In Which I Suck at Halloween Festivities

WHOOOOSH!

That was the sound of October whizzing over my head.

I kinda struck out this year. We didn't do any pumpkin patch visits, no pumpkin carving, no halloween sugar cookies, no themed meals (HA! like my kids would eat "something different" anyway). I had all the intention of doing the aforementioned ideas (except for the themed food), but it just didn't happen.

I blame a lot of the time loss on the books (yes, that's plural) I'm working on right now. Two of them were supposed to be done at the beginning of the month, but I'm just finishing them up now. The other was only supposed to last two weeks, but ended up coinciding with the end matter of the bigger two.

FRANTIC MOMMY ALERT turned on, and that's when all my plans went out the window.

One other plan that fell through was Audrey's costume. She desperately wanted to be Belle for Halloween this year, even to the point of telling me that she was willing to take last year's Cinderella dress back to the store and trade it for Belle's yellow dress.

Since I'm not a seamstress (I'm afraid of screwing up), I went on the Great Costume Search of 2010 to find a decent Belle dress.

Those are few and far between, my friends. Aside from plonking down $60+ for the official Disney store version, the ones in the store this year just sucked. No sleeves, stiff/thin fabric, bad seams, etc. I live in the ROCKY MOUNTAINS, people! It's normal to have rain and/or snow here on Halloween. If I don't want my daughter to go out as the marshmallow princess with sweats under her costume, we need some coverage!

I finally found one that was a little more generic, but it had sleeves and it would last for more than one year. I put in my order and waited for it to arrive.

And waited.

And waited.

AND waited.

Finally, a week before Halloween (and her preschool party) I gave the company a call and to my dismay, they could not guarantee that it would be in before Halloween. Ugh. I could have attempted to make her costume in all the time I was waiting, folks! I'm not saying it would have turned out, but I could have tried!

So I cancelled my order and went hunting in the local stores to see if I could find something acceptable (and affordable). Hooray for Shopko and their sales! I found a not-exactly Belle dress, but it was yellow and pink and shiny. It was also about 8 inches too long, but with yet another hunt to make a temporary hem, I did it! Audrey approved.


As for the Boy, well, he likes to make things difficult. At first he insisted upon being a seahorse (good luck with that!) but Daddy managed to convince him to say he wanted to be Batman. We had already bought pirate pjs/costume and I wasn't about to go get something else. maybe next year.

However, he wouldn't even look at me when I tried to get his picture. Obviously, candy is more important.

Since we went out trick-or-treating on Saturday (most of the state does when Halloween falls on a Sunday) we got pelted with a heavy rainstorm. By the time we actually went out, it had stopped raining, but it was really cold! We walked from my brother's house back to ours, and it took about 45 minutes with all the stops in between. We didn't go to as many houses this year, but really, there was no complaints. Don't need all that candy laying around and it was just too cold to do any more!