Sing with me: “On the first day of blogging, my good friend gave to me: some pictures of Halloween!” That’s right. I’m totally blending holidays here since Halloween fell within my blog drought zone. If you are Facebook friends with me, you got to see one picture. If you are Facebook friends with my parents, you got to see a few more. But a handful of pictures does not quite cover the day.
For one, as you no doubt know, Halloween isn’t just an evening of trick-or-treating anymore. It’s a month-long event with yard decorations, parties, etc. It’s like a slightly smaller, unabashedly secular Christmas with candy instead of gifts. I think that Lily got to wear her costume five times in six days before trick-or-treating in it. But that’s getting ahead of myself.
Before she donned her costume for the first time, we had a great time at a local farm’s fall festival. Sweet Berry Farms, where we picked strawberries earlier this year, had a great pumpkin patch with face painting, cut-your-own flowers, and some really tasty pumpkin ice cream. There were also hay rides where they had made giant bales of hay into pigs and pumpkins, but the line was too long. We promised Lily we would go back next year and come early for the hay rides.
Now for the costumes. Corin, as you see, was a pumpkin. I had wanted to make him Max from Where the Wild Things Are, but I ran into a few obstacles. For one, Pottery Barn Kids made a Max costume this year, which took some of the fun out of it. For another, Lily chose a costume that I knew I would have to make myself, and I did not have time to make two. A pumpkin was a decent runner-up since I was a pumpkin when I was a toddler living in Austin. I was older than Corin then, but it is particularly memorable because I apparently made up a song for the occasion entitled “Lindsay is a Pumpkin.” I can sing it for you sometime. My mom still remembers it. Nevertheless, I thought of a better Corin costume the day before Halloween. I should have made him the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man from the first Ghostbusters movie: fluffy, pasty, benignly happy but with amazing destructive capacity. Oh well. Maybe next year...after the hay ride.
But getting back to Lily, I think I have mentioned in a previous post that she fell in love with The Sound of Music this summer. She had been asking for a “Gretl dress” for weeks, so when I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, it was an easy answer. You cannot buy a Sound of Music dress, though, so I knew it was a sewing project. The famous curtain dresses seemed like the most recognizable costumes as well as the simplest to make. Of course, Lily did not want Gretl’s curtain outfit, which is short overalls; she wanted Liesl’s puffy-sleeved dress; but, really, if anyone recognized her at all, they probably wouldn’t quibble over which of the Von Trapp children she was supposed to be. It was tricky finding the fabric. I found a great print on one fabric website and was set to order it until I realized that it was actual drapery fabric, which might not come together nicely in a dress pattern and would probably be too hot to wear in Austin. Then I bought some cheap stuff at JoAnn’s, but Lily didn’t like it, and, to be honest, it didn’t look right. Finally, I found a perfect match through a patterns blog-- not only was it green and white damask, it was glittery too. (Toddler girl bonus!) It was out of print, but luckily, someone on Etsy was selling some yardage, and I got it in the end. It would have been fun to make curtains out of it first, but time did not allow. The puffy sleeves gave me a bit of grief, but the dress came together very well. I think I did Greenie, who taught me how to sew, some credit.
So we went trick-or-treating with Gretl and the Cutest Jack-o-lantern ever. We went first to a little party at a neighbor’s house, and Matt got home from work just in time to set out. We tried going as a big group, but it ended up being just us pretty quickly since all of the kids moved at different speeds. As with last year, Gretl avoided scary houses and scary-looking kids, but she enjoyed collecting candy. Her favorite moments were finding an Angry Birds pumpkin and a Mickey Mouse yard decoration. A handful of people recognized her costume, and one even asked her for a song. She obliged by singing a round of “Do-Re-Mi.” Corin, however, fell asleep about fifteen minutes in. Lily collected a good bucket full of candy for him, though, and he woke up in time to hang out with our cul-de-sac later.
Of course, between the kids’ haul and our own leftovers from not being home to hand out anything ourselves, we ended up with way too much candy in the house. After a few days of “can I have a piece of candy” every few hours, I came up with a plan. I had heard another mom at Lily’s ballet class last year talk about using a “Candy Witch” who would come Halloween night and take candy, but leave a small sum of money like the Tooth Fairy. I opted instead for a pre-economics lesson. We counted out all of Lily’s candy (close to 100 pieces!) and put it in piles of twenty. Then I told her that she could exchange each pile for certain items from a list of choices. She kept ten pieces of candy and got for the rest a certificate of sorts for one cupcake, one coloring book, one cookie from Mandola’s, and one trip to Foodie Kids. She was highly satisfied, and the engineers at Samsung benefited from this bargain too, receiving all of her bartered candy and our leftovers to boot.
