Minnie, Another Harry, and a Bright-Haired Witch

Happy Halloween 2015!

Charlotte, the most decisive of all the children in this house, has been saying for months that she wanted to be Minnie Mouse. A polka dot dress and some yellow converse, big brother's tie as a belt, and some ears and gloves - makes her done and done. She was crazy happy about this costume, I'm sure you can't tell.

Anneliese really wanted to be a witch, "but the nice kind, who is friendly and likes colorful things." I mean, obviously.

Despite having already dressed up as Harry Potter once for Halloween (with a little sister Hedwig sidekick!), Nathan wanted to do it again. He has been super into the books and has a whole new context for Harry, and would not be deterred.

On Saturday afternoon before trick-or-treating, there was a symphony concert of Harry Potter (and other movie) music, and our sweet friend Anita who is the symphony harpist, comped us tickets. So great!

They had lots of fun things in the lobby like places to try out instruments, and a "potions" class where kids could make bubbles with soap and dry ice, then shatter them, and people walking around dressed as Hogwarts professors with a sorting hat for anyone who wanted to try it.

The whole event was completely delightful.

A Pilot, a Superhero, and Rainbow Brite

Halloween 2014! Besides being super annoyed at how even Halloween has become a season --

Everyone, stop that! Stop with your pumpkin drinks in August, stop with your Christmas music in October, stop with the Halloween parties weeks before Halloween! It is ONE DAY. The children do not need to wear their costumes and do Halloween activities at three fall festivals and then preschool class and then dance class and then choir. No. Stop. By the time it comes around, they would be over it. A class party or school event, and trick-or-treating. That's it. I put my foot down at the other things.

-- I'm actually not a scrooge, just normal, and the kids and their costumes were really fun this year. Even though none of them were Elsas. In a year when everyone was Elsa! We are basically unamerican, I know.

Charlotte wanted to be a superhero, in the generic sense apparently, and so I googled for ideas and realized I could mostly put hers together myself: I dyed a onesie and printed the C in a superhero font on iron-transfer paper (I actually ran into some snags but those are boring so that's the gist of it). I ordered some cuffs and a belt from an etsy seller, and cut up some socks for her leg decoration. She already had the cape. Came out super cute, this little Super Booler.

(We decided her kryptonite is getting her shoes on the correct feet.)

Anneliese asked to be Rainbow Brite months and months ago and I kept deterring her, because it's 2014, not 1984, and that is not a costume you can just procure unless you want to spend a zillion dollars on ebay and I obviously don't. But after many repeated asks, and many sad faces, and my friend Jeanine convincing me it wouldn't be that hard, I decided to put a Rainbow Brite together as best I could. And it was totally good!

I ordered a clearance t-shirt dress from Old Navy, which was originally a light sky blue that was easy enough to dye royal. I bought some faux fur Santa trim and glued it to the hem. I found a bow and glued a star to it. And put rainbow leg warmers on her arms and legs. Jeanine made the red belt/suspender part for us because she is the best, and I ironed a cheap etsy patch onto it. I used leftover superhero onesie fabric and cut-up ribbon to make the chest piece, which I almost omitted because it looked sloppy, but then needed it to hold the suspenders up (it's just some iron-on velcro holding it together). Pretty good for a mom who doesn't sew, right?

And Nathan wanted to be a pilot (who also designs airplanes) (I told him that costume doesn't exist so he might have to dress like just a pilot, and tell people the also-designs-planes part himself) so I did the extremely crafty mom thing of clicking through to Amazon Prime. Be very impressed.

His shirt says pilote -- in Spanish -- and I have no idea why (that's not what was on the package) but we went with it.

All the costumes don't family coordinate, and Mark and I don't like to dress up, so I know we fail the internet when it comes to Halloween, but I don't care because they all had costumes they loved and I got to feel like a halfway-crafty mom in the process.

So yeah, it was a fun Halloween. The girls did their costume parade at school on Monday (Monday?!) and then for actual Halloween we did our normal trick-or-treat loop around the block, trying the whole time to convince the kids we were going to eat all their candy when they went to bed, and replace it with vegetables, which totally gets a rise out of Nathan (but not the girls) and amuses us. We're great parents, is what I'm saying.

Pumpkin Patch (Etc.) (ETC!)

