It is our first time ever of living in a neighborhood where kids come to trick-or-treat. We had so much fun, we almost fought over who got to answer the door. We did not run out of candy, so I feel like the night was a great success. Maybe next year I’ll decorate as well.
Banana Cream Pie- two headed dragon. I made this today with 2 t-shirts from Crosslines and some felt.
This year I tried to cut down on the Halloween Last Minute Crazyness by having “Costume Choosing Day” on the first Saturday in October. I got out my 2 huge Rubbermaid tubs of dress-ups and past Halloween Costumes and encouraged everyone to choose what they wanted.
It sort of worked. Except I then thought my work was done and forgot about everything until the day we needed costumes.
The Scooter Pies chose to be Buzz Light Year and Woody from Toy Story. However, on Halloween night, Zeke decided that he wanted to be “Mr Game-n-Watch” who he knows of from playing Smash Bros Brawl on the wii. Here is his last minute costume:
Skeeter refused to wear anything except “normal” clothes, so we talked him into wearing his monster face hoodie.
Apple Pie wanted to be a honey bee with a honey bucket. I forgot that this costume needed to be made until the day of our church trunk-or-treat. So that morning, I dug through my fabric sash, and found a fuzzy yellow scrap just about the right size to make this bubble and some shiny black for stripes. I made a hasty description to Peach Pie of how to sew it and left to go grocery shopping. When I returned, Apple Pie had a costume!
Banana Cream Pie chose to be a Princess riding a unicorn. All of her props came from the costume box, and I love her for choosing that.
Key Lime Pie wanted to be the Blind Earth Bending Princess, Toph, from Avatar: The Last Air-Bender.
I also forgot that this costume needed to be sewn until the day of the trunk-or-treat. She found a green shirt, and I found a scrap of green fabric, traced off a hasty pattern from some shorts and zipped out these culottes. I found the brown in my tubs as well, and cut it into a poncho. Pumpkin Pie constructed the headband for her.
Peach Pie wanted to be Frida Kahlo. This was the only costume that cost me money this year. I spent $3 on those silk flowers at Dollar Tree. She refused to allow me to draw in a uni-brow with my black eyeliner, which was the only thing this costume lacked!
Pumpkin Pie wanted to be Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I forgot about this costume needing to be made also. (Have you noticed a theme yet?)
While Pumpkin Pie was at school, I traced a pattern from a knit dress she has and hunted out some navy blue fabric and a bit of white from my stash. I still can’t believe that I was able to find every fabric I needed. It was a blessing.
Cherry Pie wanted to be Kisame Hoshigaki from the anime Naruto.
She made this entirely by herself, drawing off a pattern from her winter coat. I did teach her about the magic stuff called Heat-n-Bond when I found out she needed to applique the designs. Luckily, I had some of that in my stash too, as well as these black, red and white fabrics.
I am still in shock at how little crazy sewing I had to do this year, thanks to the growing talents of my most impressive daughters.
Halloween was a success!!!
Meanwhile in the house…
My kids just made up a chant:
Are you beef? ‘Cause you just got roasted!
Are you bread? ‘Cause you just got toasted!
Are you an irrelevant political opinion? ‘Cause you just got posted!
For Halloween Banana Cream Pie wanted to be “a sloth in a tree”. Thanks, Diego. I think she was the cutest sloth ever, if face paint counts as enough of a costume. All the kids chimed in to convince her (since I was such a slacker. Also, in my defense, I thought she meant squirrel until the day of Halloween and I had gotten brown fabric, which was not the gray she wanted.)
Key Lime Pie was happy to be a fairy.
So fairy like she is.
Cherry Pie chose a costume from the dress up box that allowed her to wear a mustache.
Pumpkin Pie was Pocahontas. I sewed the brown shift out of flannel. She figured out the rest.
Blueberry Pie really wanted to be Corvo
He made a freaking awesome mask from cardboard. (I can appreciate the skill even though I prefer Corvo without the scary mask)
I really wanted to make him the skinny steampunk black trench coat. Really.
But I had to bow to reality. I did not have the hours to make that coat while taking care of 2-month old twins. I begged his forgiveness and have promised to make the coat next Halloween.
