Laura Vanderbeek: A wonderful Halloween

This was a wonderful Halloween. Last year I was home with a kidney infection. This year I spent the morning at the school helping check 1st Grade homework and then I headed off to a class on Abraham of the Old Testament - quite interesting. I loved Sister Welch's comment.

I ran home for lunch and picked up everything for the Room Mom Halloween parties. They were short on help and I wasn't about to leave Kiwi alone with my son and a bunch of 6 year olds. Kiwi made it into the Herald Journal! Check him out in the Nov 1st issue.

Out at a relative's house for trick-or-treating.

My son as a pirate with his real parrot Kiwi - I sewed the shirt, the pants, and the sash. Grandma V provided the hat. I purchased the sword, the eye patch, and the earring.

I love this little face!

Helping out at the Halloween program for his class.

Check out his teacher's awesome costume.

Yes, this is his teacher the very next day. She said she'd had enough of the makeup. She is a wonderful woman and fabulous teacher. When one little girl showed up without a costume, she called her mom to see if it was okay to provide a costume for her (you never just want to throw a costume on a kid who has religious reasons for not wearing one). She even hand stitched something to fix it and when that little girl came over for me to check her homework she said dragging the most important word, "I'm a p-r-i-n-c-e-s-s" and she just glowed. I almost cried. She was darling and she felt special. Some teachers are just amazing through and through.

Getting into the act.

Enjoying a ride on Grandpa and Grandma V's train! A neighbor who always spoils our kids for Halloween described it perfectly last night, "First there were 2 or 3 carts. Now there are 6. Then some of them were spray painted. Now the carts have their own costumes. It's been so exciting to watch the transformation." I agree.

My daughter only let me put the make-up on once.

I purchased the ring for $5 and the flower pick in the Christmas section at Michael's for $0.99

She is a ballerina anyway so making this skirt was perfect. I purchased 16 yards for the blue tulle with the glitter on it and then 8 yards of the purple tulle. We folded it over and then using my rotary cutter we cut 6" wide pieces. I sewed together the elastic and then we tied the tulle over it.

I purchased the wings at JoAnns. I don't love the felt they used to attach them together, but I do love the glitter. There is glitter all over my house and I LOVE IT! It's was so fun to put together this costume.

We even found earrings in swarovski crystal that started off silver, fade to blue, and last to purple. Wish I had a close-up.

The straps are not the greatest and will need to be replaced soon.

I made and laminated this game - it's like Cooties except it's Skeletons. His teacher had all the dice. The children loved trying to roll doubles.

One of the Room Moms brought "Don't eat Pete!" and I'd never played before. So the children asked me to take a turn. I actually won!!! I stood out in the hall while they picked one and then I had to pick an m&m off each spot. The very last one was "Pete" and so I won. I can't eat m&ms (soy) so I shared 2 with each child at the table. It was so cute and they loved getting the m&m's even though I won.

For FHE ( family home evening) we carved pumpkins. Usually my husband doesn't participate except to help our children a bit but this year I found an easy template at BHG. He was all for it. Super simple.