A question for the ages: if you take your kids to a pumpkin patch, but don't instagram anything while you're there, did it really happen?

Because the kids had a teacher workday, and so we went to a pumpkin patch (AND MORE) (there is no such thing as just a pumpkin patch, I have learned) and despite what you didn't see on instagram, it was a fun little outing!

more than just a "pumpkin patch" y'all

They had bounce houses and pig races and and giant shelters full of hay for rolling around, and inflatable horses for kids to race each other on. And also tunnels for crawling in, and an old barn-turned-fort. Oh! And a petting/feeding zoo of farm animals! Naturally!

They also had a silo thing filled (shallowly, but still filled) with corn and y'all, that's kinda the stuff of nightmares. I let the kids get in it and they LOVED IT but hot damn I will be thinking about it for weeks. That sh!t is terrifying. A silo full of corn just looks like danger danger danger death to me. Am I the only one with this fear? Because yeah no.

Slightly less terrifying, a big tube built onto the side of a hill that serves as a giant slide. We rode down on burlap sacks. Yes, slides are still fun for grownups, stop pretending you wouldn't have gone on it it too.

And, of course, we did do the hayride to a pumpkin patch* to pick out our pumpkins (*field with already-picked pumpkins lying in neat rows, for instagram purposes I assume). My rule: you can have any pumpkin you want, as long as you can carry it yourself. And that's the story of how we got the three smallest pumpkins in Youngsville yesterday.

But they carved up just fine, each kid designed their own and Mark helped cut them and they came out cute!

Barely in time for Halloween! We are just super on top of things yknow.

An Elephant, a Retro Dino, and Yet Another Skunk

Halloween! Finally posting, with pics!

Okay this was a super easy costume year (well compared to last year anyway, when I was fabric-gluing felt petals onto a pillowcase to make Anneliese into the best little owl that a kid has ever been to her big brother Harry Potter, which was adorable but haaaaaard) so all I had to do was just... step kids into costumes and zip them up. No face paint, no sewing, no gluing, just the normal please. put. your. shoes. on. (x100) that happens anytime we leave the house.

So, they stepped, we zipped, and then we had ourselves the beginnings of an adorable zoo:

We put together our little menagerie, posed them for pictures, and went trick-or-treating around one block, as per our usual. Charlotte was surprised and delighted at every house, EVERY HOUSE, that she got a treat. She would turn around and (precariously) toddle down every house's steps, wide-eyed and grinning and saying tweeeeeeet!

I am officially sad that no one else gets to wear the skunk, actually. It has been retired, ready for a niece or nephew, done with our little family. But it was adorable while it lasted, and they all wore it so well!

They look so so alike, don't they? And also so different. Good grief I am full of predictable mommy cliches right now. I will stop.

At least this elephant has many more years of Bumgarner Halloweens in front of it (right Liam?) --

Oh, and here is another thing that is cute! Remember how we the stegosaurus costume came on loan from Iowa, because we have the best friends who have the best families? Yeah. That ended up being awesome. Here is Nathan wearing it, after Another Nathan wore it exactly twenty-five years ago today.

1988 and 2013

And that should be enough to make any Halloween curmudgeon smile, myself included.

Also, Rex dressed up. As another kind of dinosaur. So, that happened. (No, I do not know what kind, do not ask me what kind.)*

Happy Halloween!

*curmudgeon 

Oh! Pumpkins!

So, we carved pumpkins for the first time in many many years this weekend. I'm pretty sure I haven't done it since I've had kids. Like, none of my kids has ever had a jack-o-lantern. Wait what. Now that I put it in writing I feel terrible! (Eh. I feel like should feel terrible. But I don't really.)

Anyway, for whatever reason, this year we finally carved pumpkins.

You know, for the kids.

FOR THE KIDS.

Mark and Anneliese crafted a beautiful tiger paw. Anneliese's job was announcing that she and daddy were making a tiger paw pumpkin. While Mark made the tiger paw pumpkin. (Anneliese can always be counted on for the announcing of things. Especially if you need the things announced several times in a row.)

Nathan and Another Nathan carved a "traditional" pumpkin (with square eyes and rows of tiny teeth, AS TRADITION INDICATES) and... well actually Nathan basically designed it himself, so, hm actually that one was kinda for the kids. Grownups doing the tiny-teeth cutting labor, of course.

