Treats!

Halloween talk started early this fall...

I regularly get the Parents and Parenting magazines, so I get a healthy dose of creative things you can do for or with your child. Of course the October issue (which comes out in Sept) was full of make-it-yourself Halloween treats, games and costumes.

Being the thrifty mom I am, when these issues came I opened directly to the costumes.

On Cale's first halloween 2007 he had his choice of costumes:

A pumpkin (borrowed from cousin Julian):

A penguin (purchased and given to him from a church friend) A dragon (from Nana)
In 2008, we must have skipped Halloween. I was actually wondering what Megersa would be wearing next year from Cale's hand-me-downs, and I could not find any costumes, or pictures of him that halloween. I guess it didn't happen. Oh well. MJ will get something new next year!

In 2009, he had 2 costumes (both purchased VERY cheaply at a consignment shop):

Buzz Lightyear - he wore on the actual day

Spiderman:

Megersa had a choice of hand-me-downs from Cale.

But for Cale in 2010, we had bubkiss.

Sure, we put on Spiderman from last year, and it DID still fit...though it was a little too snug for him to wear anything with warmth underneath it...so that was out.
Cale saw me looking through the magazine and asked why the kids looked like they did. I explained halloween and we strolled down memory lane from years past.

I asked him what he wanted to be this year. He didn't understand the question, but we continued to peruse the magazine articles. When I got to the page of the child dressed up as the giant donut; Cale was interested.

"I want to be a donut."

Ooookay! And I checked out the how-to portion (which didn't seem to difficult). Get an old inflatable swimming ring and paint it brown, then pink or white for the icing and glue construction paper peices on for sprinkles. Easy enough...

I bought the paint, and we had glue and construction paper.

I went downstairs and got a small tube and the air pump. As I continued to fill it with air, I started noticing how BIG the tube was in comparision to Cale's torso.

The costume is suppose to look like this:

But the kid in this picture is older, and if Cale wore the tube we had, he wouldn't be able to use his hands or walk up the many steps in our townhouse neighborhood.

Scratch (I thought.)

Not Cale. He was insistant on the donut.

When Grammie sent out my brother (Uncle Chet)'s old costumes - A KING! He wouldn't go for it. He told Grammie "no, I'm gonna be a donut." She spoke to him several times after that with the same question. I think she really wanted to see him in the costume she made over 20 years ago...

To make a long story short...I GENTLY convinced him that being a King would be awesome and that when people say "what are you?" he could say "I'm King Cale!"

I held my breath on Halloween day. I didn't have the donut costume.

((2 days before Halloween I did go to our local craft store in with the intention of buying some fabric to sew together a donut costume that it would sit on his middle, but A.C. Moore doesn't sell fabric.))

Trick or Treating started at 6:30p here. I layed out the boys costumes. Megersa happily complied with his pumpkin costume (and even left the hat on all night). I told Cale it was time to get dressed so we could get CANDY!!!

He wasn't so sure...BUT...when the kids started ringing our doorbell and he saw them walking away with candy (technically we passed out fruit snacks) he was sold. He couldn't get dressed fast enough.
Oh how I love that kid!

He wore his crown (from Burger King ;) the entire night. I thought it'd be cute to replace the Burger King label with his name. Someone thought he was suppose to be "old king cole." :)

He and I went out alone while Tim and Megersa stayed home to pass out candy.

Cale held my hand the entire time. He told me he "had to hold my hand because he didn't want to lose me." There really were a lot of kids around. The teens are not as polite as you'd think with candy afoot!

We went to so many houses and got so much stuff that we took a detour back home to dump our loot, take a potty break, and then reload!

By the end of the night he had a bucketfull of goodies and didn't say one thing about the donut.

Good day for all involved:

Mommy didn't have to spend extra money. Grammie gets to see her handmade costume recycled, and Cale gets the candy.

Win-win-win. :)

It surely was a highlight for him. He's talked about "when we went trick-or-treating" soooo many times since! Too bad it's only once a year!