Halloween 2013

Last year for Halloween, Cameron was only eight weeks old and Johnnie had just left for a six-month deployment so it was hard to get into the festive holiday spirit.  Cameron's "costume" was a white blanket and hat (an easy ghost), Dulce sported her Mariners jersey, and I didn't dress up at all.  Despite all of that, it was still a fun evening because of the decorations in the neighborhood and crazy amount of trick-or-treaters we saw.

This year we went all out since it was our first Halloween together as a family and Cameron's first time trick-or-treating.  We decorated (a little) and had matching family costumes!

Cameron and I went to a local Halloween store for costumes.  There were some amazing pirate costumes available but they were expensive, at least $75 or more.  If we were going to a big Halloween party, I might have considered spending some money but we were simply going to walk around our neighborhood and then sit and hand out treats.  The choice was simple... buy the cheapest ones available.  This unknowingly set everything in motion for our matchy family costumes.

The cheapest woman's pirate costume was a one-size-fits-most... that "most" does not include 5'1" people like me.  It needed taken in all over so I started cutting and sewing: removing a lot of fabric from the skirt, detaching the attached vest (which therefore detached the sleeves), using the sleeves to make the back of the shirt, raising the waistline, and adding lace to the top front edge of the shirt.  I bought some super cheap pirate jewelry separately (earrings and a necklace) which I ended up modifying to add to the other costumes.  The skull wine goblet was my favorite accessory :)

Seeing all that extra black and red striped fabric sparked my creativity.  Dulce's costume was pale pink which didn't seem very pirate-like.  I started cutting and sewing: removing the pink fabric and lace, adding a wide elastic neck strap, shortening the black skirt, adding a skirt using fabric from my costume, adding gold ribbon and gold coins (part of my pirate necklace) to create a bodice, and adding a pirate skull crossbones cut from white fabric.  I cut the pink lace off of the hat and painted a layer of white acrylic paint over the pink skull.

Johnnie's costume didn't really need any modifications but I added just a few.  His costume was a polyester jumpsuit with an attached vest (a partial vest only on the front) and had only a few small pieces of velcro closing the back.  I started cutting and sewing: removing the attached vest, making a new black vest (therefore covering the unsightly back of the costume), adding a pirate skull crossbones to his bandana (taken from Cameron's costume), and making him a belt out of scraps from my skirt so he would have something that matched the rest of us.  The vest was very quickly made from a polyester-ish material so I didn't have to sew all of the edges... I just melted them with a lighter so it wouldn't fray.

Johnnie, Dulce, and I now all had matching costumes but Cameron's costume was hot pink.  It was a super cute costume that didn't need modified at all... but I had an overwhelming urge to change it to match the rest of us.  So I started cutting and sewing: removing all of the pink material and trim, opening the balloon skirt and cutting triangles into the bottom, removing the balloon sleeves and replacing them with lace, adding lace to the top edge of the white shirt, adding red trim to the bodice (fabric from my skirt), adding gold ribbon and gold coins (part of my pirate necklace) to the bodice, making a new belt (originally ties from my costume), and adding a black skirt (same material as Johnnie's vest).

Cameron's trick-or-treat bag was a 99¢ paper gift bag.  I decorated it with crossbones printed from the internet and gold ribbon (from the costumes) attached with double-stick tape.

Trick-or-Treating hours were in the evening from 6 to 8pm.  We headed out a little earlier with Cameron so she could walk without the competing with crowds of people.

We stopped at a grand total of four houses but that was enough for Cameron.  I didn't let her eat any candy this year but she was more mesmerized by the crinkly wrappers anyway.

After walking through the neighborhood, we went back to our house to hand out treats to the trick-or-treaters.  The evenings are warm here in Hawaii so everyone sits out on their driveways to hand out treats - no doorbell ringing here!  This year was bigger than last year.  It was supposed to be trick-or-treating just for our neighborhood but many people from other neighborhoods on came.  I can't blame them, it's a jackpot of candy with all the close houses here.

We didn't give out candy this year.  I knew the kids would get enough candy at other houses and I didn't want to be tempted to eat any so I bought some toys instead.  We gave out glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth and vampire lip whistles, purchased from the Oriental Trading Company website (who offered free Halloween shipping to all states except Hawaii... thanks a lot).  Despite the ridiculous shipping cost, the total was still the same as that much candy would have been anyway.  We had 300 toys to give out.  Each kid took one and we still ran out early!  It was a crazy fun night :)

I made a Halloween door wreath by wrapping decorative "spider web" around a grapevine wreath and tucking plastic spiders in it.  I didn't use any glue so everything was easily removed, freeing the wreath to decorate again for the next holiday!

*******

"I don't know that there are real ghosts and goblins, but there

are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids."