I wanted to make a Daniel Tiger pumpkin for Charlotte but I only got about one mangled ear into it before I gave up and I* made a smiley emoticon jack-o-lantern instead. For me. (*Another Nathan did a lot of, um... fixing.)

(Related: The internet is full of beautiful Daniel Tiger pumpkins, but what I would really like to see is a twitter hashtag or facebook album of everyone's mangled pumpkin Daniels instead. I am festive! Happy Halloween!)

Basically the best part of having jack-o-lanterns is that every time we pull in the driveway from being gone anywhere, even just for ten minutes, even though we have had them on the front steps for daaaaaays, Charlotte is surprised and downright DELIGHTED to see them. Oh! Punkins! Puuuunkiiiiins!!!

So, yeah. For the kids.

Cleaning Closets, Costumes, and Things That Don't Have Anything to Do With Anything

Well here is some more random miscellaneous blogging, since that is apparently the mood I am in this week. 

I cleaned out Charlotte's closet on Monday (all the closets, actually) and somehow I unearthed a bin of Feelings, including the church bulletin from the day she was baptized, congratulations cards from when Anneliese was born, and a baby blanket embroidered with Nathan's name. (I am a ruthless purger, but the things I do save, I save with organization.) (All the better to make me catch my breath and try not to cry when I am cleaning closets. It's a good system.) 

I am thrilled to set aside boy clothes for Liam and girl clothes for Nick and Barbara's baby on the way (have I said they are having a baby? They are! A baby girl! SQUEE) but still, something about sorting through things for MY last baby feels... different. 

Heavy. Quiet.

But this was not meant to be a melancholy post! So! *brisk clap!* 

In sorting through hand-me-downs from Anneliese, Charlotte did find a new winter hat to obsess over. So that was cute. Maybe the old one will go away now?

we took a selfie in the closet, obviously

In other closet-finds news, I think we are all set for Halloween costumes. And by we I mean the kids, not us, because as someone who doesn't love dressing up, one of the benefits of having kids is that I can dress them up and no one accuses me of not being festive for not being in a costume myself. (Although, truthfully, I'm not really festive. Halloween is not my favorite. It interferes with my birthday! Or something. Costumes annoying blah blah whatever.) (Am a super articulate blogger today.)

Anyway Charlotte will be a skunk like her brother and sister before her. When I pulled the costume out, I saw the price tag still attached (thank you for the $5 Marshall's find, 2007 Marmie!) which means I have never washed it. Maybe I should do that. (Foreshadow alert: I probably won't.) 

And Anneliese picked out a firefighter costume (fighter-fighter!) and insisted she definitely one hundred percent wanted to be that over the racks of princesses and animals and the zillions of other things she has requested to be for Halloween over the last year (a reindeer! Actually Santa! Actually... a princess. Actually Santa Claus Cinderella.* Actually Olivia the Pig! Actually a butterfly. Actually an angry bird. Actually, actually, actually, actually a fighter-fighter!) so I turned on my Very Serious Mommy Eyes and made her swear and promise not to change her mind. And then I purchased it. And THEN (of course!) promptly found an elephant costume in her size in the closet (also from Marmie from Ashley, I remember it now). So that was a fun little crow-eating conversation. (The fighter-fighter went back to Costco. She is thrilled with the elephant. Took a nap in it. Sweated up a storm. In related news, I should probably now wash that one too.) (Foreshadow alert: I probably won't wash that one either.) 

Nathan is going to be a... (wait for it) (you will be shocked) (you will never guess)... dinosaur. Wait. You saw that coming, right? But here is an unexpectedly hella sweet twist: so, Another Nathan's mom made him a dinosaur costume circa like 1989, and said costume still not only still exists but has been shipped here from Iowa (because yes they are that kind and good) and fits our Nathan perfectly. And if you think there is anything cuter than a little boy in glasses wearing a hand-made green stegosaurus costume previously worn by someone he looks up to and adores, YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

So I am officially excited for Halloween (as excited as I ever get, anyway) and my menagerie of adorable children. 

