So here's the rest of October.
On October 26, Lex was invited to a Halloween party. He was just going to go in his everyday, regular clothes - but I told him probably every one else would be dressed up. So we came up with a costume. This costume actually came about by Lex himself.
My mom gave each of the kids an elf type hat around Christmas time last year. Lex came walking into the room with it turned inside out and I decided that we could make him Link from The Legend of Zelda game series for Halloween. He liked the idea and this is how he left to go to his party:
I've always wanted to go to a Pumpkin Patch, but have never had the chance. Growing up my Dad would only buy 1 pumpkin and complained the whole time he had to clean and cut it out. He didn't want to spend a lot of money on pumpkins because we did have punk kids around that found it funny to smash pumpkins on the road. Therefore, we only carved the pumpkin the night before Halloween and it was only on the porch during Halloween.
I'm normally not a very good planner, so before I know it it's Halloween and I've already just bought pumpkins from the store. Towards the beginning of the month I drove past a sign for a pumpkin patch saying the prices were $0.15 per pound. I didn't realize they were so cheap. So I asked Eric if we could do a pumpkin patch this year. He reluctantly agreed.
So on October 29, for FHE we went to the pumpkin patch. I had to pack all the kids up in the car around 4:30, so that we could go pick Eric up off of Trax after work. We then went to a place where it ended up being $0.19 per pound, but I still think that wound up cheaper than the store.
The kids had so much fun searching for just the right pumpkin and I had fun watching them. When all was said and done, we had 6 pumpkins that weighed in at just over 60 lbs. and we paid like $15. I swear I pay more than that when I get them from the store.
... Guess We Should've Named Him Jack ...
The plan was to carve the pumpkins that night, but after all was said and done and we got home and had dinner, I was just too tired to worry about it. I decided we'd do it the next night after Tanis' band concert.
October 30 rolls around and I decide to carve the pumpkins when the kids get home from school. They go earlier this year and Shaylyn and Lex are home by 2:30 and Tanis by about 3:20. I figured that gave us a good 3 hours to carve pumpkins and get cleaned up before Tanis' concert. So as soon as Lex and Shaylyn walked in the door we got busy. I always find it funny that Shaylyn enjoys digging out pumpkin guts more than the boys do.
... - A Wolf for Eric and I
- Scooby-Doo for Tanis
- A Minecraft Themed Pumpkin for Shaylyn
- Link for Lex
- The Avengers for Nate
- Angry Birds for Ailey...
At 6:00, I left Shaylyn in charge of the little kids and Tanis and I headed off to his band concert. The band concert was the middle school combined the the high school bands. The concert ended up being 3 HOURS long. I was glad we left the little kids home, but felt bad that Shaylyn was with them for that long alone. Had I known, we would've done things differently. That being said, it was a nice concert and our High School Marching Band just won State, I believe - so there are some very talented kids out there. Thankfully, Tanis was on the outer ring and so we were able to see him and get his performance on video! And let's just say after realizing the concert was 3 hours and getting home after 11, I decided it was a dang good thing we carved pumpkins before!
Finally we get to HALLOWEEN! We spent the early afternoon at the dentist getting cleanings. Everyone but Ailey had an appointment. We all had quick x-rays taken and then getting the cleanings. Nate didn't want to sit in that dentist's chair for ANYTHING, even after watching Mommy. The older kids that had finished got stuffed snakes and the Hygenist tried bribing Nate with one, but that still didn't work. Then somehow, when it was discovered that everyone BUT him were getting snakes, Nate got in that chair and sat nicely and I was amazed. Shaylyn helped convince him, though I'm not positive what she said.
It was discovered that the boys had cavities that needed to be taken care of, I had a few more, Eric had one and Nate needs quite a bit of work done and will need to be sedated to get it done. Shaylyn was the only one that passed with no additional work to be done.
I was a little sad this year because we couldn't afford to buy costumes. My sister got married earlier in the month and we had to use the Halloween budget for dresses for the wedding. (Hopefully I'll post about the wedding soon) So yeah, I was kind of bummed, but our kids didn't let it get them down. They were fine with what we had to work with.
Tanis decided to do the Harry Potter thing again. Only, since we didn't have glasses this go around he/we decided that he was just some other nameless Gryffindor.
Shaylyn amazed me. She kept talking about wanting to be this character from this stupid video game called Minecraft. And the character she wanted to be was a creeper. I had no idea how she was going to pull this off and kept putting it off hoping she'd change her mind. Well, one day I went to book club and Eric told her she could work on it. I was amazed at what she had pulled off. The only thing I ended up doing for it was the spray painting. She did everything else.
Lex also wanted to be a Minecraft character, but we just didn't get his done soon enough (okay, I was lazy and didn't feel as creative as Shaylyn) and so we opted for Link, once again. He makes a dang, cute Link if I do say so myself.
Nate was just fine going for a costume his older brothers had worn. He spent the days up to Halloween changing his mind left and right, but he finally decided that Ironman was in his blood.
When I knew we couldn't afford to buy new costumes, I knew what Ailey was going to be. We bought the ladybug costume for Shaylyn when she was 2 and I loved it on her. Ailey made a cute ladybug as well, though she wanted NOTHING to do with the hood, so I tried to do her hair to look like antennae.
Shaylyn went trick or treating with her friend and I took the rest of the kids with me. Ailey was so polite and funny. She would tell everyone 'thank-you' and 'Happy Hawoeen'. After trick or treating we came home and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. Then we all went to bed and dreamed many happy thoughts of November. (Okay, I did...November is a happy month for me - perhaps one day I'll actually get to blog about that...)
Link costume---FABULOUS! Seriously, if that's your "no money for costumes year"...you're pretty amazing! :)
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