Happy Halloween!!!

We love Halloween ... at least we love seeing the kids get very excited for Halloween. :) This year the boys had their Halloween parade early at school, so they get to dress up twice. Of course, this means Shayla also gets to dress up twice as well since she likes to do what her brothers do.

Tyler's costume was a lot of fun. He wanted to be a robot and had very big ideas for his costume. I was thinking, "Score! We spray-paint a box silver and we're good to go." Then he started asking for things like wheels so he wouldn't have to actually walk. Uh-oh ... hopefully he's not disappointed with his costume ...

He wanted to create a motherboard to include, but I informed him that his Daddy had a real motherboard he could use. Who knew they were so big? (Especially from old computers ...) So, Paul convinced him that two video cards would be just as cool as one motherboard. Phew!

Fortunately in cleaning out the garage last weekend we found a pipe from the stove (replaced to meet code during the addition) and he found some Styrofoam Tyler thought looked just like jet packs. (Who knew Styrofoam is a brand name that needs to be capitalized. Just like Dumpster. Sorry, but I just found this out and am fascinated!)

Anyway, we also came up with a cool helmet/hat with glow sticks. Once we added the dryer vents, he was VERY excited about this cool costume:


Of course, what I didn't think about was how difficult this would be to wear all day at school. No, I didn't think about that until we were already 15 minutes late leaving that morning (I was supposed to be early to help with the book fair), and then Tyler couldn't even get into the car. Oops! Then I realized he wouldn't be able to wear a seatbelt. Ugh! So, I made him kneel down on the floor. (Don't turn me in -- I'm actually VERY strict about this and it almost killed me to do!) Anyway, when we got to school I opened the side door and it caught on his jet packs and started to strangle him. This day was not starting out well! Fortunately as soon as he recovered and started walking into school all the other kids started saying, "Cool -- he's a robot!" and "Look at that robot!" and "Tyler -- you're a robot!" He was so proud. Of course, he couldn't sit down in his desk all day with the costume (and therefore took it off during class), but he was a proud robot.

Zachary was thinking he'd be a mummy, and I was going to be cheap and just wrap him up in a roll of toilet paper. However, when we pulled out the Halloween bin we found several costumes we had that I had completely forgotten about. I have no idea who gave them to us or when, but thank you if it was you! Needless to say, this costume is getting a little small (and I thought uncomfortable-looking) on Zachary, but he was excited about it anyway.


I am thinking for tonight we'll add a few black marks around his mouth and line around the outside of the white on his face so it looks more skeleton-like.

And of course Shayla had to dress up in her costume because her brothers were. She, of course, decided to be Pinkalicious. I posted a while back about how this is her favorite book and she is convinced it is her on the cover. She even convinced me to make pink cupcakes to complete the costume. (The little girl in the book eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink.)


Shayla asked me if she could have another cupcake after eating two, and I said no. She said, "But I'm not pink yet!" I wonder if I'll need to go get her pink make-up so she doesn't really think the cupcakes will turn her pink. :)

Yesterday we also carved pumpkins. The kids were out of school, so I did it while Paul was gone to work (since Becca had plans Thursday and Friday nights). That is the last time I'll carve w/o him! When 3 of the 4 kids need help, carving pumpkins is a bit of work. :)

Tyler wanted to do a bat, and we found a stencil online for an up-side-down bat:


Zachary wanted a cat. I think he did that another year. I can't say it turned out as great as I'd like, but as long as he's happy that's all that's all I care about. I'm thinking it will look cool when we put a candle in it, because the whiskers are just cut lines (but not cut all the way through):


Shayla was happy to do whatever I wanted, and I saw a cute mummy pumpkin I thought I'd follow. This way she could also cut wherever she wanted to and it wouldn't mess up the design:


And I've saved the best for last. Becca created her own design by drawing it on paper first. She obviously took the longest to cut hers, but look at how cool it turned out:


Hope you all have a wonderful Halloween! We're just hoping we don't freeze our motherboards off! :)