Fall Costume Party

We don't celebrate Halloween. We've never taken our kids trick or treating. We are "that" family! However, we love this time of year and know that our kids love to dress up. We usually take our kids to our church's fall festival. They get to dress up, play games, and all that jazz. However, this year the fall festival cost money, which is something we are very tight on right now. So we opted not to attend, which was a bummer. My awesome husband came to the rescue by planning a costume party for our Life Group up at the church. The kids got to dress up and each family brought yummy snacks and one planned activity. It turned out so great and everyone had a wonderful time. (and it didn't cost us an arm and a leg!!)

Isaac dressed up as a Knight and a mighty handsome one at that! He and Gabe worked together to make a sword out of wood. Any excuse to build something out of wood and use tools! Plus, it was quality time for the two of them.

Julia decided she wanted to be a dalmatian this year. Her costume is the only one we had to make. I am in no way a seamstress. In fact Gabe is more handy in this department. (he used to make costumes when he taught Theater Arts) Gabe sewed on some black dots to her white shirt and made some doggie ears. He painted her face and we had the cutest little dalmatian I have ever seen.

Caleb is very into "piderman" as he calls him. I found this cute cape at a consignment store for super cheap, so we went with that. He asked Gabe to paint some spiders on his hands and he was good to go.

We all had so much fun at the costume party. The kids spent the first part of the night just playing outside, then we took them in as it was getting dark to play some inside games like bobbing for apples,  candy corn race, and a craft. After they all gorged themselves on all the treats, they got to go on a glow stick hunt on the playground once it was dark. They LOVED this!

When Gabe first mentioned planning a costume party, I sort of freaked out. Ok, I'll be honest. It was more like a full throttle freak out. No "sort of" about it!!! I usually love to plan parties but I am so far along in this pregnancy that the thought of doing something like that was just overwhelming. So what did Gabe do, he totally took the reigns and planned the whole thing. I was super impressed and thankful that he went out of his way to do this for the kids. He is pretty awesome like that!