Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Tinkerbell and the Vampire

As the kids and I were packing on Sunday, I suddenly had a panicked thought and burst out with something like, "Oh, no! Kids, you have to go put your costumes on RIGHT NOW!"

Because if the kids are going to be in California with their grandparents for Halloween, then that's where they'll be wearing their costumes, and so if I wanted to take pictures of them in their costumes, it had to be before I packed them! Yikes!

Fortunately, the kids were excellent sports, and put on their whole Halloween costumes for me, just so I could take photos of them.

Sydney is Tinkerbell:


She created her entire costume with very little adult assistance--I showed her how to draft a dress pattern to her measurements, Matt showed her how to transfer it to fabric, I threaded elastic through the casing she sewed in the top of the dress, I helped her bend the wire of her wings, and I showed her how to glue the clear cellophane to the wire. Syd thought up the entire costume, then watched a Tinkerbell movie and paused it whenever Tinkerbell showed a new angle, so that she could sketch her design from all sides. She sewed her dress, cut out the details at the bottom hem, drew a template for the wire hanger wings to follow, then spent hours painstakingly hot gluing clear cellophane gift wrap to them.

Fortunately, because Syd can be quite hard on herself, her costume turned out just the way she wanted!

Well, except for the part about the wings making her really be able to fly. That part didn't work out at all...


Will's usually an easy girl to please about Halloween costumes. For her vampire costume, she let me wrap one of my old homemade Moby Wraps around her head as her hood. Matt bought her a black shirt and black pants from Goodwill, and although she was going to make her old standby, the plastic fork fangs, she actually received a set of fangs as a favor at a Halloween party, so she was good to go!
  

Again, this costume surprisingly doesn't confer any superpowers, either; nevertheless, leaping the chain that blocks the drive-in's driveway remains a fine pastime for young daredevils:


The kids will actually be trick-or-treating in La Jolla this year, and they've already been teased quite mightily about the treats that a swanky neighborhood like La Jolla shall surely yield--full-sized candy bars! Each kid her own pony!

For my part, my health is going to take an outstanding turn for Halloween this year, since unlike in previous years, I have not had to buy Halloween candy and then buy it again five days later because I ate it all, and in the best of all possible circumstances I will not spend all next week sneaking treats from the kids' Halloween stashes, either, because the day after Halloween they have another five-hour plane ride to get through.

Know what makes the time pass quickly during a five-hour plane ride?

Eating all your Halloween candy, I'm going to bet!

3 comments:

  1. I am so impressed with that Tinkerbell costume! Both of your girls look amazing.

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  2. Syd did a fantastic job and Will looks like a ninja vampire :0)

    Emma is going as a black lab which gave me a good excuse to finally break down and get here a new sweatshirt (she only had one that fit and it was blue-green with horses on it). She still needs to make and sew the ears onto her black hat, but that's what Halloween day is for right?

    And yes, nothing better than eating all the candy on the plane!

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  3. Alas, I have eaten MUCH too much candy in the past 24 hours! The kids apparently each only took 5 pieces onto the plane, and have been generously sharing the rest with me ever since.

    Sigh...

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