Happy Belated Halloween!

I was a complete slacker. Well, at first I wasn't. I worked hard all of September and October making costumes for my babes. And then Mark took pictures of all of them, and life got busy and I COMPLETELY forgot to look at any of the pictures or post them so you can see my creations.

Then last week happened. My 20th High School Reunion--a whole other post coming soon. But I needed a picture of myself to send in for the slideshow. I kept meaning to have Mark take one, but things just didn't work out, or I looked crummy when it was convenient to take one. So in desperation last week, I started looking for a picture through the archives. I stumbled across this one at the top from Halloween.

Despite the handsome gorilla next to me, I actually looked pretty decent in this one. But sending in a picture of yourself standing next to a teenage gorilla just isn't cool. So I decided to crop. And sent in this picture.

You can barely see the gorilla fur in the lower left corner.

Last year was a record. I had never made 5 costumes for one Halloween before. Usually the kids can find something in the boxes of costumes in the basement that makes them happy. But this year there were just so many other good ideas.

Savanna, of course, saw the owl pattern and I had to make it. It is my magnum opus.

Zack thinks he is Bolt. It's his favorite movie, and he has white hair, so he is Bolt (his own words). And Noah is Rhino. Crazy, spunky, wild, and so cute. And his teeth were just like Rhino's at Halloween time, so it was the perfect costume.

The problem for these two was that there was no pattern for either one. So I adapted one I had to make Bolt and added the ribbon collar, and Rhino's was a combination of a penguin pattern and mouse pattern I had on hand. And if you tell me Zack looks like a bunny and Noah looks like a mouse I will scream. If you haven't seen Bolt, go watch it. It's one of my favorite Disney movies ever.

Joel wanted to be Hercules. Who knows why? I don't. But this pattern was actually quite easy, and required no adaptation, which was good.

I promised Mark's awesome cousin-in-law Lindsey that I would do a Halloween History post and show all of the creations since 1994. We'll just call this the first installment, and I'll work back from here.