Halloweenies

Because meself has been a bit beleaguered with more than a few things on my plate, I hadn't given a thought to Halloween costumes until, y'know, last week. Or maybe the week before that. (I'm really not sure.)

And even then, the thought was, shall we say, fleeting, because I had other emergencies to worry about.

Like the impending celebration of what would have been my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.

Or the sudden death of one of my mom's teacher friends, and our last-minute trip to my hometown for the funeral.

And the normal weekly run of appointments for this household, plus Youngest's 6th-grade physical.

And the Fall Fun Festival at church.

So. Halloween costumes. Um. Yo, Momma, Halloween's in three days. You don't have costumes for your kids.

I'm such a fantastic mom.

I had at least solved the problem of Hubby having to work and thus me having to walk around with the kids (my bad ankle makes that an issue; I prefer to hand out candy at home while he takes them trick-or-treating): Special Edition came out to handle the actual trick-or-treating part.

I get to be Candy Queen still. Yay.

But we were still low on costume ideas. We needed stuff that was easy, quick to pull off, and most of all, cheap.

Youngest as the Wicked Witch

Oldest wanted to be a creeper from Minecraft. How the heck do I pull that off? Well, not to worry, because two days later, she wanted to be Janet Jackson. (This was promptly 86-ed by Hubby, due to wardrobe malfunctions.) What now?

Oldest as Marceline

Youngest wanted to be a witch. Ooookay. Well, she has a black dress. We can get some striped socks and make a hat with little expense. (We have tons of black felt just laying around here.)

That left us with Middle. Last year's costume as Michael Jackson from the early days of the Jackson Five was pretty brilliant, so how to top that?

Enter Special Edition, Bringer of Brilliant Ideas. For Oldest, she suggested a vampy emo cartoon character from one of her favorite shows, Marceline. Oldest loved it. A plaid shirt over a gray tee, jeans, and a pair of Chucks, and we were pretty much set...all of which we had. Score!

Middle as Hot Socket

But it was Special Edition's idea for Middle that I thought was truly fantastic. Middle has naturally curly hair--very tight curls. Why not tease them out crazy, hold 'em with some hair spray, and dress her as a fork stuck in a socket? Supplies needed: poster board, cardboard box, spare cardboard, aluminum foil, yarn, and hairspray. We had everything but the poster board.

I believe I spent less than $7 total on costume stuff, and the only reason it was that high was because I had to buy a four-pack of socks.

The results were grand.

The girls were a little sad that Special Edition didn't dress up, either, but I explained quickly that she was merely dressed up as the Big Sister--much the way Hubby used to dress up as the Lazy Dad.

It was 70 degrees out that night, a wonderful night for trick-or-treating, and I took a chair and went out to sit on my front porch and wait for my visitors with a book and my candy cauldron. My first guest was Spider Man. I got to see Princess Ariel, with curly red hair that was all her own. A monarch butterfly stopped by.

And the costume contest winner (at least, of the visitors to my house) was definitely the fuzzy yellow duck. Don't judge. I have my reasons.

We here at Casa Fries love our ducks.