We Love You Halloween!

I LOVE Halloween! I love teaching Liam about the holidays and watching him get excited. Seeing his anticipation makes everything feel like it did when I was a kid. It's especially nice at this age because it really doesn't take much to get him excited:) At the beginning of October I bought a large package of candy corns, and this alone would have been enough for him. 

We had beautiful weather one weekend and all three of us spent a Saturday afternoon out to a tiny farm/pumpkin patch just down the road from us. They have dozens of beautiful horses, two goats, two pigs, and a few chickens. It's just the right size for a toddler, and Liam has gotten much braver around large animals. 

Surprisingly Liam really didn't care much about the pumpkins, but he was very fascinated by the wheelbarrow. He basically likes to do anything that he is too small for.

The pumpkins became much more interesting when we actually carved them. I thought Liam would love pulling out the seeds but I think it mostly just creeped him out.

We let Liam mostly draw his own pumpkin face (modified slightly by dan), and it was pretty awesome.

 I got very brave this year and hosted a big halloween party for our friends. It was pretty stressful to prepare for, but it was SO fun! There weren't any other parties happening and I couldn't bear the thought of not dressing up. I don't think I have ever gone a single year of my life without dressing up for Halloween. So I decided to have a party here. I hired a couple young girls from church to come as babysitters so people with kids could just bring them along. So on one side of the house the adults were eating, talking, and playing games, and on the other side of the house anywhere from 8-10 kids were running wild, watching movies, and eating sugar until it started leaking from their pores! It was fantastic. The girls did a great job babysitting and we barely knew the kids were there. We had some really great costumes, and a pretty good sized crowd. The stress already felt worth it when I got to paint on my unibrow:)

 We went as Frida Kahlo and Vincent VanGogh

And finally the day Liam the Matador had been waiting for ALL MONTH LONG! We talked about Trick-or-Treating in detail, read about it in stories, watched halloween cartoons on YouTube, and even practiced using the kitchen door. He was very well prepared. And I have to say his costume turned out to be pretty stinkin' cute. It was a VERY sad looking costume for a very long time. I really didn't think I would be able to pull it off. But it all came together at the last minute. Just because I'm so proud, and because Kristy asked, I'm going to give a step by step making of:
Jacket: Heinous velvet shirt with silk rosebuds from a thrift store-I cut it up the front, cut it short on bottom, cut off the rosebuds, and attached gold trim with fabric glue. The coins on his jacket and the bottom of the cape came from a kids genie skirt, also heinous, also from a thrift store.
Hat: baseball cap from thrift store, cut off the brim, taped on a two halves of a styrofoam ball, and used the extra black velvet from the shirt to cover it with a hot glue gun...actually a hot mess when you see it up close and personal, but it served it's purpose.
Pants: Another hilarious find at a thrift store. They were baggy fleece girl pants with silk ruffles at the bottom and red bows at the ankle in back. The bows I kept, the ruffles I cut off. Then with a friends sewing machine I took over an inch off the width at the ankle then tapered it out to the knee. Once they were tight enough, I was able to just push them up a bit. And of course, I added gold trim and coins with glue.
Cape and Sash: A large piece of red fabric also from a thrift store. I just cut it and left raw edges. Luckily I was able to find fabric that didn't fray.
The tights were borrowed from a friend, and the shirt is just his white church shirt, that he now calls his matador shirt rather than his church shirt:)
So yes...it was a bit of work, and no...I can't imagine doing it for more than one child. Especially when he starts requesting to be things like transformers. But this time it was fun, and worth it.

He had a great time trick-or-treating. I think all of the practice paid off. He went with two of his two year old friends and they were running and yelling and laughing...literally a sight I will never forget:)

And most importantly...looking over the loot at the end of a long day. Happy Late Halloween!