Ghosts of Halloween Past

Once upon a time, I was crafty. That is to say that I liked to make things. After many years of making things that either a) I did not finish or b) I did not like, I gave up on the crafting urge and have not so much as made a scrapbook page for many years. Recently I have felt a slight return to the crafting world (be it ever so slight), mostly because of the cute picture frames I learned how to make and actually like enough to use. But I digress.

One thing that I made that I actually did like were Halloween costumes. When Luke was little I made all his Halloween costumes and in fact would have shuddered to think of sending him out in a store bought costume. Here he is in 1997 in a cute baseball costume that I was oh so proud of.

And in 1998 it was a jack-in-the box that he would probably kill me for if he saw the photo.

In 1999 I cut out and ironed on all those skeleton pieces. Luckily Cole wore it too a few years later.

My personal favorite was the bug attack of 2001 thanks to Martha Stewart.

Once I had more than 2 kids to dress for Halloween it was off to Party C ity for me. Making costumes is fun but making 3 or 4 in one year is too much even for me in my most craftiest of moods.

And so 2003 became the year of the store bought costumes.

Oh, the horror!

Just kidding, they are actually very cute.

Again in 2004 I did very well by Party City.

After a while I get tired of shelling out that much money for Halloween costumes and lately have left them to their own devices. Cole has a collection of black cape like outfits that he uses in various capacities every year.

Last year the girls just wore their pa jamas which made me very happy because it required no work from me.

Finally this year I began to think that I should get creative again. When I asked the girls what they wanted to be Tyler said - "Pebbles Flintstone." I began to construct a Pebbles costume. Turns out it was rather easy and cute. So cute that Hannah took one look at it and said, "I want to be Pebbles!" Tyler of course gave it to her, because she is so very nice. So we started to work on making her into Wilma. Not as easy but also cute.

Turns out that none of the kids these days even know who Wilma and Pebbles are.

It also turns out that I only have enough energy to put together two Halloween costumes max and Cole was left to fend for himself. He just threw on a black cape and sprayed his hair pink. I don't know what he was supposed to be. Luke did not dress up for Halloween but did wear his dirt biking clothes to the youth party, which he has done for the past 3 years.

Maybe if I start sooner next time ... no I probably won't.