The Ivy Log: May Your 2018 Be Fairest of All

In 2016, our family dressed up for Halloween with a unified theme, took a few group photos, and sent them out as holiday cards. This year, we attempted the same.

The 2017 theme was Snow White. The girls agreed it would be fun to have three Snow Whites, and we already had two Snow White costumes in our dress-up inventory, so I only had to come up with one more. Although I considered buying or borrowing the third one, I ended up making it out of two broken umbrellas and a broken tent. I love making things out of trash.

Ramona was the one chosen to don this recycled costume. Thankfully, she was very patient with the multiple fittings and pinnings I inflicted on her. Also, as an added bonus, she was satisfied with the end result.

The Tuesday before Halloween, Ramona got to wear her costume to her dance class. Mika got to tag along, dressed as her twin.

The next day, Ramona put on the costume again for an Activity Day party at church.

The Friday before Halloween was the big chili cook-off and trunk-or-treat for the entire congregation at church. I still needed to complete a magic mirror costume, an evil queen costume, and a dwarf costume, so Thursday and Friday I used some spare moments rapidly cutting, painting, sewing, and gluing.

Magic Mirror:

(cardboard box, paint, aluminum foil)

Evil Queen:

(foam dress-up crown painted gold, a couple of black fabric headbands, a black turtleneck, old formal dress turned inside out, my husband's old tie for a belt, a poofy collar from my niece's old dance costume, and a long black flowy skirt I tied around my neck as a cape.)

(an apple for an added touch)

Dwarf:

(an old orange t-shirt, an oversized brown beanie hat, old batting pulled from a used comforter, two circles cut out of cardboard, yellow scrap fabric, a belt, and brown pants)

Little Snow White costume:

(done)

Medium Snow White costume:
(done)

Costume lineup:

Picture time!

I think it was about this time that Ramona coined the phrase "a-dwarf-able."

In the church gym:

Wylie with his friend James, who was dressed as a hobbit:

The best picture of Wylie in his dwarf costume--here he is eating a glazed donut and looking quite a-dwarf-able:

Lots of fun games:

Lots of cool doors to open and close. The little doors under the stage were the perfect size for our little dwarf.

Several people asked which dwarf Wylie was supposed to be. The colors from his costume don't exactly match any of the dwarfs from the Disney movie, and although he is often Sleepy, Happy, Bashful, Grumpy, Sneezy, and Dopey, I felt he should be his own dwarf. So we called him Stinky.

During the time Forest had his mirror costume on, he said a lot of young girls came up to him, asking their fortune, so he played along. I'm glad he was able to contribute to the party atmosphere.

Once Wylie was done party-ing, I took him out to the minivan to set up our trunk-or-treat. He slobbered on multiple dum-dums as he wandered around between the seats.

Our one decoration was my cardboard Spiderella. I had made her for a children's singing time game at church the week before, and she stayed together long enough to watch the truck-or-treaters make their rounds that night.

One of the games in the gym was guessing how many pieces of candy were in various bottles and jars. Ramona really took her time at this station, making careful estimates for each candy, and it paid off. She came very close to the correct number for the bottle of red M&M's, or "red blood cells," and won that candy to take home.

Although the fire department did not make an appearance at this party as it had the year before, it was still a pretty smashing party.

The Saturday before Halloween, I pulled out the pumpkin carving knives and took requests from the girls on their respective pumpkins. Paula chose a bat, Mika chose a cat, and Ramona chose a BOO.

Even after all of this excitement, perhaps Halloween day was the most exciting of all. Especially since I was asked to coordinate all of Mika's classroom parties this year . . .

I kind of wanted to say no. But of course, I didn't.

In addition to setting up an electronic sign up sheet for the other classroom parents to help contribute supplies, I made a witch hat ring toss game out of party hats, dessert plates, and fabric scraps . . .

. . . and I dipped a bunch of rice krispie treats in green candy melt (the kids were supposed to attach candy eyes and decorate with frosting to make cute little monsters).

(instead, the monsters turned out to be kind of scary-looking-- at least, the ones my kids decorated)

Also, I got to draw a bunch of jack-o-lantern faces on little mandarin oranges the night before the party.

I have to be honest, I was pretty nervous about being in charge of this little first grade party. But things went smoothly enough.

The kids had fun with the game,

they enjoyed wrapping each other up as mummies,

they ate the snacks,

and they made the crafts (even though they probably all fell apart in their backpacks on the way home)

Thankfully, Wylie was more or less happy to just sit in his stroller and observe this entire party while he munched on some Cheetos.

Ramona's third grade party was at the same time as Mika's, so I didn't get to visit her for long, but hopefully she forgave me. It looked like she was having fun during the short moment I peeked in.

Ramona and Mika got pulled out of school a few minutes early so we could trick-or-treat the cubicles at Forest's work.

We went through the haunted house first . . .

. . . then visited various cubicles, including Forest's.

The best part of Broadcom Halloween was watching Wylie chase around a lady in an inflatable T-Rex costume that stood about 7 feet tall. He was completely entranced by her and everyone laughed and called him her little admirer.

Not long after that round of trick-or-treating, we were in the neighborhood gathering even more treats.

Here is Wylie collecting his first treat from our next-door-neighbor.

He got the hang of things quickly, and was soon scurrying behind his sisters and going door to door.

The Palmers had their usual elaborate haunted house set up, so we stood in line to experience the mysterious "Lord of the Rings"-themed show. Wylie showed no trepidation whatsoever, and took off running into the dark corners of the haunted house, very nearly getting in the way of the actors.

It was a successful night of trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. The girls got a lot of comments about how "cute" they were in the matching costumes (although Ramona came to dislike being described by that word. a little too juvenile-sounding, perhaps).