Halloween Happenings

We survived yet another hectic Halloween.  We crafted one homemade costume, recycled an old one, and are up to our armpits in candy.  Here's what we've been up to:

The boys (with lots of help from mom and dad) carved pumpkins on the eve of Halloween.  I put them on the porch complete with candles, and then we got busy wandering the neighborhood and never got them lit.  Oh well. 

Jacob settled for a rubic's cube costume.  Maybe one of the cheapest to make, but definitely a challenge to find a perfectly square box.  I used $2 worth of black spray paint and covered the box, then added 6x6 squares of scrapbook paper in a grid design.  That shows you just how much I love him.  I used (wasted) several sheets of scrapbook paper and didn't think twice about it.  He got tons of comments while we were out and even got some extra treats because his costume was just so cool.

Caleb recycled the spider costume that Jacob wore three years ago.  We started with a cheap hooded sweatshirt, stuffed black tube socks with polyfil and I sewed them on and tied them together with fishing line.  A couple pom poms and googly eyes glued to the hood and we've got ourselves a spider.  The best part, now that we're done with the costume, is that I can remove my stitches and Caleb will have a new sweatshirt he can wear the rest of the year.  He was a little disappointed that he didn't get as many ooohhs and aaahhs as his brother, so next year he wants to go back to the tried and true costume from a box.  Those always get the most attention.

The boys started off at Truck or Treat at our church.  Then they came home to empty their bags and start over in our neighborhood.  Mom and Dad both wanted to walk them around, so we kept our lights off and headed out with the masses to walk the neighborhood.  By the time we got home we were too tired to hand out our own candy, so we called it a night.  That means we had even more candy left over.  I let the boys keep one canister of candy for home, then we donated a big bag to each of their classrooms for the prize boxes and we're both taking a big bag of candy to work with us.  I'm proud of my little candy goblins, because they each only ate one piece of candy at the end of the night.  We generally ration the candy out pretty well.  When I cleaned out the candy canister to fill it with Halloween goodies, I threw away candy that was still in there from Easter and even some from Valentine's day!

Here are the treats I made for Caleb's classroom party.  I couldn't get out of work on the day of the actual party, so I found this cute mummy idea on Pinterest and headed to Sam's Club to buy a case of Hershey bars.  I wrapped them with white streamers and added some googly eyes.  I attached a little note that said Happy Halloween and Caleb took them for all of his classmates.  Jacob no longer has classroom parties, but he took some for his teachers and I had a few left over to hand out myself.

I already have the materials to make Jacob's box costume for next year, and Caleb will recycle an oldie but a goodie, so stay tuned......