Two Little Bats

We had two little bats this year for Halloween. Avery had her heart set on being Wonder Woman for the longest time. I'm not even sure how she knows who Wonder Woman is...but about a month or so before Halloween she changed her mind and said she wanted to be a bat and she never wavered on it. I thought it would be cute for James to be a bat too. My mom and grandma sewed the costumes and sent them out to the kids. They loved them! The black parts of the costume are made out of a crushed velvety type of material. And you can't really tell in the pictures, but Avery's purple wings were sparkly. I think my favorite part of the costumes is the ears. I love how those cute pointy ears just stick right up.

Avery and James were crazy about the costumes. They have loved flapping their arms and running around the house...so much so that I finally had to have them take off the costumes because my sanity was at stake :) We were able to get quite a few wears out of the costumes. Avery had a birthday party to go to a couple of days before Halloween that she wore her costume to. Then we had the ward Halloween Trunk or Treat, and then actual Halloween. They don't wear costumes to school here, or even have a Halloween party here. Al and I both thought that was sad! We both remember several of our classroom parties and how fun they were.

Al had Halloween off this year which was so fun! He has worked the last two Halloweens. I know he loved going out trick or treating with us. The kids did really well and James caught on very quickly to what he was supposed to do. After we left every house the kids would call out 'Thank you!' and then James would add, 'Happy 'Ween!' Very cute. James would stop and focus on every Jack o'lantern and ask Al if he could blow out the candle. Avery was more focused on getting to the doors :) James was very possessive of his pumpkin bucket and wouldn't let me or Al help him carry it, and it was heavy! The kids loved coming home and dumping all of their candy into a pile. Then we had fun sorting it all out.

I don't really have pictures from it, but Al and I went to a couple's only Halloween party the weekend before. It was a lot of fun. Our costumes weren't that great...we didn't have money to put into it, and we don't have a collection of Halloween stuff to choose from. And I don't have a sewing machine. Not to mention that neither me or Al is super into dressing up. So we decided to go as Juno and Paulie Bleaker from the movie Juno. But the night before the party I found out that my good friend Kim and her husband were going as Juno and Paulie! So then Al thought it would be great to go as ghosts. Just the super classic, lame, white sheet ghosts. I thought it was kinda funny too. Al 'borrowed' some sheets from the hospital which I was totally against. I don't care that he 'borrowed' them. I cared that they had been used in a hospital!! But Al said that they were from the children's ward (he's on pediatric surgery right now) and that he had gotten them from the fresh laundry and that the hospitals actually throw out the sheets very frequently so they never even get used that much. Whatever. I still wanted to wash and dry them again. Al thought I was crazy. Then as we were cutting up the sheets I noticed a small blood stain on the sheet Al said was mine. Al didn't believe me, but then I showed it to him and he was like, "Um...I'll take that one." In the end the ghosts didn't really turn out how we expected, and I was still freaked out about the sheets, so we didn't use them. We ended up being football players...sort of. Al wore his high school jersey and I wore this football jersey t-shirt that I have. We didn't win any prizes for our costumes, but we did win the pumpkin carving contest! We only had 15 minutes to carve, but we did awesome! Avery had suggested before we left that we go with a super mario theme. So Al carved the Boo ghost on his big pumpkin and I carved a one-up mushroom on the tiny pumpkin. I wish we had pictures of the pumpkins 'cause they really were cute.