Looking Back: Halloween

******** ******** ********
This is one in a series of posts that will look back at things that happened during the Fall 2010 semester when life got too busy to post.

******** ******** ********

Just like everything else this semester, Halloween was a 'just-in-time' activity. The day before the girl's storybook parade at school, we were at Hobby Lobby, purchasing things to make Maggie's costume. This year the girls got ahold of a catalog with very beautiful, very expensive costumes in it. They looked at that catalog and picked out what they wanted to be - then they had to find a book that contained their chosen characters. Not too hard this year - Maggie wanted to be a "hippie chick" and Gracie chose to be a pirate.

Gracie is pretty flexible, and since the second-graders had just finished doing a play at school about pirates, I asked one of my friends who had a second-grader if we could borrow her costume. Even though it didn't look like the one in the catalog, we added a foam hat, eye patch, and sword, and Gracie was thrilled.


Maggie's costume was not so simple. She wanted to look exactly like the girl in the catalog - outfit, accessories, everything. By the time we got out of Hobby Lobby, I'm not sure if I wouldn't have been better off just buying the costume! While the girls went to work carving their pumpkins, I got out my glue gun and went to work.

This year the girls did their pumpkins with a little help from Dad, and almost no help from me, as I was busy gluing together the aforementioned costume. They had a blast though, and the jack-o-lanterns looked marvelous! Gracie's favorite part was still getting out the seeds:


Maggie's not as fond of that goopy feeling on her hands - she started to go wash her hands in between scoops, but we made her finish and then wash at the end, or it promised to be a late night indeed.


Once the girls had the pumpkins cleaned out, Daddy stepped in to roast the seeds. He thought about skipping it this year, but the girls wanted to take some seeds to their teachers, so he went ahead and roasted them. The girls ate a few too!


Finally, after a little brainstorming, Maggie's hippie chick was done. We came pretty close to what was in the catalog - sparkly headband, pink peace symbol necklace, tie-dyed outfit - the only thing that wasn't quite right was the long flowing robe with marabou feathers. It was close though!


The girls added their chosen books - "Pirates Past Noon" for Gracie, and "Meet Julie" from the American Girl series for Maggie - and they were ready for the storybook parade the next morning.


And I can retain my membership in the Glue Gun Gals club!