On a related note (kind of) (well it is sort of about house organization so just go with it), Mark is super ready to refresh our fridge pics. Move old ones, add new ones, etc. And I have been meaning to forever, I even made a folder on the computer for pics that would be fun to print and put up. But I just can't make myself do it. I like how these pics have been gradually accumulated. I have come to like the cluttered homey family feel of it. (I never thought I would be this person. Good grief who am I.) 

Eh I will re-do it soon. And the new pictures will make me smile too. And probably I will love having it a little more orderly. This is a very back-burner project, til some day when I suddenly can't take it anymore and I just do it. (That day might be sooner than I think, now that I have blogged about it.)

On a completely unrelated note, Nathan came downstairs this morning clutching his favorite sweater and asking if it was cool enough to wear it, and that's apparently the story of how my six-year-old has somehow morphed into a person who gets excited for sweater weather. 

He will become the one who loves fall as much as his Uncle Brad. I see pumpkin spice lattes in his future. (Oh who am I kidding, he sneaks sips of my coffee already, now.)

Okay I have been writing this post for way too long so I will just end by saying (randomly) (because it doesn't have anything to do with anything, which, as we have established, is the theme of my blogging week) I am having to hold back my Christmas feelings already. I am more excited than I even want to admit, considering it's still October and it wasn't too many weeks ago I was giving the world a bunch of crap for forcing pumpkin beverages on me in the heat of summer. I come from a family who waited til after my parents' and sister's birthdays to put up a tree, never ever before December 12th. We don't rush it. I don't like rushing it. I don't do Christmas before December! Before Advent! Not before Thanksgiving, and definitely not before my birthday. WHAT. But, it is creeping in. The shopping ideas. The festive foods. I don't want to be sick of it when it is actually here so I am forcing it down, but... it is coming. 

*Yeah I don't know either.

So About This Owl

Okay, the long-promised details of this whole owl costume, alternately titled: How I Became a Crafty Mom and Didn't Even Hate It.

So.

I thought I had hand-me-down (freebie) costumes for all three kids lined up this year, but at the last minute, both the ones I was hoping I could use for Nathan and Anneliese ended up being too big and didn't pan out.

Since we had a Harry Potter robe in the dress up bin (and a Gryffindor scarf a friend made me a few years back), I thought it would be super cute if they went as Harry and his owl, Hedwig. So I did some googling and saw lots of moms who had made owl costumes, and because I am blindly and wildly overconfident, I thought hey I could do that! (Mark and Another Nathan wore bemused smiles and raised their eyebrows.)

So I drove my ass to the craft store (I KNOW!!!) and bought supplies -- felt and feathers and fabric glue and a plastic eye mask with elastic. Then I got all crafy up in here.

Step 1 - I printed a petal template from the interwebz and traced it onto the felt and then cut out like a zillion of them. Well, like a hundred. Or two. Until I had enough to cover a pillowcase, like this:

I might or might not have sent a lot of texts during this process. Look at me cutting out felt petals! Still cutting out felt petals! Wait do these look like scales or like feathers? What should my ratio of white petals to brown petals be? Yep still cutting! (Crafty mommies are fascinating texters, it turns out.)

Anyway.

Step 2 - I cut a neck hole and arm holes in said pillowcase, then turned it inside out to pin in the seams so it'd be slim enough for Anneliese to wear like a shirt dress. (Good thing pinterest exists or I'd never know there was a whole movement of mommies out there who can't stop making sh!t from pillowcases. I see you, pillowcase mommies!)

Step 3 - And then, with a bit of "help" from my owl-to-be, I glued that felt to that pillowcase. Like a boss.

First fitting!

(I ended up cutting open the pillowcase seam at the top of one of the shoulders -- I wanted it to fit more snugly around the neck, but still needed a way to make it easier for her to get in and out. We just safety pinned it once she was in, but if I did it again I would get some velcro or snaps.)

Step 4 - To make the mask, I did a google image search for an owl mask template, found one with a shape I liked, enlarged it on our printer/copier, then traced it onto card stock. And by "card stock" (which y'all know I do not just keep on hand) I mean the inside of a cereal box, because hellz yes I am crafty hear me roar.

Step 5 - I cut some felt and paper, markered/crayoned a bit, and layered them in concentric circles until it looked like this:

I didn't worry about cutting eye holes, because I knew Anneliese wouldn't want it on her eyes, and masks weren't allowed at her preschool costume parade anyway. (No eyes, not a mask. Technically this is an owl headpiece, obviously.) Anyway, then I stuck it to the craft store mask. With scotch tape. STAY CLASSY, CRAFTY ERIN.

