned him alot on Halloween and Kendyll said "Oh, Mom. Chase would have been the lion like we all were. And, he could have been Aslan!" How cute he would have been in this costume from years' past:

(Kendyll - 2002)

(Carlie - 2005)

As my sister, Cortni, and I were walking down the street, she was talking about last Halloween. I realized I had no idea what she was talking about, and said without even thinking "It's so strange! I barely remember Halloween last year!" And, then I remembered why. Oh yeah. I was in a total fog. I couldn't even remember what my kids dressed up as. Such a strange feeling.

Anyway, it was a good family day at Grandad and Grankay's, and it was also a good reminder that our little Chase will always be missed. There will never be an event or a holiday that passes without him being at the center of my thoughts. And, I'm okay with that. :)

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween...and that you found some ways to be helpful at the same time! We certainly enjoyed having a new perspective on our trick-or-treating this year!