Happy Halloween: Costumes

This year the kids went scary for their costumes.  So scary that I think even Grady was scared of his own mask at first.   We made a trip to Walmart at the beginning of the month so that we could have lots of choices and Grady chose that mask.   Last year he was terrified of clowns so not sure why he chose it.  For the first few nights he needed to have the closet door closed so that he didn't have to see the mask when we was in bed.  Over the past few weeks he's worn it many times and others have worn it as well.  Over time it has become less and less scary.

Grady wasn't allowed to wear masks to school so he had to wear a traditional clown wig and nose.  I'm not sure how you explain the blood splattered jump suit, but whatevs.

Cooper's school on the other hand has no issues with scary costumes or masks.  For those of you that don't know, Cooper is Freddy from Five Nights at Freddys, some scary video game he likes.  Its crazy that both our kids still get to wear costumes to school considering many schools have done away with it.

All in all it was a successful Halloween even if it was raining.  A little candy for the kids and some baileys and hot chocolate for the adults makes trick or treating in the rain a little more enjoyable.  While James and the kids were out in the rain, I settled in with Downton Abbey and my lap top in the warm house and handed out candy.  I think I got the sweet end of this deal.

Happy Halloween: Pumpkin Carving 2017

Like every other year since I joined James' family, we carved pumpkins.  We take our pumpkin carving very seriously.    First you must choose a variety of pumpkin sizes to match all the patterns.

Next, you must gut the pumpkin and save the seeds to make pumpkin seeds.  This is Marla's job.  This year she helped my gut the pumpkins since I am usually responsible for 4 pumpkins, mine, the 2 kids, and the spare that I usually buy just in case one rots before we carve it.

Each year the kids do more and more of the pumpkin them selves.  This year, Grady chose his own pattern and poked the whole thing on his own. He even carved the bigger parts of the pattern while I did the smaller part.  He is embracing the tradition which makes me happy.

Cooper was at a birthday party while we gutted so his pumpkin was clean and his pattern was chosen when he got home.  He poked half of his pumpkin and tried to carve but wasn't all that good at it... yet.

James was the last man carving this year.  He was busy ordering the food and setting up light in the media room that goes off when the flames score!  Cooper and I happened to downstairs later that night when it went off for the first time.  It works!

At the end, we had 7 pumpkins ready for Halloween!

In the lineup: Mine, Bo, Mine, Grady, Cooper, Dave.  James did the Raiders one.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Preparations and Celebrations

The weekend (including Monday) was full of celebrating and preparing for Halloween.  Saturday started with a costume skate for Cooper.  When it was first suggested I was a little unsure of how the participation would be, but when I ran it by the coaches they were all in!  James went on the ice for the first time this season and we threw together a hula dancer costume for him while Cooper wore a sully mask on his helmet and a clown tie.

Cooper looked cute out there, the tie was a big hit but also got in the way of his shooting.

The on ice parents (including James) really hit it out of the park.  What a great way to start off Halloween weekend.

Since we were done both hockey practices by 9:30 am, Sunday was devoted to carving pumpkins.  We started carving pumpkins with James' family well over 10 years ago before elaborate pumpkins were a thing.  I love this tradition and was pumped to see my kids fully embrace it this year.

I really like this photo that Nana snapped of Grady and I both scooping our pumpkins with our serious faces on.  Notice my orange scarf... that is me being festive since I don't do costumes!

Look at our full tables of pumpkins!  There were 6 or us carving, too many to get into one shot!

Cooper washed his hands more than 3 times while he cleaned out his pumpkin, apparently he didn't like the feeling on his hands.

Bo (my SIL) always chooses the most elaborate and is always the last done.  Hers is always easy to spot amount the other less complicated pumpkins!

In no particular order, here are the pumpkins of 2016!

Dave (James' bro) did the eyes of the little green aliens from Toy Story.

I did the spider.  I purposely picked an easier stencil as I expected to help the kids way more than I actually did.  I was done carving mine before the kids were done poking theirs.

Grady did Gengar (a Pokemon) all by himself.  He cleaned it, poked it, and carved it, with the exception of the teeth which I insisted I do since they were more complicated.  I had to use 3 tooth picks to hold the teeth up!  If you look closely, you can see it on the far right.

Cooper did about 75% of the ghost.  He poked the whole thing and carved 3 of the 4 big holes himself.  This is the first year he has really participated and it makes my Mom heart happy to see them enjoying this tradition.

James did the Pikachu (Pokemon) probably by request of the kids.  In the end, it received the most attention by the kids that were trick or treating.

Finally, we have Bo's owl... it turned out great!