I won't lie, I was pretty freaking proud of that mask. I texted a picture of it to Mark and he asked why it didn't have a beak, and good news y'all, we're still not divorced.

Anneliese, however, loved it, and with some feathers (also from the craft store, omg how many times can I mentioned I went to a CRAFT STORE in one post?) in her pigtails, the outfit was complete.

(Hey Mark, notice she didn't even ask why there were no wings. Nobody else better ask that either.)

And that's the story of how I glued some felt to a pillowcase and became this year's breakout crafty mom superstar.

(This is the post that was the most helpful in my costume planning, if anyone wants to try to make something like this.)

Harrry and Heglig (and a Monster)

Halloween 2012 -- Harry Potter, his owl Hedwig (and a monster).

Of note:

- We trick-or-treated. They lasted longer than last year. Bonus: no rain!

- We peeked into lots of fancy foyers at our neighbors' houses. Please tell me we're not the only ones who do this while trick-or-treating.

- Both of our hand-me-down costume ideas (you know that's how we like to roll) didn't pan out for either of the big kids, so we found something we had in the dress up bench (HP robe) and went from there.

- Nathan has only just learned that HP is a child wizard. Which makes him way cooler. (He's only seen snippets of the first movie; before this week his main concept of Harry Potter came from a lego sticker book.)

- Anneliese thinks the owl Hedwig's name is Heglig.

- In a fit of crafty confidence, I decided to make that owl costume (post for another day).

- Remember Anneliese in that monster costume?

- Poor third child Charlotte isn't exactly an afterthought, but still didn't get to go with the "theme" ... clearly she was troubled by this (or not at all).

- No, we did not actually feed her a snickers bar. (That thing is full-sized! We totes ate it ourselves. Everyone knows the full-size candy is for the parents.)

Happy Halloween!!

A Ladybug, a Skunk... and Miss Viola Swamp

In case anyone out there is wondering, the magic age where kids decide to voice a strong preference about Halloween costumes is four. After being wishy washy for a week, Nathan eventually latched on to the idea of dressing as a witch.  And wouldn't let go. Not a warlock, not a wizard, a witch. With a black dress and tall hat and green hair and green fingernails.

Oh Nathan. Always a big bucket of quirky.

And it turns out he had a very specific witch in mind. A certain Miss Viola Swamp. Apparently she's a character in a children's book (which everyone on the planet has heard of except me) -- a mean substitute teacher who we're supposed to understand is actually the real teacher in disguise. Oh and she looks like a man.

So basically Nathan was asking to be a cross-dressing witch for Halloween. SUPER.

Oh!  Except, I'm not sure she's even actually a witch.  Whatevs. Details.

So we found a witch's hat, green hairspray, and I took a green highlighter to his nails.  I talked him into a cape instead of a dress. He took one look in the mirror, decided he didn't look like Miss Swamp (duh sweetie, because you insisted on being dressed like a witch, and is she even a witch?) and proclaimed that he was just a regular witch pretending to be Miss Swamp.

Clear as mud, yes?

So. I sent him to school like this:

He was nervous right at the last minute, but when he got to school and all the other kids were also wearing costumes, he felt better. Oh and his teacher was also dressed as Miss Viola Swamp, and had also opted for a regular witch's hat and a cape (really, universe? really?) which was either extremely validating for Nathan or extremely weird. One of those.

We also dressed up the girls (in two hand-me-down costumes, you might remember Nathan as a skunk too) (side note: wow Nathan and Anneliese look alike when they're dressed as skunks!) and took everyone trick-or-treating. 

baby's first halloween! *scaryface*

It was rainy and cold, and only Anneliese didn't seem to mind the weather, which she proved by stomping in every puddle and sloshing happily through every gutter and was soaked to her knees by the time we got home.

Which was about six houses after we started.

And our little girl skunk garnered far more comments than our little boy witch.  I have to say, I'm kind of proud of our neighborhood for that. No one batted an eye.  Yay America.  For what it's worth, Anneliese does make a ridiculously cute little skunk.

