The best statement I can say about Halloween this year is.... we made it! We have been sewing for 6 weeks to get here and were still gluing, sewing, and pinning up until 6pm on Halloween. The kids were great and took my instruction without much fuss in order to finish these costumes on time. I was very much an orchestrator of who goes where to make sure everyone had enough time on the sewing machine with frequent breaks scattered throughout the day for them. I might not have gotten much of a break but harmony amongst all of us made this doable.
After this past Gage County Fair, Izzy has been chatting on and off about what she wants to sew for next year. Our conversations eventually turned towards having her make her Halloween costume after she settled on being a witch. We are fortunate to have two amazing fabric stores outside of the proverbial Joann fabric option. One is a discount fabric store where costs range typically $3-10 per yard on almost anything. This is what my wallet needed as Izzy's costume required over 10 yards of fabric in total. We sat down and created an outline of what she needed to get done each week. Her sewing skills are such that a majority of this costume she could do independently with a check in from mom at the beginning and end.
Micah wanted to be Cobra Kai after we got hooked on this Netflix show during the pandemic. In order to understand Cobra Kai, we watched three of the Karate Kid movies (yes...from the 80s) ahead of time. We grew to love Johnny as he represents everyone having a two sides to who they are... some good and some darker. With Izzy sewing her costume, I brainstormed if this might be an option for him to do the same. Turns out, Simplicity made a Karate Kid pattern in 1986 which I was able to locate on Etsy. Unfortunately, after receiving we discovered that no instructions were sent with the pattern. It was the blind leading the blind for awhile on the pants. By the time we got to the top, the seller responded with locating someone who made the costume after searching the internet. I reached out to that person via their blog. They found the pattern and took a picture of the instructions for me to follow. I am grateful for this strangers assistance as I would never have been able to figure out the top on my own. Micah and I also spent time locating all the corresponding patches needed for the costume including the larger Cobra Kai logo on the back.
Victoria wanted to be She-ra which was not something I was going to be able to sew as there is no pattern for this out there. So we got our creative on and made many of the pieces needed by using cosplay foam, gold fabric, velcro, and hot glue. This was the fastest I've every created a costume in... 4 hours which wouldn't have been possible with out Izzy and Victoria's help.
You may know She-ra's twin brother... He-man. It would have been perfect if Micah went as He-man. But early on he did not want to. Victoria slowly forgot about He-man with time. I however did not. I located a He-man costume on Ebay and decided to keep my costume a secret until Halloween. The kids thought I wasn't going to dress up and were trying to convince me to do so throughout the day. When we were all getting ready and I brought this out, the level of laughter and family fun was peaked. We were definitely ready to go trick-or-treating.
I requested that we trick-or-treat in our neighborhood first before splitting up to go with friends. Our neighborhood has become more active on Halloween than in the past. Pre-pandemic, most people would head to the major streets that are blocked for trick-or-treaters which can be madhouses of people. This year, there was a constant hum of trick-or-treaters.
Our neighbors always have the best blow up decorations for every holiday including those outside of Halloween.
As in the past several years, Micha and Fox went trick-or-treating together. These two are speed demons and were done well before Victoria and I were halfway done. Luckily the weather was beautiful (this was the one day it stopped raining after a week of steady rain from the nor'easter) and so they played in the courtyard until we got home.
Izzy went out with a group of her friends. They had us parents convinced they would be out till 10pm. However at ~8:30pm, she texted me to see if it was okay if they came home and hung out for a bit. Totally fine by me :-)
With Izzy and Micah off with their friends, Victoria and I headed out to meet up with one of her friends. Unfortunately, we were never able to locate them which was slowly having a toll on Victoria's aura. She did not want to go back without finding Sophie Ann. Eventually I was able to reach her mother to find out they left early as many houses had ran out of candy. We then headed over to Sophie Ann's house for a bit before making our way home.
You know your costume is on fire when strangers ask to take a picture. She-ra and He-man were one of those costumes. We also had a group of teenagers who wanted to know where we got the sword and said the proverbial words.... I have the power!
Sophie Ann and Victoria together...finally!
At one of the homes in Sophia Ann's neighborhood, the trick-or-treaters were asked if they wanted candy or a mummified squirrel. Sophie Ann chose the latter and was given this creature. I wonder if he had more than one of them to hand out. And, yes, it was a living creature at one point in time.
One of Victoria's other friends and our neighbor, Margaret.
Not too bad of a loot given that many houses had ran out of candy. Their school announced a project of colleting candy wrappers from Halloween which can be recycled into plastic pellets for items such as your doggie waste bags. Each class was given a week to collect wrappers with the class who has the most winning a prize. That that prize is, we don't quite know.
Izzy and her friends hung outside on our deck for the rest of the night talking and eating candy. I know they all had a good time by the number of giggles I could hear.
