tricks or treats

in keeping with our grand halloween traditions of dreaming big and then, procrastinating, i give you halloween 2010

months ago, isaac told us that he wanted to be killer moth from the lego batman wii game. i had to give him some serious points for creativity and a willingness to appear completely random. he also mentioned that he wanted to look like a lego minifigure... our visions might have diverged a little on this point, but we attempted a compromise.

meanwhile, jacob gave us a sketch of a skeleton costume, complete with hood and cape. fully aware that there are a million skeleton costumes in the world, i decided that i would still make one completely from scratch (enter grand domesticity delusion). i clung to that idea until we were less than a week from halloween and i still hadn't produced a costume and jacob had seen one at target and stood in front of it, saying rapturously, "it looks just like him." we conceded and bought him the costume, but replaced the ugly rubber mask with a paper mache skull.

lucas couldn't seem to care less about costumes in general, and had given us no real idea what he might want to be. for several weeks, we insisted that we were going to make him an orca costume. we sketched it. we debated its finer points. we acquired some felt. we gave up with 2 days to spare. (sorry, lucas!) the little man seemed more than happy with his storebought costume and adhesive moustache (parental guilt mildly dulled).

isaac as lego killer moth: at most doors, he was addressed as "alien" at which point
he would say, "i'm killer moth, and i'm here to throw in."

jacob as a semi-spooky skeleton. his grin was meant to make him seem friendlier, but from a distance and in most photos. the teeth look like stitches-- like his mouth is sewn closed. the spookiness was further enhanced by his deep and scratchy sounding "trick or treat".

lucas as mario. he surprised us by repeatedly posing with one arm and leg up (a la mario) and keeping his sticky moustache on. like many moustache devotees, he actually seemed preoccupied with straightening, smoothing and grooming it.

in spite of the multiple revisions and costume delays, our halloween was pretty awesome. all three boys loved trick or treating. they were pretty reliable about saying "thank you" and "happy halloween". and, as a bonus, they haven't inquired once about where their halloween candy disappeared to...