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Counting my blessings

I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog (link missing because I'm too lazy =) that Halloween is not my favorite holiday. I mean, I spend the rest of the year trying to keep candy out of my kids hands, and I'm supposed to be happy about strangers corrupting my kids' taste buds? (Not to mention the allergy issue, which makes everything more difficult.)

I do enjoy the creativity of making costumes, but this year I got off remarkably easy. I thought that Eleanor was going to be difficult, because she kept changing what she wanted to be. I laid down the law: on September 15th, whatever decision she made was permanent. All summer she talked on and off about being "a skeleton riding a bike." Not easy to make, but not impossible, I thought. But then on Labor Day we went to a party with a Hawaiian theme---they even gave out grass skirts and leis. Eleanor liked her grass skirt so much that she decided to be a hula dancer for Halloween.

We then got a purple tank top from Target and decorated it with fabric paint flowers. Eleanor actually did almost all of the decorating, my main purpose was to keep her from putting so much paint on that the shirt wouldn't dry until Halloween. She wanted to make a pretend ukulele and carry around a back pack with a CD player which would play Hawaiian music---luckily we had a friend with a real ukulele. Just add a straw hat and you're done!

Amanda was even easier. Since she is actually a superhero, that is what she wanted to be for Halloween. Her Aunt already made her a cape, so we just had to figure out what else she was wearing. 'What do superheroes wear?" "A cape." "What else do they wear? Do superheroes wear dresses?" "Nope." "Shirts?" "Nope." "Socks?" "Nope." "Underwear?" "Nope. Just a cape."

We eventually talked about it and looked at some real superheroes (Word Girl and Super Why) and saw that they wear things that look kind of like leotards. But this morning as she was getting dressed, and the leotard was out, I asked "What do superheroes wear?" "A superhero leotart!" She then looked at her pink leotard with the little gauzy skirt, hesitated, and said, "Maybe they just wear superhero clothes." We found a superhero dress for her to wear.

A friend lent Luke a dragon costume. I expect he will be very cute.

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