Pest control

With four young children running a muck, zero free time, and a crazy household to maintain, you would think that Maryann would put very minimal effort into assembling Halloween costumes for these children.  Of course, as usual I was wrong.  Maryann never ceases to amaze me.  Here's what she came up with:

 

I was asked to build the mouse trap for the pest. Initially I didn't want to but after seeing all the effort Maryann was putting into their costumes, I thought I had better keep my mouth shut and just do it.  I ended up having a lot of fun making the thing, and it only took a couple of hours.  The kids enjoyed helping and were amazed by the art of masking and painting.  They thought their Daddy was way too impatient because I removed the masking tape immediately after spray painting it.  We plopped a Bumbo seat into the wagon, cut out a hole for the baby, and sha-bam!  The baby loved being pulled around in the wagon and it was great to have along for stashing coats and extra supplies.

 

We had some strange costume requests this year.  Sidon insisted on being a "firefighting owl".  Rivers really wanted to be a "ballerina kitty".  Cumorah stuck with a traditional bat costume.  I kind of like the idea of blending two different things into a costume.  Next year I'm going to insist all the kids pick out 2 things they want to be.  That would be a fun Halloween tradition. Maybe Maryann won't think so.

The knitting needles of Maryann whipped out this amazing owl hat for the boy.  Crazy.

I thought Cumorah's bat wings looked terrific, but apparently the sleeves were a few inches too short for Maryann's liking so she scrapped them and started over.

 
The girls designed and then hand painted this scary piece of art in the photo below.  I had some spooky dark-activated LED lights I made a few Halloweens ago that we installed to make the bat's eyes light up.  Even though the children created the thing, they deemed it way too scary to remain in the hallway or anywhere near their bedroom at night.  The bat was relegated to the dining room where it would be least likely to freak anybody out or cause nightmares.

 

We really didn't know what the weather was going to be like leading up to Trick or Treat time.  It had been raining for several days.  Fortunately, it cleared up just in time.  We forgot to bring a water friendly pair of shoes for Rivers and it didn't take long for her ballerina slippers to become completely soaked.  Didn't slow her down though.  Poor kid.  I was thrilled to have the night off for a second year in a row to accompany them through the neighborhood.  I dressed up as an exterminator.

Maryann cut up numerous thrift store T-shirts to make Sidon's owl wings.  I thought they turned out great. 

Cumorah really got "into the spirit" of getting candy.  She ran the entire time.