All in a Hallowe'en Afternoon

The Bean was the topic of some mild twitter hoopla yesterday. You see, this year her hallowe'en costume was based on the adorable super sneezing panda Chu from Neil Gaiman's and Adam Rex's picture book for preschoolers Chu's Day. It's a big favourite in our house, as is Fortunately the Milk and all other Gaiman books and Adam Rex illustrated books.

As I have posted before, I like to make the Peanut and Bean's costumes. The more every day use items I can find to concoct their hallowe'en costumes the better. This year I hit the jackpot at Old Navy in the toddler boys section with a super green stripped shirt and again at the Canadian Superstore with a Joe Fresh aviator cap (again from the boys section because I'm all non gender specific with the girls) I Added a pair of black leggings, a pair of her sisters clean white underwear over top. Black face paint (with added sparks) on her nose and eyes with a pair of bear ears pinned on to her cap and she was Chu.

After her costume was complete; at around 10am she refused to take any of it off until sometime around 3pm. On top of that she carried her Chu book around the house all morning and pretended to sneeze every few moments with an, "ah ah ah ahhhh no" peppered in every once in a while.

I snapped a picture of her in full Chu gear and tweeted it to Adam Rex and also to Neil Gaiman. I didn't expect anything to come of it, twitter posts are buried almost as fast as they are typed up, and then nothing happened.  Until about two hours later when Mr Rex re tweeted and then oh holy of holies Neil Gaiman re tweeted. Using all caps. And my brain exploded, well not literally but Caps! My Bean all done up as her favourite book character got my favourite author excited enough to tweet in all caps.

BEST COSTUME EVER! LOOK! ALSO I'M TYPING THIS IN CAPITALS AS IT'S IMPORTANT! RT @PeanutButterPie: pic.twitter.com/y9XiF8BC8S @MrAdamRex #ChusDay
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) October 31, 2013

To add some extra sweetness to the Gaiman Rex excitement we went to the Peanut's Hallowe'en Assembly and watched the spooky performances, and costume parade, then we went in with the Peanut's class and helped celebrate with the class party. The Peanut dressed as a gorgeous Phoenix. We used an old red tunic of mine with flowing sleeves for wings, I painted her face with flames and topped it off with a hand made fire feather. She looked stunning and her face paint stayed pretty close to unmarred all day and into the night.

We went out trick or treating for an hour and then it headed home amongst the bangs, pops and booms of fireworks. The candy stash is huge and we haven't even dived in just yet, so our sugar hangovers are pretty nonexistent today but I'm sure that will change over the weekend.

Did you buy costumes for your littles or yourself; or were you able to get a costume together from your tickle trunk? I love to hear about costume concoctions.

Still In Candy Coma-land

We celebrated our seventh Trick Or Treating night this year and once again I managed to keep the costumes pretty close to the home made scale of things. I'm a little bendy in what I'll consider part of a home made costume though. For instance if it's been in the dress up box for more than a year and it was originally part of a bought costume that has been handed down to us I will call it a home made costume. I will also accept the addition of newly purchased components of a costume regardless of what it is. This year both of these were a big part of our costume building.

The Peanut had a dress up party to attend this year and since I didn't want her to give up the surprise of the costume she's picked for the big day we rummaged in the dress up box and came up with a layered witchy, gypsy clown costume. The main dress was part of an old witch costume. It was way too flimsy and kind of boring so I added a pink tulle tutu and also the ribbon tutu that's been in the dress up box since our first Halloween with the Peanut. WE put on her flowered leggings underneath, layered the Bean's baby legs leg warmers, some spotted socks and the orange and black witch hat headband we purchased this year. We finished with some purple glitter face make up and she was ready for the party. I think it worked out pretty well and I think the Peanut looks pretty darn cute.

For the big day the Peanut chose to be a cheetah. We purchased a pair of cheetah ears and a tail when we got the with hat pictured above but the main part of her costume was the face paint and the cheetah print top and cardigan that are a part of her every day wardrobe. We got up a little early to get her face painted and her hair done so that those ears would stay put. A little trick I came up with is to pull a portion of hair over top of the head band and secure it with a barrette directly behind the headband. It holds the ears in place and also hides the headband too.The makeup and headband held up from 6:30am until 8:30pm, or if you'd rather all throughout the school day and up until the end of trick or treating.

