Trick or Treat, Gosh! (Plus some creepy crawlers and Doctor Who?)

Halloween is always a favorite around here. We especially love finding fun costumes and the past few years we've done a themed Halloween. But this year, with the recession and all, we decided to recycle some of our past costumes instead and let the kids do their own thing. It kind of worked out. Exept Lynnsey didn't want to not have a theme so since Kaya was going to use an old bumblebee costume, she thought that she and Spencer should do a bug theme with her. Fine except we didn't have a butterfly or spider costume so we ened up spending money for those. Kendall decided on Napoleon Dynamite which of course, we also didn't have. More money. Taylor, who is completely and totally obsessed with the BBC Doctor Who television series decided to be the Doctor. Again, no costume. More money. In the end, we should have gone with a theme. It may have been cheaper. Or maybe we should have turned to Kendall's skills at costume design. He spent half the day on Halloween designing costumes for some of the stuffed animals. From Right to Left: A Dementor Lion, Sith Lord Teddy Bear, Nephi the Husky, Lynnsey's Princess Puppy, a spotted Pirate Pup, and Superdog Maverick. Not too bad huh? My favorite was the pirate.

Friday night we had a great Trunk or Treat at church to which I neglected to bring my camera. The kids had a ball eating a kid-friendly dinner and participating in some really great carnival games including a cake walk in which you could play and win as many times as you want. And our kids did. And won. A lot. Anyone need some cupcakes or brownies? And then of course loading up their bags with junkfood is the best time ever! Kaya has discovered candy and can now be found chanting constantly: "Gucka, gucka!" (Sucker, if you can't tell). That night after we got home we tried to get the candy all out of her reach. But later, after getting the other kids in bed, I returned to find what she'd been up to during that time.

Of course, she got to keep the darn sucker. How am I supposed to resist that face?

Finally, the big night arrived and here are the fantastic costumes:

I warned Taylor that no one would know who he was. Would any of you know? I didn't think so. But even so, we did a great job at putting his costume together by copying a picture. (I did find a more authentic costume on eBay but even I draw a line at spending $165 dollars even though Taylor was begging for it. Seriously, the kid is addicted. I can totally see him at a Doctor Who convention someday. At least he'll have a costume!) I found his jacket at Goodwill and had to buy him a pair of brown pants online to match. He bought his Sonic Screwdriver with his own money because I suggested gluing a jewel on the end of a regular screwdriver from the tool box. Both Kalen and Taylor looked at me like they couldn't believe I would even dare suggest such a thing! (Yes, Kalen is the reason that Taylor is hooked on the show.) Taylor also made his police box tartis (sp?) to hold his candy in. We gelled his hair into a messy do, added tennis shoes, a dress shirt and tie and voila! He was The Doctor. I actually found myself doing a double take a few times because he really did look like the David Tennant character he was emulating. But no one knew who he was. Well, one person did. And a few others got it after a couple of hints. But mostly no one got it. Now, had he been in England...

Next is a kid with some pretty sweet skills. In addition to his costume designing skills, this kid does a great Napoleon Dynamite impersonation. We found his costume on eBay and there was no mistaking who this kid was dressed as. Right down to the moon boots and half-closed eyes. He even made his voice deeper and talked like Napoleon: "Give me some candy, gosh!"

Years ago I saw a cute idea in a magazine for a butterfly costume. I cut out the picture of the costume but neglected to cut out the directions. So for Lynnsey's costume, I ended up guessing my way through it. It turned out really cute though and she was thrilled. And chilled. The temperature was a brisk 40 degrees out that night so most of the time she kept her wings wrapped tightly around her and no one really knew what she was. When we visited her first grade teacher though, she wanted to take Lynnsey's picture and was so impressed with the costume that she asked her if she would be willing to wear it to class in the spring for their butterfly unit. Lynnsey was pretty excited about that. Mostly because it is bound to be warmer then!

At first Spencer wanted to be a caterpillar but I was having a really hard time finding an affordable costume on eBay. So he decided to be a scary spider instead. I found lots of spider costumes but most of them looked really kind of dumb to me. I was pretty sure he didn't want a costume with a top hat and bow tie with white gloves on all of his hands. I found a cute Pottery Barn costume though--for around $50. So I gave up on that until I saw one that was identical to the Pottery Barn costume but the lady who listed it said the tags had been removed so she wasn't sure what the brand name was and listed it for much, much, much less. I bought it. Spencer loved it. Even if he looked more adorable than scary.

And Kaya was the easiest of all. Kendall wore this costume when he was little and I hung onto it but because of our other themed Halloween's no one else ever got to wear it. It seemed fitting that our busiest bee of all got to have a turn in it. She hates having anything on her head so she wasn't a fan of this costume, but after being out in the cold I think she decided it was better to keep the hood on.

I tried to get a picture of the group right before we headed out trick-or-treating but Kaya was trying to escape and everyone was just anxious to be going, so this is the best we could do:

We had a fun time but hurried through it and didn't go to as many houses as usual because Spencer was only just recovered from the flu and wound up getting exhausted early on. But apparently the people we did visit were incredibly generous with their treats. Multiply generous times five kids and our usual community candy bowl became a community candy 5 gallon bucket!

Isn't that insane? (And guess what I do every time I walk past that blasted thing?)

We made sure to count out the "tithing candy" for our branch president's office again this year. He ended up with a good sized bag of candy. But it barely made a dent in the bucket:

(And yes, that is Kaya in the background sneaking more "Gucka's). It's a great object lesson on how little ten percent really is. And now we'll be eating candy till Christmas. Or at least until next week at the rate I'm going... Hope you all had a great Halloween too!