Halloween 2010: Lion and Miner and Bunny (with a Picnic)....Oh My!

Every year it's the same story.  I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween and it goes something like this.  For the weeks leading up to Halloween I spend a lot of mental energy stressing about what seems like an obligation to come up with a spectacular costume for each child in the non-store-bought-clever-and-unique-variety, but (equally importantly) that is also a costume that doesn't require any actual sewing or that will keep me up late at night or cost me more than $3 to put together (oh, and one that Max and his serious aversion to all costume-wearing activities might actually be willing to wear).  To make matters worse, the kids' school doesn't allow actual Halloween costumes at the parade, but instead they have a silly "StoryBook" character parade, which is really just code for making parents now come up with another creative costume.  Fantastic.

So I deal with all of it the way that I deal with lots of stress-causing activities:  I ignore it.  Then, suddenly, it's the last minute and then--wait-a-second-- now it's REALLY stressful.  You think that I'd learn, but so far, no.

So this year, while I abandoned Adam and the kids on the night before the school parade and ward party to go see Bobby McFerrin as the guest on  Wait Wait Don't Tell Me in Philadelphia (thanks to my very lovely and generous neighbor), SuperAdam saved the day. 

And, it all came off smashing!  See how I got to have my cake and eat it too!

Olivia's class was doing the book Where the Wild Things Are, so she's got a mask like a "wild thing." Max's class had to choose a vocabulary word and dress like it, so he and Adam chose onomatopoeia and the corresponding descriptive words for decoration. Clever, eh! 

As for the costumes for the other events....

The "Chilly" Miner

The Lion

 (A costume now sucessfully worn by all four kids at this age....

best $5 I ever spent at Sweet Potatoes)

The Bunny Rabbit

(A costume she has now worn for two years in a row....and just about constantly for the last two weeks....pretty much everywhere we go. Best $5 I ever spent at Old Navy.)

The Picnic

(Adam came up with this costume a few years ago for me to wear.  It was fun to revive it.)

And by the end of it all, I love Halloween.  The ward party and games, the neighborly-ness of Halloween night, the chili dinner, the pumpkin carving, the super happy kids, homemade doughnuts at our friends' house, the excuse to have candy in the house and eat larger-then-usual quantities of it, etc.  Maybe next year.....well, I won't even pretend that I'll be better next year, but I can dare to dream.