cotton tail

It's October and the kids are thinking about Halloween already.  They dug through the dress-up bin the other day and found this costume for Emmy...

Of course I had to pull out the old photos to find these... Regan, when she was about the same age as Emmy.

And Addie, when she was almost 2 :)

So far I have not had any official requests from the kids for me to make them costumes, but it never fails that every year I say I am not going to, and then a few days before Halloween I find myself making at least one (usually more) complicated costume(s).  I wonder what Characters I will be sewing on the wee hours this October?

Last minute costumes from the past?  There was Mega Mind (scroll down), a flower fairy,  a knight, another knight, a mermaid, and Rapunzel and two hobbits.

reformation day

Last night some friends invited us over for a Reformation Day celebration.  Even though we didn't trick or treat, the kids still dressed up (you've already seen Tallulah and the boy's costumes and somehow I didn't get any pictures of Addie in her costume :(  she wore this)...  All except for Emmy, but she did wear Tallulah's Rapunzel wig just long enough for me to snap this picture :)

Between the 3 families represented last night their were 15 kids.  Our host read the kids a story by the fire about Martin Luther...

And we even had games to go along with the story.  Here the kids are crawling up the stairs and finding pieces to the bible verse (Ephesians 2:8) that was the beginning if Luther's understanding of grace.

When they had all the pieces, they put the verse puzzle together. 

Not the exact order, but the idea is the same :)

They pinned the 95 theses to the church doors...

and kidnapped Luther after Pope Leo X declared him an outlaw .

They also looked for Luther's wife in fish barrels (that is how she escaped from the nunnery before she met Luther).

To keep with the reformation theme we even had German food for dinner!  bratwurst, sauerkraut, potatoes and spaetzle.  I tried to get pictures of the (non-German) desserts I made, but it was too dark and they didn't turn out well.  Anyway, I made candy corn jello cups (layered lemon and orange jello with whipped cream on top in small ball jars) and a cookies and cream trifle with purple whipped cream and Halloween Oreos.
This was our first time actually celebrating Reformation Day and we had a blast! Thanks so much to our friends who invited us to join in their celebration!

costume time

So, every year I swear I am NOT going to make Halloween costumes - I mean, we haven't even gone trick or treating for a couple years now - but somehow, the week before Halloween hits and I find myself caving to the pressure and making at least  one or two costumes... This year it was 3. 

Tallulah's costume was almost complete here- we had not glued the flowers to her wig (tutorial found here) yet, and I ended up taking the dress in a bit so it was not so wide in the bodice, but you get the idea.  The dress tutorial is here.  This was a lot of fun to make and a big confidence boost, as it was my first time making my own pattern and it actually turned out pretty cute!

The boys are Merry and Pippin from The Lord of the Rings.  I made their capes and pants, the rest is either thrifted or from the dress up bin.  We will draw some hair on their feet tomorrow night. (Did I mention the fact that we are not trick-or-treating?  We are having dinner at a friends house, but the kids are still going all out with the costumes.)

The other kids are getting their costumes from the dress up bin, but I was really tempted to make this one too :)