Jacob has been changing his mind back and forth for months about being Superman or Spiderman this year. Everyone in his class was given a paper cut out (like a gingerbread man) to "dress up" like what their own costume would be. Poor Jacob kept erasing and redoing it each time he changed his mind and he finally asked for a new cut out. He finally settled on being Spiderman again this year. (At the school costume parade, I could easily pick out MY little Spiderman as the thin one. Our superhero costumes are the old type, the pre-muscled type.)
Jessica's first choice was to be Pioneer, but then she remembered she gets to be one for Living History Days AND for Pioneer Day so she wanted to look through all the other costumes real quick. She settled on a 1950s costume with a pink poodle skirt, which looked like she was finally tall enough for this year, and she took that to school. She ran and found me after lunch needing a quick change though - the outfit was just still a little too big on her - and I grabbed a pioneer bonnet and apron and stuff I had in the car for her to change to. I offered to fix the 50s outfit in time to go trick or treating, but she wanted to stick with the pioneer idea (complete with the black gypsy/pirate blouse she was wearing), but she mixed up when she told people who she was and kept saying "a pilgrim." So I guess she was a gypsy/pioneer/pilgrim.
I had recommended to Nathan to pick a simple and comfortable costume to wear to the dance, and he could do something bulky, or elaborate for trick or treating. Nathan I guess is past wanting to dress up and didn't want to bother with costumes at all. I told him he HAD to wear a costume to the "costume dance" though. He's on the Student Council and was supposed to help set up for it, but he and another boy had been at basketball so they didn't. I told him he had to at last wear a costume, and help clean up after since he'd missed helping decorate. Nathan, all on his own, decided to be Opie Taylor. I thought it was perfect, and adorable - but I'm not supposed to say out loud that my 14 year old son looks adorable, especially when dropping him off and picking him up from a dance, so I'll just say it here, "Nathan was adorable." And he even took the Little Tikes fishing pole along for trick or treating, but he would only go up to 3 of the doors they went to (aunt & uncle, Bishop's parents, and the retired Science teacher who's birthday is on Halloween and we all sang Happy Birthday to him) and he hung back and he refused to walk up to the door at any others.
Michael is still plenty willing to take his little sister and brother trick-or-treating to all the neighbors, but he has been "too old for costumes" for quite awhile now, or at least too old to be planning and thinking about his costume any earlier than when they're just about to go trick or treating and I state my rule again - "NO costume, NO candy" - and he'll run and grab some stuff and that's his costume. One year he grabbed a long coat and the lightsabers and a Buzz Lightyear lasergun and said he was a futuristic weapons salesman. Another year he put a mop head (a clean one from the costume box) on his head and grabbed Jessica's toy blow dryer and curling iron and said he was a hairdresser. Last night Michael grabbed his old hammerhead shark kite (minus the strings and some of the inner framework) and told people he was a taxidermist and that his shark needed stuffing, and they'd drop big handfuls of candy down his shark's throat to "stuff it."
I was a witch again, but I borrowed Krissy's adult size witch hat this year so I didn't have to try to keep our child-size one balanced on top of my head. I used to plan for weeks what my costume would be and I designed and sewed many of them. Lately I guess I just don't think about it ahead of time anymore and just grab the witch or the clown costume again. I saw another mom dressed as Princess Fiona the Ogre and she looked great, and that seemed pretty simple - green knit dress with a brown leather belt, green face paint, and a red wig braided with a crown and little ogre ears sticking out. And Krissy was a black widow with a great wig and she painted the red hour glass on her cheek. I'll have to get creative again one of these years. Mrs. Baily used to dress up as Viola Swamp, Mrs. Furman was Little Red Riding Hood, maybe I should be my favorite teacher - Miss Frizzle.
We got our pumpkins done at the last minute. I hate carving them too early in case they rot and cave in before Halloween, but then we seem to run out of time (or out of good weather days to do the job outside). This year we probably could have done it much earlier with the pumpkins we had. They looked the same as the regular type with all the mushy innards, but these had hardly any mush to them and the inner walls of these pumpkins seemed more like very dry spaghetti squash. They seemed tougher and a little harder to cut with butter knives, so Michael, Nathan, and I did all the cutting with sharp knives. One of the Elders was sick so we dropped off some soup for him, some candy for his companion, and a pumpkin for each of them to carve and keep busy with while recuperating. They were going to carve scripture scenes into them.
