Halloween

Pretty sure the first time James ever saw a transformer, he's wanted to be one for Halloween. And of course, the younger siblings wanted to be a transformer too. We somehow talked them out of it every year, but this year we happened to find three different transformer costumes in the right sizes for a great price. They loved them. I loved them. We all loved them. I thought for sure I would only make Liam a costume this year, and rub some dirt on my face and Chris' to be the civilians that were fighting with them, but turns out I got these awesome transformer costumes and still made three more. Chris was Schroeder from Peanuts for a work thing, and the James and Seth had a book character parade at school. James was Robin Hood and Seth was a dinosaur. After forgetting to wear gloves and dying my hands purple to make the Schroeder shirt (we couldn't find anything online) and having Seth losing part of his dino costume the morning of the parade I was feeling overworked and underappreciated. Which is kind of silly, because I could have just said no to all of them and done nothing for anyone. But as a mom with a talent for creating things out of odds and ends and things I've stashed around my house for just such occasions, of course I'm going to help them. It's what I live for. It's just not so fun sometimes. Turns out James won the prize for choosing a costume that no one else had. And Seth survived with a less than ideal dinosaur costume. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures of those costumes. They were B- work at best, but I think they served their purpose extraordinarily well because this is what James told me when I said they were finished, "I know you'd finish them just right mom. You always do," So perhaps Halloween, at least at this house, means more than just dressing up and getting lots of unneeded candy. Maybe it's building a foundation of showing my kids that they are important to me and them actually feeling that way too. Or maybe, I'm just reading too much into this and it really is about the candy and dressing up. Either way, it turned out to be a stressful, fun, humbling, exciting, and amazing Halloween. 

Bumblebee

 Love this little baby!

 Drift

 Optimus Prime

Proof to myself that I at least tried to get them to eat something besides candy for their afternoon snack and that vegetables can be fun. It served it's purpose. I saw vegetables available and they ate their candy. Win win.