As for me, I dressed up as a mommy of three who loves trick-or-treating in the rain. Who just survived her son's first drag halloween. Awesome.

Happy Halloween!

Playing Trick or Treat

This year (as in all years), our kids dressed up for Halloween in whatever costumes we could get handed down for free.  We had a mighty Clemson football player:

And an adorable sweet little monster girl:

We figured after our quick road trip last night, and the sheer amount of work we have to do in the next week to get our house on the market, that this would be a good year to opt out of the traditional trick-or treating schedule.  So this afternoon, we took the kids to our church for a youth-run fall festival.  And the kids loved it.

There were a bunch of games that Nathan could play (and he played all of them, a couple of times each) -- bowling with a tennis ball into water bottles, fishing for prizes over a wall, a wheel of fortune type game, some swimming rubber ducks to choose for prizes, etc.  They also had a jar of skittles, and the kids could guess how many were inside.

He insisted there were "S" skittles inside.
Clearly we need to work on the difference between letters and numbers.

Also, since he wasn't a fan of wearing his helmet, we let him get his hair spray-painted orange.  We'll see if that comes out sooner or later than the marker we took to his cheeks to give him some football player eyeblack.  Oh yeah.  Parents of the year what.

Anneliese got lots of compliments and hugs for her adorable monsterousness and bright blue eyes.  She modeled Nathan's football helmet, pretended to eat some still-wrapped candy, and got her face painted to girly up her outfit a bit.

But the best part was getting to go to everyone's car trunks and say trick or treat to get candy.  Nathan considered this one of the games, and he kept asking to go play trick or treat again.  :)  So on the way home, we made two stops at friends' houses and let him "play" trick or treat with them too. 

Happy Halloween from our star football player and our little monster!

For more pictures of Halloween, click on Nathan and his new flashlight, below.

by mgoetts

A Skunk and a Sweet Pea

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, I'll be honest. I don't really like dressing up, and then there's that whole interfering-with-my-birthday-weekend thing. But in the past few years, Halloween has become more fun... mostly because one of the best ways to make your kid even cuter is putting him in an adorable costume. Like so many things in life, Halloween just takes on a different mood when viewed through the eyes of a parent. :)

We started off the day with pumpkin pankcakes. I thought I would be creative, but maybe I shouldn't have been... they were ok, but not great. . To redeem myself with my boys, I went out for treats at the new Krispy Kreme near our house. Although they don't make any donuts there (meaning you can't get them "hot & now" much to Mark's dismay), they did have some pumpkin (decorated, not flavored) donuts that Nathan was pretty excited about. [Side note -- our music director at church gave Nathan a paper pumpkin earlier in the week, and since then, he has been insisting that all pumpkins come from "Dr. Z." Including the pumpkin donut. Even though he was with me when *I* bought it. Sigh.]

We spent the afternoon relaxing. Well, Nathan and Mark relaxed and watched football and napped, while Anneliese decided she wanted to be rocked and soothed for hours. But I still enjoyed the snuggle time with my sweet little girl, I won't lie.

Then we got the kids dressed up! Last year Nathan dressed up as a giraffe (because that's the costume I got for free online) and this year he dressed up as a skunk (because that's the costume I got from my mom) and we put Anneliese in a pea-in-a-pod costume (because that's what we got free as a hand-me-down). Do you like the trend? Frugality makes our Halloween decisions, that's for sure!

We trick-or-treated with our neighbors (they have a 1-year-old son, right in between our kids' ages) for a while. I pushed Anneliese in the stroller, but didn't get too close to any houses (again with the keeping people's fingers away). Nathan was sort of timid, but he could usually be coaxed to say trick or treat, even if it was quiet! He got tired pretty quick (being close to his bedtime didn't help), and he told us that a couple of other kids costumes were too scary! But other than that, he did great, and he liked it.

It was really muggy and warm out, though, so when we got home he was begging us to take his costume off! When we got it off, we could see why: he had been sweating buckets under there!

And he raked in some good loot for mommy and daddy! He doesn't really eat candy, but we let him have the pretzels out of his goody-pumpkin. And he also got a capri sun juice pouch from someone's house, which we'll let him drink as well. Everything else is for us!!

Happy Halloween, everyone! For more pictures of our family's day, click on Nathan the Skunk, below.

by mgoetts