Last year for the Bean we used the Monarch Butterfly costume that's been with us since the Peanut was 4 months old. I couldn't get it together enough to put anything more together for her after building bat wings for the Peanut. This year I am pleased to say that the Bean's costume was home made from top to bottom. We put her in a black velveteen dress, purple striped leggings and a little purple shrug. Then to top it off I made a tiny felt witch hat and attached it to a barrette and my little witch was ready to go out and cast some spells on the neighborhood. Except the hat didn't stay put; toddlers eh?

This year was the first time we did Trick or Treating with a friend and it was a big success. The Bean made it to ten houses before she rode in her stroller, and the Peanut finished the night off with a big bag of goodies that we are still working our way through hence the candy coma.

How was your Halloween? Did you build a costume or go store bought and what were you?

Visual Diary

Every year I start to think about Hallowe'en a little earlier. When making our costumes over buying one off the rack is a priority this is actually key. Now that I have two to dress up it's even more of a time grab hence the hallowe'eny theme this week, click the image for a closer look. Are you planning your costume yet?

Costume Building

Every year I intend to get a good head start on the costume making. And every year I actually get that head start, mainly because I consider the planning and ideas stages as part of the job. This year is no exception with the exception that the Peanut got a little mind changey and then I got a little, "lets look at where we are going with this and make it easier on me if at all possible" and the costume that at the beginning of September was going to be a Monarch butterfly turned into a T-Rex costume which turned into my brilliant idea of a pterodactyl.

This weekend as well as carving the first of our two jack-o-lanterns; I got started on the handmade portion of the Peanut's costume; a paper mache pterodactyl hat. Normally I would have photographed the whole process and written up a kick ass tutorial to post over at Totally Tutorials but I'm finding I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with personal life drama, keeping up the momentum of the ornament collaboration with the husband and the whole keeping healthy while being pregnant situation.

Over the last two weeks I've noticed my blood sugars steadily climbing. While they are still mostly within range, all signs are pointing towards the GD setting in. Thankfully being on the GD program since the first trimester seems to be paying off as my weight gain has been slow and steady; the Bean continues to be within the size guidelines that the oncologist is aiming for and I've not once, even once dipped into the Halloween candy that we picked up at the beginning of the month.

So anyway, back to what I was taking about; our Halloween preparations. I got started on the pterodactyl hat and today we'll be painting the hat and hopefully attaching a headband to the inside to help keep it on the Peanut's head. Also on the to do list is attaching the wings I picked up on our Staycabamoon two weeks ago and my half-assed costume; the salmony orange t-shirt in my closet will have a pumpkin face attached to it right around the belly area so that the Bean will be costumed this year too.

I feel like I've had a week away

The Staycabamoon was a roaring success, except for the really really really missing the Peanut by the time late yesterday afternoon rolled around. Saturday was spent indulging in restaurant food, and window shopping. With the house free of an early waking four year old you'd think that we would have stayed up late in to the night but we were both in bed and sleeping before 10 (only to be woken up at 12:30 by the noisy neighbors or their noisy guests as they left from visiting). As I mentioned in yesterday's post I was up bright and early but indulged in a little bit of sitting up in bed reading blogs and dozing.

Then the husband got up and we ran errands sans Peanut which in itself is a bit of a vacation. We hit Ikea for some shelves, went for groceries (which done by ourselves, seemed to take half the time) and we also stopped to pick up a dragon costume for the Peanut.

I'm going to co-opt the wings and use them to dress her up as a Pterodactyl. If you read my guest post over at Mrs B's last week you're probably wondering what happened to the butterfly costume. Well, Daddy taking her to see Walking With Dinosaurs, combined with the Dinosaur Train and Dino Dan on TV conspired against the butterfly costume. She's been asking to be a T-rex for the last few weeks. Unfortunately I'm not feeling up to the challenge of sewing a dino tail, Creating a Pterodactyl headpiece out of papermache seems a little bit more my speed right now, plus the wings are perfect.