~Robert Brault

Family Friday: Nov 2

8 Weeks Old

At the end of Cameron's 8 week photo session, I added the card and money and snapped this photo with my iPhone to send to Great-Grandma "Boppy" as a thank you for sending the card.  I ended up liking this photo better than all the others because she looks so happy :)

This week was Cameron's first holiday... Halloween!  I grew up in a rural area where you had to drive to other houses to Trick or Treat and you needed a costume that you could fit over warm clothes.  Here in Hawaii, it is warm at night so all of the neighbors sat on patio furniture in their driveways and handed out candy to the constant parade of kids (and some parents) dressed up going from house to house.  The whole neighborhood is quite large so we saw almost 200 kids!  The older kids who had traveled the entire neighborhood had a huge sacks of candy.  Next year we'll be dressing up and decorating more now that we know how festive the evening is!

I didn't see the point of buying Cameron a Halloween costume this year since we never left the driveway so we wrapped her in a white swaddle blanket, put on a white hat, and called her a ghost :)  Dulce put on her Seattle Mariners jersey for the occasion.  She got tons of pats and hugs from all the trick-or-treaters.  I love that strange kids can come up to her and hug her head and all she does is sniff them... she is such a good dog!

This week Cameron had a growth spurt.  Babies typically experience a growth spurt between 6 and 8 weeks so Cameron is right on schedule!  She had all of the signs of a growth spurt according to www.parents.com:

1. She wants to nurse nonstop.  Eating more often during the day and waking often to eat at night.
2. She's fussier than usual. Harder to soothe and fussy while breastfeeding latching and unlatching because she wants more milk right now.
3. She suddenly hibernates. Following a growth spurt she'll sleep more soundly and more often. It's thought that is when growth occurs.

Cameron had a couple days of eating more frequently which peaked on Sunday night.  She was super fussy, wouldn't sleep, and nursed every hour from 8:30pm to 2:30am.  It was completely exhausting and frustrating.  However, Cam has more than made up for it.  Every night since then, she has been sleeping for 6 hours straight!  During the day she is now going exactly 4 hours between feedings.  This schedule certainly makes life a little easier :)

We've been trying to take a photo a day for daddy.  I upload the photos to a photo stream on our iCloud and he can instantly see them on the other side of the world... how great is that?  Here are a few from this week:

All dressed up for church on Sunday.  We stopped at Starbucks afterwards.  I'm in love with the new peppermint mochas (soy decaf of course)!

Cameron has become a lot more alert in the past couple weeks.  She stares at things and tries to reach out for them but she still has very little coordination.  You can see in this photo that she is losing the hair on the front top of her head!  I wonder if it will still be brown when it grows back in?

We took Dulce to the dog park where she played with some new Chihuahua friends.  Cameron was unimpressed.  This was our goofy photo of the week :)

We went to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet on Wednesday which is a great place for cheap Hawaiian souvenirs.  Cameron slept in the Ergo carrier the entire time.  Don't worry... except to take this photo, I kept her head covered and we stayed in the shade :)

I went running this week!  The last time I went jogging was in July and that was just around the little park next to our house.  This was the first real, out-of-the-neighborhood, going-for-multiple-miles run that I've done in six months!  Dulce and I went 3.25 miles over to the Pearl Harbor channel and back.  Dulce loved it and did better than I did.  My legs and breathing felt great the whole time but my heart rate was so high (despite jogging slowly) that I had to walk at times just to bring it down.  Johnnie's parents are here for another week so I'm excited to get a few more baby-free runs in before they leave.

*******

"I did so many things, where do I start?

Gonna tell you everything and not leave out a single part.

D-A-D-D-Y, oh how I love ya 

Oh how I love ya, Daddy-O"

~Frances England

A "Thrilling" Halloween

Happy Halloween!  Halloween is not celebrated by Koreans but it definitely is by all of the Americans at the Air Force base here.  The celebrations were kicked off two weekends ago with our squadron's zombie night at the Officer's Club on base.

A group of the pilots' wives have been secretly getting together for months in order to learn the dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller song.  The plan, which we executed perfectly, was to have a Thriller flash mob during the party among our unsuspecting husbands and others in the squadron.

Johnnie videotaped the dance and put together this great video for us:

How did we learn the dance?  We used a great series of videos on YouTube called Learn Thriller Dance by INESSENS.  There are 40 videos in the series, each teaching the different moves used in the dance.  Part 38 of 40 is the entire dance with music in slow motion.  Part 39 of 40 is the entire dance with music at regular speed.

Before the party at the club, the performing wives got together for a zombifying party.  We shredded our thrift-store clothing, put on fake nails and costume makeup, and teased our hair. 

The zombified ladies

T-shirts to commemorate the night

How I pulled off my zombie look:  I spent $9 at the thrift store for pants, jacket, and a shirt which I then shredded with scissors and a seam ripper.  I covered every piece of my hair with hairspray, curled it all into ringlets with a skinny curling iron and then teased it.  I used light gray costume makeup on my face and neck, black lipstick, black eyeliner, mascara, and black eyeshadow all around my eyes.  I also used the black eyeshadow below my cheekbones and for a hollowed-out look.

I had a some Photoshop fun with some of the wives' photos to create some zombie portraits.  Here are the "before and afters":

The party was a thrilling good time!

*******

"Eat, drink, and be scary."

~Author Unknown