In pictures!

Owlet as Mei from Tonari no Totoro:

And Sparky as Commander Rex from Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

Sparky’s costume was made entirely by HRH out of cardboard (save for the mask, which was purchased, but ended up not being worn other than for pictures). It’s a really amazing construction of cardboard and velcro strips, Gorilla Glue and paint. Owlet’s costume was thrifted in its entirety, from three different stores. She looks even more cute with pigtails like the character wears, but since she leaves them in for about 0.78 seconds, we didn’t bother. (The crocheted Totoro was made by Ceri for Sparky’s third birthday.) While Sparky’s friends at school were appropriately cooled out by his costume, poor Owlet’s educator had no idea who Totoro was. This didn’t bother Owlet, of course; she knew who she was, and was very excited about it.

There was no way Owlet could wear her costume to actually go trick or treating, and covering it up with a snowsuit was pointless, so a few days before Halloween I brainstormed an alternate nighttime costume. She would be a snow fairy, in the pretty lavender princess-style winter coat I’d bought for her last year and stashed away, we’d find wings (thoughtfully purchased by the Preston-LeBlancs when they found a perfect and inexpensive pair on their travels), and I’d make a crown and wand out of found and dollar store materials. And that’s exactly what we did:

You can’t see it very clearly thanks to my blurry photo, but there’s a snowflake with ribbons velcroed to the centre of her wings, the same snowflake that’s wired to her dollar-store crown and her dowel-painted-silver wand. (This is pretty much the only time I’ve been pleased to see Christmas ornaments in the dollar store before Halloween. Six plastic sparkly snowflakes for a dollar? Yes please!).

It poured on Halloween, but it let up to a cold drizzle around trick or treating time. We drove out to spend the evening with HRH’s parents as usual, as their neighbourhood “does Halloween,” whereas ours pretty much does not. At this age, Sparky was scared of the spookily decorated houses and the kids in scary masks on the street, but Owlet chuckled at passing costumed people, stomped happily along the streets, and would have kept chugging along had we not called the evening on account of cold and wet and a forty-five minute drive home.

As much fun as it was, now Owlet knows what candy is, and asks for it frequently. All the way home we heard, “MORE TREATS! MORE CANDY!” from the back seat, and this after only four M&Ms on the way there, and half a Kinder Egg after supper before heading out. Now she gets one M&M after supper, and she thinks this moment is heaven. Otherwise, she’s pretty much forgotten that she collected candy in her bag, which was very very interesting while she was in the process of acquiring it.

And so another Halloween is over. I kind of miss costuming for myself. We’ll be able to do that again in, what, ten-ish years?