For one, as you no doubt know, Halloween isn’t just an evening of trick-or-treating anymore. It’s a month-long event with yard decorations, parties, etc. It’s like a slightly smaller, unabashedly secular Christmas with candy instead of gifts. I think that Lily got to wear her costume five times in six days before trick-or-treating in it. But that’s getting ahead of myself.
Before she donned her costume for the first time, we had a great time at a local farm’s fall festival. Sweet Berry Farms, where we picked strawberries earlier this year, had a great pumpkin patch with face painting, cut-your-own flowers, and some really tasty pumpkin ice cream. There were also hay rides where they had made giant bales of hay into pigs and pumpkins, but the line was too long. We promised Lily we would go back next year and come early for the hay rides.
Now for the costumes. Corin, as you see, was a pumpkin. I had wanted to make him Max from Where the Wild Things Are, but I ran into a few obstacles. For one, Pottery Barn Kids made a Max costume this year, which took some of the fun out of it. For another, Lily chose a costume that I knew I would have to make myself, and I did not have time to make two. A pumpkin was a decent runner-up since I was a pumpkin when I was a toddler living in Austin. I was older than Corin then, but it is particularly memorable because I apparently made up a song for the occasion entitled “Lindsay is a Pumpkin.” I can sing it for you sometime. My mom still remembers it. Nevertheless, I thought of a better Corin costume the day before Halloween. I should have made him the Stay-Puffed Marshmallow Man from the first Ghostbusters movie: fluffy, pasty, benignly happy but with amazing destructive capacity. Oh well. Maybe next year...after the hay ride.
But getting back to Lily, I think I have mentioned in a previous post that she fell in love with The Sound of Music this summer. She had been asking for a “Gretl dress” for weeks, so when I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, it was an easy answer. You cannot buy a Sound of Music dress, though, so I knew it was a sewing project. The famous curtain dresses seemed like the most recognizable costumes as well as the simplest to make. Of course, Lily did not want Gretl’s curtain outfit, which is short overalls; she wanted Liesl’s puffy-sleeved dress; but, really, if anyone recognized her at all, they probably wouldn’t quibble over which of the Von Trapp children she was supposed to be. It was tricky finding the fabric. I found a great print on one fabric website and was set to order it until I realized that it was actual drapery fabric, which might not come together nicely in a dress pattern and would probably be too hot to wear in Austin. Then I bought some cheap stuff at JoAnn’s, but Lily didn’t like it, and, to be honest, it didn’t look right. Finally, I found a perfect match through a patterns blog-- not only was it green and white damask, it was glittery too. (Toddler girl bonus!) It was out of print, but luckily, someone on Etsy was selling some yardage, and I got it in the end. It would have been fun to make curtains out of it first, but time did not allow. The puffy sleeves gave me a bit of grief, but the dress came together very well. I think I did Greenie, who taught me how to sew, some credit.
So we went trick-or-treating with Gretl and the Cutest Jack-o-lantern ever. We went first to a little party at a neighbor’s house, and Matt got home from work just in time to set out. We tried going as a big group, but it ended up being just us pretty quickly since all of the kids moved at different speeds. As with last year, Gretl avoided scary houses and scary-looking kids, but she enjoyed collecting candy. Her favorite moments were finding an Angry Birds pumpkin and a Mickey Mouse yard decoration. A handful of people recognized her costume, and one even asked her for a song. She obliged by singing a round of “Do-Re-Mi.” Corin, however, fell asleep about fifteen minutes in. Lily collected a good bucket full of candy for him, though, and he woke up in time to hang out with our cul-de-sac later.
Of course, between the kids’ haul and our own leftovers from not being home to hand out anything ourselves, we ended up with way too much candy in the house. After a few days of “can I have a piece of candy” every few hours, I came up with a plan. I had heard another mom at Lily’s ballet class last year talk about using a “Candy Witch” who would come Halloween night and take candy, but leave a small sum of money like the Tooth Fairy. I opted instead for a pre-economics lesson. We counted out all of Lily’s candy (close to 100 pieces!) and put it in piles of twenty. Then I told her that she could exchange each pile for certain items from a list of choices. She kept ten pieces of candy and got for the rest a certificate of sorts for one cupcake, one coloring book, one cookie from Mandola’s, and one trip to Foodie Kids. She was highly satisfied, and the engineers at Samsung benefited from this bargain too, receiving all of her bartered candy and our leftovers to boot.
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