Finally, Halloween arrived, the pumpkins were carved, the costumes were ready, and the excitement levels were high.  The boys and 4 of their friends hit the neighborhood running. This is the picture you get when you leave the Dads in charge!

I'm not complaining though as I got to hand out candy inside with a glass of wine in my hand and a friend to keep me company.  The silence lasted about one hour when the 6 kids raced back in the house and all found a place to dump their candy on the floor.

My theory is that we let them eat all they want on Halloween night and then they won't want to eat it anymore.  That is certainly what happened to me after the kids went to bed.... I ate so much I can't even look at chocolate! Last night, we negotiated with the kids that we would pay them $15 per bag of candy and just like that, the candy is gone.  Well, it is in the van waiting to be donated to the food bank.

Another great Halloween in the books.

Happy Halloween 2016

Introducing Charizard and Scary Ghost.  Watch out for them on the roads tonight collecting absurd amounts of candy which I will probably be stuck buying back from them later this week.

We are hosting 4 adults and 8 kids for a pre trick or treating dinner so I chose to take pictures of the kids on Thursday before the Halloween Party at school.

There will be lots of chaos at our house full of costume, laughter and memory making.

While I was putting this post together I started to look back at Halloweens past and loved remembering what the boys dressed up as over the years, starting with a Caterpillar

2008 - A Caterpillar.  Chosen because at aged 4 months you spend most of your time on your back.

2009 - A fire fighter.  I bought this costume at a second hand sale in the spring and low and behold.. it fit!

2010 - A spider. Also purchased second hand. I miss the days when I got to choose his costume.  Exactly 9 days before he became a big brother.

2011 - A fire fighter recycled from 2009 and a veterinarian chosen by me because it would fit over his winter jacket.

2012 - A police officer same at the vet because I liked that it could be worn over jacket and a veterinarian recycled from 2011.

2013 - I think these are my favorite costumes, Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. OMG they are cute.  I'm not biased or anything.

2014 - A ninja turtle and Kyle Busch.  I ordered Cooper's costume because he was obsessed with Nascar that year and it was such a cute (and expensive!) costume.

2015 - Storm Troopers purchased at Costco which are the most reasonably and well made costumes out there, if your kids want to be what they have to offer.

Have a safe and happy Halloween tonight. I hope you enjoyed the stroll down memory lane as much as I did!

Costume Chaos

Those who know me well know I am organized.  Very organized some may say.  So when it comes to Halloween costumes I am on the ball.  I shop early to make sure my kids get the costume they want.  But not too early that they may change their mind before Oct 31.   So when we were in Party city the last week of September buying Cooper’s birthday party (For November!) we stopped to take a look at the Halloween costumes and see if there was anything that the kids wanted.

Cooper wanted anything that had blood or was scary.  I tried to explain to him that he was only 5 and he couldn’t wear those scary costumes to school.  After me telling him NO over and over we finally settled on a scary ghost.  It was a good choice that made us both happy.

Cooper's preferred costume choices

Grady, my indecisive child, had a little more trouble choosing a costume. At first he wanted a Paw Patrol costume and I told him they didn’t come in his size.  He just wasn’t feeling any of the costumes.   I tried to convince him to be a morph and eventually he settled on being poop.  Yes, poop.  It was actually a really cute costume then he changed his mind.  Again.

In the end he wanted to be a Pokémon, which makes sense given their obsession with the game.  They didn’t have any at Party City so I told him we would look online when we got home.  I sat down at the computer and found him the perfect costume, Charizard.  For those of you that don't have 8 year old boys... this is what Charizard looks like.

The problem was they were sold out everywhere, but I managed to find one on Amazon.  For $80.  I decided to go for it since he really wanted it and we got Cooper’s for a much more reasonable price.  It was September 30^th and the expected shipping date said Oct 5 to Oct 26.  In my experience the item has always come at the beginning of the window and even if it did arrive Oct 26, that was still ok as our Halloween party wasn’t until the 27^th.  A few clicks later I had a Charizard costume on its way to our house!

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I didn’t give it much thought until Thanksgiving when my family was asking what the boys were being for Halloween and I was reminded that I hasn’t received a shipping confirmation on Grady’s costume yet...  Sh*t.  Double Sh*t.

The very next day I contacted the seller on Amazon to express my concern that the item hadn’t shipped yet and that it was a Halloween Costume that had TO GET ALL THE WAY TO CANADA!  The description online said ‘preparing to ship’.  What the eff does that mean?  It comes prepared to ship. I started to read the reviews and late shipping was a common theme. I felt my anxiety levels rising immediately.  I spent $80 on this coveted costume and having it arrive AFTER Halloween was becoming a real possibility.

