Army Halloween Party

Good Morning!

How are you doing? I sure hope you are doing well. Are you guys big celebraters of Halloween? We really aren't. I go buy a big bunch of candy (I will have to buy a heap and a half for this little neighborhood - Maybe I will give out carrot sticks?) and at the last minute I make the kids dress as ghosts or pirates....I don't put a bunch of thought into Halloween is what I am trying to say. Well, some folks in our neighborhood are really decked out. Grave yards in their garden and bodies hanging from trees. Emma is dying to decorate and has been making Danger signs on the sly in the garage. Well, since they were all into it this year I decided I would try to do my part too. My husband took the kids to pick out 1THING from some weird Halloween store that popped up beside the grocery store. The boys came home with really ugly skeleton masks (isn't that what every mother wants her little boys to dress as? A decomposing body? A dead child? kinda horrifying if you think about it) and Emma shopped economically and got a vampire dress and some fangs. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a pattern for a cloak. I figured I would make one for Emma and one for Sam. Ethan fits into my college graduation gown so that is what he got to wear.

 Well....I totally followed the directions I measured each child and I cut out each pattern piece and I pinned them down to this slinky fabric and the cloak was so freaking enormous that I just took my scissors to the bottom and made it shorter. Whatever...he can wear it again next year.

 I made Emma's cloak too...but I was really going fast on hers since I had a 45 minute deadline. Well....chain piecing works great for quilts...not so much for cloaks out of slinky fabric. In the end I sewed the back to the side and had to do a crazy inset seam piece at the bottom because it was a little too asymmetrical in the back. I actually like it better this way ( Yes, I am trying to convince myself that it is fine and she really doesn't care). It ripples so nice as she runs around. Oh and the patten wanted me to buy 4 yards of fabric per cloak....that was CRAZY. But I did...now I have all this really slinky polyester fabric in a bag in the garage. I figure I can make Emma a slip or something with it. She will love that. Oh and note on the candy bags. I made the ones for the boys out of Army pants (of course, what else would I use) but the cool thing is that I whipped them out in about 3 minutes! Hot dog! My mom was always so prepared. We had those orange plastic jack-o-lanterns as kids and mom knew just where they were. so there was no scrambling on Halloween night. I have no clue where their candy baskets are and I do think we abandon them each time we move.

 Well, you may be wondering why we are getting the jump on Halloween? The Army had it's Halloween party last night. It was so very fun. The soldiers did a haunted tent, and tossed a bunch of candy out in the field so the kids could go find it. Like a crazy Easter Egg hunt.

 The soldiers also decorated their Humvee. We liked this one because of the skeletons and body parts...some sick senses of humor.

 The army firemen won the competition with this truck and the fact that they were buying the kids votes by tossing candy.

This was the end of the night....the sugar crash. I like this face a bunch better than the black skull mask, don't you?


I have so much to blog about this week, but we have a busy weekend planned too. The weather has finally changed and it is a bit cooler so we may go out and toil in the garden a bit.

Ok, have a wonderful weekend I have 2 more blog posts planned in my mind I hope to get to them!

xo,
Tia