Almost two years ago, we were given the movie Wreck-It Ralph (for Christmas from our friends with children the same age as ours), and we loved it. Since then Laura had wanted to be Vanellope Von Schweetz for Halloween. (We didn't do it last year because I wanted to do Monsters Inc. while Rachel was still a toddler). I thought it would be cute if Josh went with her as Ralph, and he was into that idea, so we ran with it. A few weeks before Halloween rolled in, we had yet to decide on a costume for Rachel. Normally we like to do family costumes, so I was hoping she would be okay with being someone from Wreck-It Ralph too. She had at one point said she wanted to be Pluto, and for me to be Mickey, but I guess she forgot about that. Anyway, we finally settled that she would be Taffyta Muttonfudge, one of the antagonists from the movie, since she looked just like her. :)
Laura's costume was pretty easy; I found the right colour hoodie and leggings at Target before it went out of business, and grabbed a clearance pleated uniform skirt from OshKosh at some point. They've been waiting in the closet for about a year ;). I also found her some inexpensive black boots to wear, which she can wear for every-day use, too. I wrapped medical tape around the leggings for Vanellope's mismatched stripes, and we sprayed Laura's hair with black hair spray. We already had some candy barrettes, and we supplemented with some sticky jewels. I was worried the hairspray would stain her hair (it said not for light hair on the can), but it came out in two washings (made a big mess in the tub, though!). We also tried to use real licorice for her hair tie, but it didn't work out, so we just used some red pipe cleaners. Pretty easy.
Rachel's costume was a bit trickier (probably since we left it to the last minute), so we recruited Grandma's help. We had trouble finding the right jacket for her outfit, so we bought a pink sweater/ jacket thing at the thrift store and modified it to look like Taffyta's. Grandma made her the little tunic. I used an old pair of pink leggings that we were going to get rid of anyway and painted the white part on them. We had hand-me-down pink sneakers already (although I did see some fabulous pink sparkly sneakers for sale that I would have bought if we didn't already have footwear - she would have loved those!) I cut the brim down from an old baseball hat that would have otherwise been garbage, and painted it with green and pink paint. To top off her outfit, we made sure she had a lollipop to complete her sassy look.
Josh's costume seemed easy in theory, but I couldn't find a an orange plaid shirt at the thrift store big enough to fit with the padding underneath, or any overalls. Not even denim ones. So I bought a plain orange shirt and decided to paint the plaid on. That took much longer than expected, so I ended up only painting the front of the shirt (shh). It literally took me probably 5 or 6 hours. Ridiculous. I ended up buying some brown corduroy and winging it myself with the overalls. They turned out not bad considering I had never made overalls before and definitely wasn't using a pattern of any sort. Ahh the gloriousness of costumes. ;) Luckily I got some giant fists last year on Halloween clearance, since we already knew what costumes we were doing this year. ;) We also got him a wig, and convinced him to shave his beard, too. Laura had a medal picked out for him from the dress up trunk, but we forgot to put it on. We had toyed with the idea of going to Josh's parents' house for Halloween this year since it was on the weekend, mainly because we needed to borrow his dad's hockey pads for his costume, but we realized we couldn't really do that because we have swimming lessons on Saturday morning, so we convinced them to come here instead. They're the best. :)
We had also thought about making the girls go carts, but I procrastinated too long with the rest of the costumes, so we ditched that idea. They still turned out cute, though, I think. Fun, fun.
We didn't carve the pumpkins until the day of Halloween, because we need a few hours (aka a weekend), and they would have rotted if we did them the weekend before. So Grandma got to help with that. We had trouble deciding what to carve this year. Not a lot of people know the movie Wreck-It Ralph, and usually we keep the pumpkins in the theme of the costumes. We ended up deciding on a portrait of Ralph wrecking a wall which we hoped was the most recognizable image, and a creepy cybug (a good choice because the girls had fun helping paint it.)
I made mummies and veggie skeletons for dinner before we went out trick or treating. The girls enjoyed them. :)
Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween!
The team was able to sit together with their parents while we watched the other senior teams perform, and then they were off to warm up! They had worked so hard, and although it wasn't the best run I've seen them do, they still did great, and nailed all the stunts, including a double base! Considering they had been modifying the routine right up until the practice the night before the competition, the team performed really well. So proud!