Thankfully, the seller responded very quickly and shipped the item out the same day.  That made me happy and angry at the same time.  Happy to see it had finally shipped and angry that they just didn’t do it 2 weeks ago when I ordered it!  I was so frustrated.

I checked the tracking information daily waiting for it to move.  From Oct 13^th on it just showed it sitting at Canada post.  It didn’t move, not once.  I checked daily to see where the package was and it was still sitting at Canada Post idle.

This past Monday I called Canada Post and spoke to a very unhelpful lady who didn’t care that it was a Halloween costume for my 8 year old son.  She told me I’d get an email in 5 business days to let me know the status on my package. Thanks for nothing.

I had come to the conclusion that the costume was not going to arrive and I started thinking of options.  I could make a homemade costume, right?

Not likely.  Those who know me also know that I am not craft.  Let's be honest, I'm an accountant.

We had settled on being a storm trooper like last year.  The plan was set and I put it out of my mind.  The costume was destined to not arrive in time for the Halloween party.

Or was it….

Tuesday afternoon I was sitting at my desk and I got the following picture texted to me from James.

THE COSTUME HAD ARRIVED!

After all my worrying, it arrived, and even within the window I was originally given.  While I had been dreaming of all the nasty reviews I was going to leave on the amazon site, it actually arrived on time!

Surprisingly, I was way more excited than Grady to learn of its arrival. Maybe he didn’t want it as bad as I thought he did, or maybe he just always thought it would arrive.

Moral of the Story:  Be weary of ordering your child’s Halloween costume online!

Pictures of my scary ghost and Pokémon to come next week!

Halloween 2015

This year, with the boys being into Star Wars, both of them deciding to go as Storm Troopers came as no surprise.  We snagged the costumes at Costco for $20 a piece which is certainly a good price for a decent Halloween costume.

We got lots of use our of our costumes between school parties that each of them had in their classes and a Halloween dance at Grady's school one evening where there were storm troopers everywhere!

But none as cute as my two Star Wars bad guys!  At least I convinced them to leave the guns at home....

Before we sent the kids off trick or treating on Saturday we sat down with James' family to carve pumpkins.  We started doing the 'fancy' pumpkins years ago and used to get tons of comments each year.  Now they seem more mainstream and we didn't get a single comment.  I still think they turned out pretty darn good.

Bo, Dave, Grady, Cooper, James, Mine

Bo's Darth Vader was by far the best.  She always picks the hardest pumpkin and also takes the longest.  This year may have been her best pumpkin ever.

Grady carved this pumpkin all by himself.  I did not help him with anything.  He drew the face, poked out his pattern and carved it.  I loved seeing him embrace this family tradition.

While Halloween isn't my favorite holiday... I don't dress up, I try not to binge on candy, the doorbell rings non stop while I try to read or watch a show.... I love it for the kids.  Sending the kids out into the neighborhood to trick or treat and work on their manners of saying please and thank you is great.   I love seeing all the kids in their costumes and seeing all their smiles.  With that being said, I'm glad it is only once a year!

Happy Belated Halloween!

Our Annual Night of Pumpkin Carving!

Pumpkin carving is getting more and more fun with the kids getting more involved in the festivities.  I am so happy to see them enjoying the carving tradition as much as the rest of the family.

First, we laid out the plastic sheet I picked up the dollar store earlier that day.  Then the kids dragged the pumpkins from the office to the kitchen and we started by getting dirty!

Grady got right into it, Cooper not so much.

Nana is in charge of gathering the pumpkin seeds and cleaning them up so we can bake them.  They did not disappoint!  I'm pretty sure I put the biggest dent in the batch of seeds.

Grady wasted no time getting his Calgary flames template taped on to his pumpkin so he could poke it.  By this time, Cooper was done with pumpkin carving.

Then Grady kicked it up a notch and got right down on the ground with his pumpkin!

Bo meant serious business with her monster pumpkin that required a monster knife to cut!

I was busy doing my own pumpkin, Cooper's pumpkin, and the spare.  So I did 3 in total.

After a few hours, we had 7 carved pumpkins.

L to R:  Me, James, Jasmin, Grady, me, me, Bo

Obviously Bo's is the best. It is the best every year.  She picks a super complicated one and is always the last to finish.  But, it is always good.  This year, she chose the bob cat.  It was so strange that when we first looked at it, we coudlnt' really see it.  But when we took the photo, it was amazing.  Good work Bo!

At our house, hands down the transformer was the one the kids commented on the most.  We had 6 pumpkins out in the yard and the kids loved it.  I love seeing the reactions and asking which one they like best.

Carving pumpkins is something I very much enjoy and am so happy to be sharing the tradition with the kids.

Until next year....