Happy Halloween!

I know it's late, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween :) We had lots of fun this year scaring our neighborhood children :) Justin decided the Scarecrow costume from last year was just too good to not do again, so he made some minor adjustments (a.k.a. sewed buttons on his eyes) and pretended to be a fake scarecrow again.

It never ceases to amaze me how everyone finds this costume scary and they all jump when he moves :)
I had a really fantastic costume planned, and even had the materials to make it, but I have just been so busy lately that I didn't get to tdo it - maybe next year :) Instead, I decided to go as...

A basket of laundry :) I had a bunch of parents comment on how much they liked my costume, so I was pleased with it.

My little brother, Briggs, wanted to get in on the scaring action too. We made him a very realistic looking zombie last year, so with a few improvements he was that again. To make his costume even better, my husband built a mound style grave in my parents' yard along the edge of the sidewalk.

He made it using cinder blocks for the sides and laid pieces of sod over everything - it was very convincing looking and most people didn't even notice it was out of the ordinary to have a large mound of grass next to your front walk. The grave was just big enough for my brother to hide in and reach out at kids as they walked by.

He seriously scared the heck out of quite a few people...while he lasted. He quickly got tired of being in a dirty, cramped hovel and went out to collect candy instead. Luckily, we had my coworker's son, Elias, with us too and he was happy to fill in on grave duty :) I would be the lookout, and when a batch of kids started to walk toward our house, Elias would hide inside the grave and growl at people - he was thrilled :)

He is much smaller than my brother, so he fit nicely inside the mound :)

He was so polite too, he would just growl "Happy Halloween", so it wasn't quite so scary to little ones.

Also, we helped one of the missionaries from our church play a little joke on his family back home :) We have gotten really good at using prosthetic wounds over the years, and my husband is very meticulous with his blood making (this year's recipe actually included cherry-limeade drink mix to help with color, together with corn syrup, it tasted like candy!), so he happily volunteered to make up Elder Jepson to look like he had had a biking accident :)

The funny thing was, the wound actually became more realistic looking as the night went on. He was so sticky, he could only eat dinner with one hand, but he was excited to send his family the pictures and tell them it took 100 stitches to fix :)

And last but not least... I am super proud of the costume I made for my dog this year. I only dress him up for Halloween, I mean, other people get to dress up their babies, so why shouldn't I get to make a costume for mine? Justin came up with the idea a few weeks ago and I made it a reality this week :)

He's a bomb! lol I made it using paper towel holders, electrical tape, excess cardboard (to fill in the holes at the end), yard, lots of hot glue, and a small clock off my wall :)

He really didn't appreciate me putting the costume on him, but he didn't really mind once it was on. Isn't he the cutest weapon of mass destruction that you've ever seen? :)

So, that was our Halloween this year! I hope you all had as much fun as we did. We are already making plans for next year :)