My Personal Halloween Review

Halloween was SO last week, but I’m still going to post my highlights about it because this Mama worked hard and there needs to be a faint tooting of her rusty horn before we move on to things seemingly current. Mmmmkay? Mmmmkay.

First up, The Bub’s costume of choice this year. You see, he wanted to be this particular dude:

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That’s El Chupacabra from the Disney “Planes” movie, which he saw all of once a few months ago but remained steadfast that he’d be him come Halloween time.

For me, the core of Halloween is about kids getting to dress up as anything they can dream up, so I was totally game for this plan, even if I personally am more into generic concepts for costumes (you can see some of my past contributions at the end of this post). Anyway, doesn’t what what Mama thinks, let’s just get on with making it all! 

So after weeks of intensive cardboard hoarding and numerous hot glue gun burns that I courageously worked through the pain of, I referred to my trusty model (whose cape had broken off a while back – hello, design flaw – but I know what it looked like, so all was good to go):

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And after two days of cutting and gluing and shaping and painting, I came up with this:

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Then, because I have a tendency to go over the top, I sewed up these additions for my little El Chupa-Bub to wear. No pattern; just made it all up on the fly. I’m crazy like that sometimes.

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I had to add tassels. They were questioned by my El Chupacabra specialist, but he agreed that they were a nice addition. 

Did I mention that I also made a propeller that The Bub could spin from within the cockpit? Oh yeah. You read that right.

So once it was all done and donned, my El Chupacabra made his entrance (seen here about to head out for his school Halloween parade):

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He LOVED that costume and so did his classmates! Here he is madly jumping up and down, trying to take off…I can only assume:

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As for Mister Baby Pants, things didn’t pan out as well. But come on, he’s 2.5-years old, so SURPRISE, things just don’t go as expected, good people.

You might recall I showed you this mad piecing/sewing business I was up to a little while back. 

Well, it turned into this:

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A ridiculous pair of jodhpur-like T-Rex pants with gigantic stuffed tail and coordinating dinosaur feet, complete with viscous orange toenails. Another weirdo patternless concoction of mine.

Now you tell me, why *wouldn’t* any 2.5-year old NOT want to put that bunch of wild clothing on? Well, exactly. And that’s why I should have known better. HAHAHAHAHA. But Mama doesn’t always think straight, so what. 

There was a glimmer of hope one morning when I tried the pants on him for the first time:

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That worked well for about 15 minutes as he shook the tail from side to side. Once he had his fill of that, the protests began. And they continued every time he saw any part of the costume. It was like T-Rex PTSD or something.

Still set on making it all happen come October 31st, I opted to pair the pants with a standard green hoodie that I had embellished with T-Rex teeth and eyes, hoping he’d not care two hoots about what was going on around his head area.

But let’s face it, deep down I really did know who I was dealing with. And I knew he wouldn’t like it the way I was hoping.

So Halloween came and after much protesting, I managed to get all the components on him in time for one, just one, blurry photo.

A blurry photo that completely sums up Halloween 2013 for Mister Baby Pants in one shot. Behold:

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E-X-A-C-T-L-Y.

The pants were abandoned, the hood rejected, and the boot covers did last for a spell longer…

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And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how the costumes turned out. 

We had a potluck party to attend at school, so I quickly dressed up some clementines we chose to bring along as part of our culinary contribution:

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I knew I’d find another use for that craft masking tape I originally bought for this project.

The day was long and the night was fun, full of candy-giving and receiving. Both kids were more than ready to come home earlier than later, which was great because I was frightfully exhausted.

The next morning, as if to specifically ring in November, our lovely Ghostie made one final impressive display in the wind, before calling it a year:

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And that’s Halloween 2013 for ya. 

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And I couldn’t resist posting photos from the “SK Halloweens Past” album:

2012: Robots!…

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2011: Orange Koi Fish and Narwhal!…

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2010: Rabbit in a Top Hat (with Mama as magician)!:

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2009: Tandem Skydivers! (with Dada):

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And my personal favorite, because of the undertone of grumpiness that perfectly enhances the costume, I present….

2008: Garden Gnome!

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So stay tuned for next year to see what shenanigans we’ll be up to next!