Halloween 2017

This year for Halloween, Tyler asked to dress as Willy Wonka, and Tyrien never made a decision,  so Tyson decided we'd dress him as an Oompa Loompa. I realized something about Tyson - he feels about Halloween costumes the way that I feel about kids' birthday cakes - it's a point of pride that he doesn't buy a premade one from the store, it's important to him to put the time and effort into actually creating a costume  This is the third year that we've crafted costumes out of used clothing. It's time consuming, and isn't necessarily less expensive, but it fosters creativity and appreciation for used items instead of buying something new.

I had Tyler try on my purple suit jacket, and was relieved when he announced, "Perfect!" Then we went to Savers. Funny enough, Tyler was upset about having to go, but as soon as I located a brown top hat for him, he cheered up. The tophat was new, so that was a bummer. But we found used tan pants for Tyler, and a used brown thermal shirt and used white pants with leopard print legs in the toddler girls section. A belt with a tan bow on it made for an easy bow tie for Tyler. I found a green wig for Tyrien, and a makeup kit that included the color orange. Surprisingly, we could not find a cane, but Grandma A brought Gigima's cane as a sacrifice to the cause.

Our first Halloween event was the BASIS Halloween Party. Tyler met up with Eileen and Joseph. They didn't do the activities, just ate some cotton candy and then played on the playground. Tyrien waited in line for one activity, then broke out of the line and played on the playground, too.

The next event was the Peter Howell Neighborhood Association Halloween Parade. This event is one of my favorite things about our neighborhood. An instrumental band named Sol Axe plays, and it's just so nice to get so many neighborhood kids together. The drawback, in previous years, has been that since Trick or Treating is part of the parade, kids didn't do trick or treating afterwards. But this year the parade was on a Saturday instead of on Halloween. I loved this.

We invited Eileen, Leo, Auggie, and Penelope to join us. We planned to meet up with Logan and Zane, and we happened to meet up with Edwin. Fun to see so many Catalina kids at the parade!

We stopped to take a few pictures before walking to the parade. 

My adorable Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompa!

I turned to discover a ninja had scaled our wall.

That made me realize that wall is pretty cool for photos. Too bad I didn't have the three ninjas sit together. But the kids were amped and ready to go.

Great music, great costumes, great people!

It did feel funny doing this parade while we hadn't yet decorated our house. I appreciated having the extra time. We carved pumpkins on Sunday evening, and kept them inside on Monday. I cut bats out of construction paper, and taped them to the wall behind an ocotillo. They faded in the sun, which made them look really cool, they were lit by the street light, and it looked like they were rising from the ground. So of course, I forgot to take a picture. 

I remembered from last Halloween that the lights along our driveway and sidewalk detracted from our display. I tried covering them with tissue paper bats, but that didn't do anything. So I covered them with orange tissue paper. That looked much better. I think purple paper would look even better.

I took some mason jars, covered them with orange tissue paper and with white tissue paper, and put artificial candles inside. I'll do that again next year. I also stuffed a mason jar with spiderwebs and spiders, and added an artifical candle that changed colors. I'll do that again, too. 

Last year, I only decorated my side of the carport, which meant it was only visible from Holmes St, and we didn't have many kids. It occurred to me that we need to advertise our presence to vehicles and pedestrians on the bigger road, Irving. So this year I strung purple lights along the carport that faced Irving Road. Between that and the bats, we announced our presence. I need to remember to get more purple lights for next year, I couldn't find any this year. 

This year I tried putting the graveyard with the lighted tombstones and the strobe skull in the gravel area right in front of our driveway, so it would be visible from the street. Mostly because I didn't know where our extension cords were. I liked that it was visible from the street, but I'd like to do something different next year, with more lighting. Tyler and I hung ghosts from the trees.

I experimented with the blacklights - there's too much light from the streetlights to make them very effective. I discovered that white streamers react to the blacklights, while white tissue paper does not. So I strung streamers along one side of our central architectural display. Tyson realized it would look cool to angle the spider projector to reflect on the streamers. 

We decided we'll definitely do the streamers again next year - more of them, so the kids have to walk through them to get to the candy. 

Tyson asked that we skip the fog this year. Given my disatisfaction with the graveyard, I agreed. If I have the ability to pull of a Halloween party or haunted house next year, I'll bring the fogger back. 

The boys first went trick or treating with Tyson and Grandma A along Holmes Street and then into the 6th Street Cul-De-Sac - on the Columbus side. Tyson reported "That was a bust." Grandma A and I took the kids on the Irving side of the 6th Street Cul-De-Sac. Also a bust. So I decided we should stick with what we knew - Tyler and I had ridden bikes past Halloween displays on Irving north of 5th St, and along the 3rd St Bike Path. We never made it to 3rd St - Tyler announced he was tired of walking after hitting just two houses on Irving. I realized it's not terrible that he didn't want any more candy,and it was a school night, so we headed home. 

Tyson estimated we had 25-30 kids - seems like more than last year. Whether that's because I decorated along Irving Street, or just because the parade was on a different night, we can't really be sure. But it was fun figuring out some improvements on how to decorate our house, and seeing how much potential there is for a haunted house or halloween party. 

 Hope everyone had a happy Halloween!