Halloween 2011

The finishing touches were put on the gladiator boots today and the pattern pieces were finally folded and tucked back into their proper envelopes; another costume sewing season has come to a close.

And, I am thrilled.

This year's costumes were fairly time consuming and I decided to take a 2 week break in October to take the kids to Virginia so I really felt under the gun to get the last costume finished on time.

And then, after all that, the most commented costume of the night?  Jacob and his banana.  The one that we spent 10 minutes of online searching, typed in a few numbers and then waited for it to show up.  Every year I say, "next year I'm just going to buy them" and then somehow I decide to make them.  But, next year....

Strawberry Shortcake & Raspberry Tart

Roman Gladiator

Banana (who felt like he should spend his pre-candy time on the computer and I thought it was too hilarious looking to pass on a picture)

And all my costumed creatures together.

And now I need to go inspect their candy to check for the poison laced apples.  You know, the ones our parents had to check for too.

Sentences of stuff

I think about blogging almost every day, but the day to day grind is what fills my time and when I think about blogging, I put it off; and obviously, put it off for quite a long time.  It quickly entered that weird "it's been so long since _________ that know I don't exactly know how get it back."  Such as the distance between friends or family that you know is there but can't seem to figure out the best way to call them up.  Yea, that is me and this blog.

So, maybe I'll just start trying to get back into things by journaling what we've been up to and hope the writing flows and becomes a more regular thing for me again.  I also use Facebook a lot so sometimes I feel like blogging things here is a repeat.

Morsels of life from September and October:
Over Labor Day we submitted to the kids' desire to go camping.  They all positively loved it and I know we'll be back there again when the temperatures climb above 50 at night.

To make the occasion even more memorable I picked up a package of Jiffy pop.  I didn't realize I captured Jacob making this face when I took the picture.  It gives me a good laugh every time I look at it.

Halloween started early here.  I was able to get the kids to decide on costumes in September and then drug out the sewing machine and turned my formal dining room back into the designated craft room.   Emily is going to be Strawberry Shortcake with Claire as her Raspberry Tart and Matthew is going to be a roman gladiator.  Jacob never decided so I'm pretty sure his will be purchased last minute, as it usually is.  He's entered into that weird stage of not knowing if he should dress up but still wanting to so he doesn't make any decisions until a few days before Halloween.  I'm cool with that, as long as he doesn't hold it against me that I don't sew his costumes like I do for his siblings.

J is gone for awhile for training so I decided to load up the van and drive 14 hours with the kids to visit him for a week during their fall break from school.  We met J in Washington D.C. for a quick weekend trip of sight seeing and also got to watch him run in a 10 mile race with 30 thousand other people.  We then went back to his temporary home in Norfolk for the week and enjoyed some easy going family time.    I have tons of pictures from this trip so I'll try to do a post of them soon.

I'm pretty sure we could squeeze a couple more little ones in the frame, don't you?

And this is where I sign off because I probably just made my mother have a heart attack.  :)