reasons i hate halloween, part two...

So, here we go again. Halloween. Blech.

See, I'm trying.

About a month ago, I started asking Tagg what he wants to be for Halloween. "I want to be Tagg." "I'm just a boy." "NO COSTUME!!!" This goes on for weeks and then one day, the answer is "I want to be a funny bat." Woo-hoo! An actual costume! But wait. What the hell is a funny bat? I look it up online and there's nothing. Apparently he is the first kid in history to request a funny bat costume. 

I can't convince Tagg that any of the Batman costumes are "funny bats" so I'm screwed. Maybe he'll go back to just wanting to be Tagg. He did seem mildly interested in a skeleton costume that showed up on the search so I'm thinking that might, just might be a back-up plan. 

And then one day, he walks in and says, "Mom, I want to be a scuba diver." What?! Great, but what?! Where did THAT come from? So I Google it. In case your kid ever asks for a scuba diver costume, there is no such thing. You can either buy real scuba gear for a bazillion dollars or you can try to fashion one from household-type items in a real artsy-craftsy, do-it-yourself moment. That's the route we took.

Looks so cute right? And easy.
Not so much.

I sent my dad on a Home Depot, craft-store treasure hunt for the gear while I scoured the city's sporting good stores and retail outlets for a cheap-ish diving mask and flippers. (Impossible to find, apparently, once fall sets in). Then we had my mom distract the kids with frosting and decorating Halloween cookies while me and dad spent two hours making air cartridges and the holster out of netting, spray paint, velcro and duct tape (silver spray paint does NOT stick to 2-liter bottles, by the way) and finally, it was kind of okay. Not great but functional. 

So I put our masterpiece on the counter. The next morning Sloane had 30 seconds of unsupervised time and bam! completely trashed the fruits of our labor. She had a piece of velcro in her mouth and duct tape on her head when I found her. Not good.

"Scuba gear de-constructed." - By Sloane

So, back to the great costume search. I ended up ordering the stupid skeleton costume. 20 bucks plus 20 bucks in rush shipping. Really? Really.

Kinda cool, right? IF you can get your kid to wear
the mask and the gloves AND the foot things. Which I cannot.

New costume idea? Skeleton Scuba Steve. A mish-mash of the skeleton costume (he'll only wear the body suit, no mask or gloves) and the scuba outfit (no canisters or air tank, and no scuba mask but tie-dye swim-lesson goggles are okay, flippers but only if they're taped to his feet so they don't trip him). And oddly enough, it kind of works. 

That's an outfit, right?

So after bribing Tagg to get in his new costume with the help of epic-amounts-of-candy-potential bribery, and wrangling Sloane into her sparkly Tinkerbell outfit, off we went to trick-or-treating round 1 at my office. Sloane was not happy. Tagg was not happy. But one candy bar later, they were both down with the magic of Halloween. Sugar.

A Halloween Miracle. In spite of a chocolate bar and a red sucker,
Sloane's darling outfit survived for round 2 of trick or treating.

Cousins It.

"You got any contraband candy under there?"

Trick or treating this year consisted of 20 minutes of pictures, 6 houses of trick-or-treating (after Tagg stripped off the scuba half of his outfit and insisted on riding his scooter from house to house), hauling home half their body weight in candy, beer treats for the adults at our lovely neighbor's house, and then answering the door for about two-dozen trick-or-treaters while we played jumping games with glow-sticks in a completely dark living room.

Hilarious.

Fairy in motion. Some things never change!

I may have to revise my "hate" verdict on Halloween. It's growing on me.

Cute, right? I think we're cute. Even if it
does take suckers to get the kids to sit still for pictures,
and Scott and I just dressed up as parents.

flashback: reasons i hate halloween

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.  I don't always dig getting dressed up, probably because I can't ever come up with a good costume idea. And I don't really like the whole spooky death, get scared, creepy vibe. And a pillow case chuck full of candy is just too much for me. So it's a general so-so on Halloween. But this year was just so, much, worse. Here's how it's going down by costume #:

ONE and TWO:  I ordered two overpriced kid costumes - a monster and a dinosaur,  one was too big, one was too small

Sloane as a little monster?
Obviously she didn't buy it!

THREE and FOUR: Back-up plan was running to the store last-minute and they are out of EVERYTHING, a couple of princess outfits and the dumb stuff left and of course not even those are the right sizes

FIVE & SIX: And we're back to online shopping but now we are shipping new costumes overnight which = the ungodly cost of the costume PLUS 40 bucks in expedited shipping PLUS a hope and a prayer that they get here in time while mentally working on back-up costumes in case they don't arrive. Can you really put a baby in a sheet and call him a ghost? 

Me and Christi...that is a real safety pin in her nose.

SEVEN: Had to make a work costume (roller derby) 

Natalie, Lindsay & me with our 80s gear and our medal. Lindsay rocked the thong unitard, on a 3 mile walk back to the car, through Provo. Very cool.

EIGHT: Had to make a half-marathon costume (running the Halloween Half as 80s workout chicks)

Zombie eyes...excellent! And I forgot costume #11
donated by Christi, the little black ki

NINE: Had to make a party costume for me (lost-sock fairy...I don't know, I had a dress, bought a wig and actually sewed and it was still kind of dumb) and, finally,

TEN: Helped Scott find and order his Evel Keneval costume while also custom decorating the helmet. With tape. 

That's TEN F-ING COSTUMES in ONE year, for a family of four where two don't really like Halloween and the other two don't really get it. Where the hell is the candy, hmmm?

Funny thing? Tagg decided they should be Monsters because that was his current favorite movie but when we put his monster costume (after a bit of cajoling, mind you) it was way, way too small. So, not so funny. Now he wants to be Nemo - no, mommy, I no cowboy, I no puppy, I no (insert whatever noun, character, etc. you like here). I NEMO! So now we have a Nemo costume and a 6-mo old Squirt (the little turtle) costume are on their way, hopefully arriving before Halloween. 

Luckily (I think) Tagg now loves candy and cookies, especially this gift box from Nana and Papa so he'll really dig the whole trick or treating concept this year. He'll also be on a sugar high for the next month but I guess that's okay.

This was our ivy patch making the summer to fall transition...on Sunday. Pretty, yeah?

On Wednesday morning, we woke up to this...all white. What the...!?!?! Tagg stood at the window and said, "Mommy, it not Christmas. It not." No joke, son, no joke.

Okay, I really might like Halloween. Just a little bit...