Instead He did a pretty convincing impression of one of my favorite TV characters ever:
Steve Urkel
We convinced Bean to be a horse so she could get candy. But immedieately when we got home, she wanted the costume off.
We had some fun with mustaches 
We even prepped a pumpkin for carving, but he never got a face.
Banana Cream Pie experienced scooping the gloop.
Pumpkin Pie is a mad scientist and Peach Pie is a cute witch.
Baby Bean as a fat little piggy has to be the most perfect costume ever.
Key Lime Pie is a Cowardly Lion!
Banana Cream Pie is the ladybug.
I stayed up all night to make this Princess Anna dress for Cherry Pie. I started seeing at 10pm when the kiddie pies all went to bed and I turned off my machine at 5 am when it was time to wake them up for school.
Gutting Pumpkins.
I’m not sure how I missed getting a picture of Blueberry Pie. I swear he carved Pumpkins too.
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention.
Well, this morning was so chilly, I wanted to make cocoa for the kids to warm them up. But I realized that I had used up the last of the cocoa powder **TRAVESTY**
used it up last night making these amazing brownies. ** WORTH IT** .
(By the way, that recipe is the first one I’ve ever made that had the same fudgey consistency as brownies from a mix. Usually homemade brownies are too cakey. I highly recommend )
So how to make Hot Cocoa without cocoa? Why not try to make white chocolate hot cocoa?
It turned out fabulous–tasted like melted cookies & cream bars. Actually, that was a little too rich for breakfast, so I’ll use more water and less mix next time. Here’s my delicious recipe:
White Chocolate Hot Cocoa
2 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 cups nondairy creamer (I used french vanilla flavored creamer)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp vanilla
4-6 cups hot water (I used the 4 cups this morning and like I said, too rich for breakfast)
Stirred all together.
If you want to make this as a mix to have in the cupboard, just leave out the vanilla
When you are ready to have your cocoa, stir 1/2 cup of the mix plus 1 cup hot water and 1/4 tsp vanilla. voila!
**I hope you noticed that the secret to making good homemade Hot Cocoa mix of any flavor us to use nondairy creamer instead of powdered milk.
I think this would make really fun Halloween breakfast (You know, because little ghosts can only eat white food.)
When I was little, my mom would tell me the story of what happened to little ghosts if they ate food that wasn’t white. If you don’t know that story, here it is:
(Makes a great flannel board story for pre-school)
The Chocolate Chip Ghost
Frost Princess
**A construct a costume from the dress-up bin costume! My favorite kind.
Lady Bug
**Borrowed from a friend kind of costume! My second favorite kind!
Lizzy Bennett
*I made the red bonnet yesterday in about a hour. It’s a Butterick Pattern. The rest of the costume was found around the house. Yay.
Satyr Warrior (with hoodie)
**Re-using the goat legs I sewed for him last year, plus a $3 sword. Yay! love re-using costumes. I think he just really wanted a new toy sword and planned a costume that would require a weapon.
**Not Pictured: Cutie Pie who slept through the whole thing.**
**BTW did you know that it is almost impossible to carve a “Pie” pumpkin? I found that out the hard way.
I only made one costume this year. Bubba has been planning to be Grover–from Lightning Thief–for the whole year. He read all the books and he and his friends at school pretend they are the characters all the time.
I found this marvelous goaty fake fur at Jo-Anns and used a Pajama pants pattern to make the goat legs, complete with tail and hooves.
After the movie came out, the deal was almost off because, suddenly Bubba though Grover should have a molded leather vest thing. I said No Way. I intended to create an orange Camp Half-blood T-shirt, but I didn’t quite get it done. That’s me, scrimping by on the least possible effort. Look, a mostly orange t-shirt. That’s good enough.
I got the clay and forced Bubba to make his own horns which I hot-glued to some black hair barretts. They didn’t stay in very well.
He had practiced a “goat walk” which was freaky, accurate, and hillarious! My son is awesome.
The girls all borrowed costumes from a friend. I love that kind. (both costume and friend)
MagPie got this floaty vampiress dress. She looked so eerie and floaty and perfect in it and then she insisted on having her face painted and that just cheapened the whole thing and she looked common. Sad day. But it was her costume, not mine, so I tried to keep my disappointment to myself.
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 