Halloween

My mom, as I've said before is amazing at holidays. Especially Halloween. She always let us kids choose our own costumes and would do everything to help make us look the part. You may remember from this post that there were a few years when the costume didn't turn out as well as one might have hoped; however, she did come up with a lot of good costumes. When we were super young, she made a tweety bird and sylvester the cat costume for me and my brother. She also made us clown costumes, a rollerskating waitress costume, and a Bam Bam, Pebbles and Dino costume that has been used by every family member and every friend that I have. One year she even made me this cat costume (pictured below). She also made one for my favorite cabbage patch doll so we could dress up together.
Was I too old in this picture to be carrying around a cabbage patch doll everywhere I went?
 Probably.

So there were definite years of success.
She would always dress up as well. Even now, when none of her children live at home, she gets dressed up so when kids come knocking on the door, they won't be disappointed. I always dreamed I would be that same type of mother. I'm not. Every year I have these intentions of having great costumes for me, husband and children and then it's halloween day and I've barely given it a thought. This year, for weeks before Halloween,  Owen said he'd like to be a witch because he really wanted to ride a broom. Once I explained to him that brooms don't really fly, he changed his mind and wanted to be a cat. Much easier costume than the witch but still not as easy as the free dinosaur costume we borrowed from a friend (thanks Jos!). Tyler and I kept trying to hype up the dinosaur costume in hopes that Owen would be convinced that was what he wanted to be. On the night of our church trunk or treat, about an hour before the event, we got out all of the halloween costumes. We were super excited because Owen had in fact decided he wanted to be the dinosaur, until he saw his elmo costume from last year and couldn't be swayed. I went with my never fail deviled egg costume, Tyler threw on his old Sponge Bob costume and Collette dressed as "Zany Zebra" (that's what it said on the package that my mom sent us). No effort at all for any of us. I didn't even decorate our trunk for the trunk or treat. Lame I know.

 Someone brought animals to our trunk or treat. Not Halloween-ish but pretty fun for the kids. Also, I suck and didn't take any other pictures. I actually didn't even take these, Tyler took them with his phone.

On Halloween day my mom had a tradition of making homemade chili and breadsticks and then having donuts and caramel apples for dessert.
This was the extent of that tradition for us this year:

Yep, that's canned chili and breadsticks made out of pre-made bread dough.  Lame. I didn't even make donuts. Luckily for us, our friend Mckenzie made some that I ate the second I got to her place (they invited us over for trick or treating). Tyler got super creative with his costume and threw on a captains hat. Owen decided he really did want to be the dinosaur and Collette went for a bunny costume that our friend let us borrow. I didn't even think about putting on a costume. Seriously, not even the deviled egg costume and all I have to do for that is throw it over my head. 

We had such a blast with our friends. These are Owen's besties right now. McKay, Ella, Rylin and Kylee. Love these kids. Aren't they the cutest? I think so.

He did get a little sick of the dinosaur hat, which Tyler was super happy to carry around for him.

 He had such a great night and luckily both he and Collette are too young to realize I was sort of a disappointment for a mother on Halloween. Next year, I'm sure I'll be much more motivated to make everything from scratch, the chili, the beadsticks, maybe even the costumes.