Halloween 2009

This year, I was "that mom". The one who failed to plan and get everything ready ahead of time. The one who didn't take the kids to the pumpkin patch. The one who didn't even buy or carve pumpkins! The one who missed the elementary parade while making Monkey Bread and the last of 6 batches of cookies (because two kids had day of the dead celebrations in Spanish, Ryan's class needed cookies for their party, and the Save Darfur Club was having a bake sale). Yes, I was that mom who left the kids to fend for themselves after one afternoon of costume shopping with too many friends crammed in the van. And, guess what? My kids aren't scarred for life. They actually had the best (and easiest) costumes this year and they made them by themselves. After much drama, Alaina and 4 friends were teenage mutant ninja turtles. They cut their own turtle shells out of cardboard, painted them and strapped them on their backs with yarn. They wore plain green t-shirts (2 for $5 at Michael's) with karate belts and eye masks.

Ryan let his buddy be the quarterback and drew his own picture of a person running on the back of his shirt to be a running back (after we spent two hours ironing on the football lettering).

Becca cut out an 'm' that I drew for her and we hot glued it on a red shirt to make an m&m.

Andy made his own pacman costume. He'd been talking about it for weeks and I kind of thought it would go away. I was that mom. Thinking he'd change his mind and go as something that would actually fit in the van. He spent a few hours cutting and taping a dishwasher box and transformed it into an arcade game shape. He covered it with black construction paper and modge podge, then he cut out blinky, inky, pinky, and bashful, and a big pacman. He punched out circles to gobble up and glued everything together. Then he found a foam ball and colored it red to make the joystick and glued on the controls.

I wore my old cruella costume that I made 8 years ago and found in the Halloween box in the garage. I must say it was much cuter when Ryan, Becca, and Alaina were my dalmation puppies. This year I just looked like an old lady in a cape.

And Dave...well Dave deviated from the traditional hat costume and wore my brothers old hockey jersey. At least he's always a good sport.