Halloween Twenty-Fourteen!

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Whew. I love Halloween, and this week has been chock full of fun events and activities to celebrate. (Man, I’m going to sleep hard tonight!) Everything was leading up to this — and the test costumes and trunk-or-treats surely paid off, because the girls had so much fun tonight!

First of all, I admit that I’m no seamstress, but I know just enough about sewing to be dangerous. For the past two years, I’ve made bits and pieces of E.V.’s costumes, but this year (for E.V.’s third and Cricket’s FIRST Halloween) I thought I’d try my hand at making their whole outfits from scratch. Through the process, I learned that I’m perhaps a little better at creative problem solving than I thought but way worse at sizing than I’d hoped. ;) Since I constructed the girls’ outfits without any sort of pattern and at night while they slept, it was quite hilarious to try on my creations in the mornings when they’d wake; it was like spinning a wild wheel of fortune, and as it turns out, apparently I think Emma Vance is 4 years old and that Cricket is petite. Oh, well. Safety pins it is!

Since Emma Vance has a current obsession with Cinderella, I thought it would be appropriate to commemorate this moment in our lives by choosing her Halloween costume accordingly. Truthfully, we have (and will always have) so many princess dresses that I thought it would be more fun for E.V. to be what I deemed “Poor Cinderella.” (Plus, if you actually watch “Cinderella” a million and one times like I have recently, you begin to realize that she wears her rags for at least 95% of the movie!) If you’ve been reading along, Sweep came into our lives as part of creating this costume. I also added a little birdie friend for her wash bucket/treat “bag;” the opening scene of the movie where Cinderella sings to her animal friends that “a dream is a wish your heart makes” is so iconic to me, how could I not? The bird is from a wonderful artist on Etsy, and I added her kerchief. For Cricket, I figured that soon enough the girls will want to choose their own costumes, so while they’re small and opinion-less, I wanted their costumes to coordinate. Thus, Cricket became Suzy Mouse (the one who sews Cinderella’s first dress for her). I think Cricket made and adorable Suzy, although when I got done with her hat and tried it on her, I laughed at how much like she looked like Fievel! Oops! Ha! Overall, for flying by the seat of my pants, I was happy at how the girls looked! If nothing else, surely it’s a Halloween I’ll always remember.

The main event itself was so fun: Tonight we attended a party at my mom’s neighborhood (where E.V. got a skeleton ring she’s obsessed with), and then headed to Ryan’s mom’s neighborhood for some good old-fashioned traditional trick-or-treating. The South is full of wild weather these days, so when it turned freezing and began to sprinkle, we had to call it quits and head home. It was a successful Halloween, though, in candy and in skill; Ryan’s ready to raid E.V.’s stash for anything Reese’s while she sleeps tonight, and Emma Vance can say, “Trick or treat!” like an old pro. ;)

Oh, and dear Reader, in case you don’t have a Cinderella-obsessed toddler that forces you to watch the movie repeatedly, here are some references for ya’ (and for Fievel, too):


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