The Peanut arrived home after a day of shopping with my sister. She had a new pair of boots, a bag full of chocolate, and stories about hanging with Charlie, her Auntie's Chow and watching a dinosaur movie and a big hug for her Mama and Daddy. Today I feel as though I had a week away from all the hustle and bustle. My patience levels are topped up and I feel like I could get a hundred things accomplished.

First up is working on cleaning some of the more recently soldered ornaments for PeanutButterPie and then another photo shoot, after we've hit the library. There's laundry and dishes on the to do list and maybe getting the bathtub cleaned (if I can bend over long enough) Of course I won't be putting any sort of pressure on myself to get all of that done. That would just negate the whole staycabamoon experience.

Yesterday was a day of catching up, resting

and recovering. Last week with the husband home sick for two days and getting ready for Saturday's festivities; things got left undone which meant that come Sunday morning the house was a mess and the laundry was in arrears.

So yesterday was catch-up time and nap time and walk down the hill to the independent grocery store and pick up a few things for dinner time.

Our Halloween was the best yet even with the small number of Trick or Treaters we had come to the door. Our neighborhood is surrounded by schools, there are at least three elementary schools within walking distance from our house and I see kids walking to and from school all the time. I was sure that we would be swamped with kids. I even asked our neighbor how many kids she usually gets each year (she said about 100) and we bought for that number and then added more. We were covered in every sense of the word for the onslaught but it didn't come.

We left a little later than I thought we would and we were the only ones on our block for a good 45 minutes. This meant the Peanut was loaded down with treats galore on her travels. We sent the Husband home after 45 minutes to answer the door and hand out our offerings. We loaded his pockets down with treats to make room for more and when it was all said and done the peanut scored a huge salad bowl of chocolate and (as she says it) lommy pops and other candies.

We weren't far behind the Husband on our trick or treating and when we arrived home there had been no-one to the door. We got our first treaters at 8:30 and our last at 10:30. Our visitors reached just below 20 and that's including the 6 university students going door to door to collect for the food bank. So we are loaded down with the Peanut's treats and the left overs from our offerings to the spooky crowds. Our gingerbread house and people will be candied to the Nth degree this year.

In the lower mainland where we live Halloween isn't just about the candy it's also about setting off fireworks and other loud explosives. From our living room window we could see the fireworks going off as close as a few doors down and as far away as the tall condo's by the large shopping center in Burnaby. It made for a very loud night.

Last year the Peanut didn't really "get" Halloween until the part where she started to pay attention to what the nice people were putting into her bag. This year she was excited about the festivities well in advance and is already looking forward to next year's parties, activities and trick or treating. How did your night go? Did you have few visitors to your door this year? Celebrate your beloved dead? Did you go to a party? The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Or did you have a quiet night in with a scary movie?

It wasn't just my laundry and house cleaning that I've been neglecting; I have a few blog housekeeping items that I'll be posting about tomorrow. See you then.

It's time for dressing up

and our day is pretty full today. trick or treating at the Lonsdale quay this afternoon before the Halloween afternoon lunch party then rushing home to get the cauldron out and change the light in the entry and a quick trip through the neighborhood to collect some treats. After the tricking and treating dies down I'll be doing a little personal work for Samhain to start the year.

It's going to be a long long day and I'll be carrying my camera as much as possible.

On a completely related topic Mrs B's last day of Halloween is a doozy! so many great giveaways and the Haunted blog tour is not one to miss. I've put my name in for Octoberfarm's gift basket and for FunkyGreenMachine.com's Peeking Sal Organic Tote, but there's also a sweet tea towel up for grabs, an awesome crochet book from Quirke and a gorgeous pendant from Aunia Kahn.

you can enter for all these fabulous prizes here

To quote Mrs B because she says it so well: Have a safe and happy Halloween! For those who practice, have a blessed Samhain, and for those on the other side from me, have a blessed Beltane!