Inexpensive Homemade Halloween Costumes

Today concluded a nice long four day weekend. Friday was a  no school day - Parent/Teacher Conferences and the kids also had today off from school - a furlough day for the teachers in their school district. We received wonderful remarks from each of their teachers on how the kids are doing in school. Rebecca and Ethan will be receiving academic awards next Friday.

We had a fun day hanging out at home together today baking, playing, and making Halloween costumes.

Baking Cookies
The cooler weather makes me want to cook and bake. Ethan and Kendall helped me make snickerdoodle cookies this morning - Ethan's and my favorite kind!

Kendall makes a cute baker.

Ethan working the mixer.

For Laughs
Can you tell which is the real baby? Kendall noticed her baby doll's shirt says Hug Me just like the one Amanda has on so she said they were twins. Her doll has scared me on more than one occasion when I have seen it on the ground partially covered with a blanket and I thought it was Amanda and for a split second I thought one of the kids had taken her out of her crib. Whew...stopped my heart the first week she was home and so tiny!

Halloween Costumes
Ethan wanted to be a skeleton this year. Russ came up with a great idea for it. We found a paper skeleton at Party City for $2.99. We seperated the bones from the hinges and attached them to a pair of black pants and a black cotton long sleeve shirt Ethan already had that was getting a little too small anyway for him. We used Steam a Seam tape to attach the bones to the fabric which I also already had. My mom found a pair of skeleton gloves at a dollar store that worked out perfect. I was going to take a picture of Ethan wearing his costume today but he wanted to get back to playing his Legos and took it off before I could. I'll make sure to get a picture of him on Halloween.

Rebecca wanted to be a punk rock star. At the same dollar store today, my mom and her found some great accessories to go with clothes she already had. Total money spent $5. She borrowed one of my necklaces as a chain belt. The choker necklace she's wearing is actually a headband they found at the dollar store along with a jewelry set that included dangling star earrings, a star necklace and a star bracelet. Then she found a black and white bangle bracelet and a big sparkly bow she thought would be funky to put in her hair. She borrowed Ethan's play guitar as a final touch to the ensemble. I'll do some darker makeup on her eyes on Halloween. Just to give her an idea today though, I put black liquid eye liner and red lipstick on her. She thought that was so cool!

Up until today, Kendall was going to be Ariel - a costume she already has from her princess birthday party. Then she decided she wanted to be Super Girl. She doesn't even know what Super Girl looks like but basically she just wanted to wear a cape and a mask. So, I pulled out of her closet a red top, red leggings, a red cape (part of a little red riding hood costume she already had), and her black boots. Russ cut out a Super Girl emblem from my scrapbook cardstock paper. We attached that to her shirt using velcro tape. Then she insisted on a mask even though we said Super Girl doesn't wear one. Russ cut one out of black cardstock, added some eyelets to the sides and used thin elastic threaded through those. She LOVED it and flew around the house for 1/2 an hour. Too cute!

They are ready to go trick or treating on Wednesday!!

Only pic we ended up getting of Ethan in skeleton costume just
before they went trick or treating with cousins
Ben (Darth Vader - didn't want to wear his mask) and
 Nathan (Fighter Pilot). Ethan also didn't want to put the mask
down for the photo but it looked cool.

Punk Rock chic

Working on the Super Girl emblem
and mask.

Ready to fly and save the world.

She wanted a mask so she got one!

Pumpkin Carving - Round 2
The kids carved and decorated their pumpkins on Saturday at our friends' annual Pumpkin Carving party. It wasn't until we got home that night that Rebecca realized she forgot her pumpkin there. Big tears!! They live far enough away that it wasn't going to be possible to go back and get it in time for Halloween and I honestly didn't think hers was going to last until then anyway - it was already pretty close to rotting. She picked out a new pumpkin today at Trader Joe's and got to work cleaning it and carving it all on her own.

Hard at work cleaning out the inside.

It's a messy job but has to be done!

Rebecca's is the jack- o-lantern. I carved Ethan's grim reaper
at the party because I didn't have a knife that was safe for him to use
but he cleaned the entire pumpkin himself.