Oh! How we love Halloween! It's so much fun!!
We sent out some cards to our family since we miss them all so much and for us, Halloween is almost as big of a deal as Christmas! This year, we made spider finger prints cards. Never mind that I accidentally did two for Coverton on this one, ha ha. Spider clones!
We always have fun with Halloween food! This year, we made carrot witches fingers, eyeball grapes, witches broomsticks, mummy dogs, and red velvet brain cupcakes. Creepy eats!
We always love decorating for Halloween, reading from our Halloween books, and playing with the decorations and Halloween games we have. One day, Lucy was doing her morning chore of mopping the floor, when she left, went out and got a witch hat to put on her head. Then she came back in, got on her mop stick, and started acting like a witch. What a cutie!
Our family decided to carry on the Ryerse tradition and go all out for Halloween costumes And the theme we decided on, ladies and gentlemen...step right up to see the greatest show on earth, the Ryerse Circus!! We figured that was appropriate since we sometimes feel like a circus around here with death defying acts, wild attitudes, and always plenty of excitement!
Preparations for Halloween started in September. We scrounged through our stuff to see what we already had, what we could use, and then we hit up thrift stores, the fabric store, and other stores to get what we needed.
Many ask how long it takes to make all of these and put them all together. It's hard to say because I don't just do it all at once, we spread it out. And I don't do it all alone, it's a family effort!
Dave was the world's strongest man! His costume was probably the easiest. We used a black shirt we used for our Blue Man Group costumes years ago, and then the leotard from his Gene Simmons costume. He stuffed pillows in for muscles, slicked his hair down the middle, added a fake $1 store moustache, and voila! The world's strongest man! Oh, we glued two styrofoam balls to an old shower curtain and spray painted it black too for the dumbbells.
Mom was the Ringmaster/lion tamer! My costume was super easy also. I started with a red jacket I found at the D.I., which I glued some gold cording around the collar and wrists. I made some fabric flowers and attached it to the chest and my black top hat we ordered from Amazon. I wore a ruffly white blouse, some black leggings, and black boots I already had. Topped it off with a toy whip I also ordered from Amazon, watch out for this Ringmaster!
Emma dressed up as Madame Emma, tightrope walker. She picked out the colors she helped make her no-sew tutu. We cut out strips of tulle together and tied it, which we did while watching some shows on TV. That took about a 1 1/2 hours. We ordered her blue leotard, and I sewed lace trim on the arm holes and sewed some fabric and ribbons and lace on the chest. We found this cute flower and added a feather into a white headband we had. Then we had a wood dowel we decorated with the matching ribbon, tulle and lace. It was fun to have Emma help so much and get so into it this year!
Cal was Evil Calneval, our little dare devil! His costume took a little longer. I sewed the jumpsuit out of some leftover fabric my mom gave me and the cape out of scrap material as well. Then I hot glued blue and red ribbon around the neck and on the chest and down the sides of the legs. I added little felt star stickers on top of that. We did the same for a white helmet we also found at the D.I. And he was ready to roll! I think he fits the part very well!
Lucy was the silly little Lucy clown! My mom had a clown costume my brother wore years ago, but he was a lot bigger. So I cut it down to size and sewed it and added new ric rack to the sleeves and legs. We made a black pom pom to go on her hat and glued some ric rac and buttons to it. Then we slapped her clown hair on, painted her face a bit. Isn't she just about the cutest clown you've ever seen?
Coverton was our wild and ferocious lion. His costume took the longest though between cutting out and sewing little parts, that takes longer sometimes. And gluing all of the mane together took actually quite a while. He was so cute! Roooaarrrrr!
Happy Halloween from our very own Ryerse Circus!
We were able to go to the Halloween Carnival the weekend before Halloween at Grandma Sue's school. Emma was especially excited because she saw some of the cute kids she had in her class for a month again! It was sweet to see them give hugs to each other. But this carnival they put on is the best! The decorations are amazing, they have tons of great food, and the Spook Alley, which Grandma, Julie, Brian, and Grandpa were in is the best! I didn't get tons of pictures of the Spook Alley because I was holding a baby and had a few kids clinging on in fright. Lucy kept saying "Grandpa scared me!" Everyone loved the costumes! It was nice to have a "test run" with them. Cal was especially popular, all of the older kids kept coming to him and telling him how awesome he looked and giving him fist bumps. It was funny. It's always fun to see everyone's reactions and hearing fun comments. Especially this year, it took a while for people to connect the dots, but then a big smile would come to their faces! We also had a great time with Tayla, Kaison and Brody who came as well! We love our cousins!
Halloween morning, we woke up and made homemade Maple Donuts...mmm! We spooked them out though, by adding vampire teeth and M&M eyes. They were tasty! That day, the kids and I played a few Halloween games, and got ready to go to Emma's school. I volunteered to help in her class for her party.I didn't take any pictures, but we had fun! We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and had some yummy healthy food. I was in charge of games. We played Minute-to-Win-It Halloween games like This Blows, Face the Cookie, Skeleton pick up, Creepy Pencil Bounce, and Mummy Wrap. The kids did really well and had fun. I didn't take any pictures since I was kinda busy, but the kids were all cute and had a great time!
After that, we were going to do the Main Street Trick or Treating, but it was too windy and cold. When we got out of the cars, all of our stuff was blowing away! So we headed to the Rec Center for an indoor hay maze trick or treat. They had a hay maze set up in the big gym and people dressed up in costume along the way. I thought that was a cute idea, especially since it was so cold outside it was a great place to go!
They also had bouncy houses and slides in the gym, the kids loved that and could do that all night!
Emma with one of her BFFs from school, Taryn. Taryn is a sweet girl and it's fun to see Emma start to make some good friends.
Covey slept through all of the Halloween night festivities! We didn't hear a squeak out of him the whole time!
They also had a haunted house at the Rec Center but the kids decided not to do that. Daddy liked it though! Then we went to the Trunk or Treat for a few minutes at a church that is right by our house. The theme was Around the World and some of the trunks were decorated very cute and the kids got some good stuff! That night, we came home and went to a few neighbors houses. Our next door neighbors gave each of the kids big bags of candy. One of our neighbors who works for Dave gave big bags of puzzles and candy and popcorn balls for each of the kids. She and her husband were very sweet and we visited with them for a while. We ate pizza for dinner, then answered the door to a few trick or treaters we had when we got home. We only had two, but we weren't home long before it was getting late. Both of them were boys from Emma's class with their friends/siblings. So Emma was tickled to see them and blushed a little bit, telling me they were the two funniest boys in her class too. Then we watched a Halloween Scooby Doo and headed to bed. I like how Lucy crashed, with a sucker stick in hand. :) It was a sweet and fun Halloween!
The day after Halloween, Emma had no school! So we had a Candy Mania day. The kids sorted and tallied up their candy, and we did a few math things with them. We made Venn Diagrams and explored with that. Then we set up the Halloween Candy Trading Post (didn't ya always love doing that as a kid!?) We also did some science experiments, like sink and float and we floated the M's off some M&Ms. We made pictures with skittles and wrote our numbers with candy. Then we were going to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but the kids opted for a different movie. And of course, we all consumed more of our share! Our rule is if the kids don't throw away their wrappers and Dave or I find them, we get a treat. So I cashed in a few times! :) We also made M&M and Reese's Pieces Pizza. It was fun!
The only thing sweeter than all of the candy they got is these kids! Happy Halloween, everyone!! The kids the day after Halloween kept saying sadly "Halloween is over!" and "Another year until the next Halloween!" It will come soon enough though, I have a feeling!
