November First

Good-bye Halloween! It's been fun but I'm glad to put away the decorations and get my house back to normal again, at least until it's time for the Christmas stuff to come out! Now comes the begging and whining for a piece of candy and I admit, it's kind of nice to have a bargaining tool, like: "if you want your candy you better eat your lunch!" Not so much for the good eaters, but the picky eaters gobble up their meals much faster! 

 

Gretchen wanted to be a mummy this year. Actually, they all decided what they wanted to be this year right after they got home from trick-or-treating last year!  Amazingly, none of them changed their minds! Of course, I don't start on any sewing until the last minute because I thought for sure some body would have second thoughts. I don't know why I thought a mummy costume would be easy-- it wasn't! I had visions of sewing strips of muslin around old white clothing, which was definitely easier to think about than to actually do. Eventually, I figured it out and Gretchen and I were both pretty pleased with the results!

Evelyn as Chicken Nuggets, the bad girl in jail. I didn't want her to use her real name on her number sign, and suggested something like Crazy Harriet or Mad Mary, and she runs off and comes back with Chicken Nuggets. Alrighty!!  She got a lot of laughs with her chosen name so it was all good! Her costume was pulled with stuff we already had around the house, and the chain was a clearance buy from last year's Halloween sales.

Sylvia used Gretchen's costume from last year, so no work needed to complete her sweet witch costume. Not pictured here are the cute black and white stockings she wore, which was another clearance buy from last year.

Peter was skeleton boy and I had every intention of making his costume from scratch, well, semi-scratch.  I was going to sew on bone shapes onto black knit pants and a long sleeve tee, but from past experience, nearly everything I have sewn for this kid gets rejected! I happened to walk into the thrift shop one day and spotted this costume in just his size for only $4. A bargain when you think about all the hard work it saved me! All I had to do was sew up a mask, which you see here, out of an old shirt of Andrew's. It's a little wonky, but it does the job and he wore it!! The bone gloves were a clearance buy last year. I'm telling you, these kids have stuck with their costume picks for a year and I am amazed!! It was so nice to pluck stuff off the clearance shelves for next year and to see that they actually used them! 

I really love this shot in black and white.  It looks like a classic Halloween photo here and I keep looking at it. Definitely going in the photo book I make at the end of the year! 

 

Since we're so rural, we went to the trunk-or-treat gathering at the church in town. The weather was perfect all day ( see the kids barefoot in the above pictures ) which is kind of unusual for the end of October, but then just as we headed out for the fun, it started to sprinkle. No, no! Please! Wait until we're done!  But no such luck. It started to rain harder and then it was pouring by the time we got home. But that's ok, the kids had lots of fun and they got just enough candy to last a month or so. Would you believe they still had Halloween candy left from last year? Yeah, some of it melted in the bags and I had to dump the rest of it out.

 

So, November!  Glad to see you! Can't believe you're here already!

What have you all been up to??