We had another great year of Trick or Treating in our Wells Branch neighborhood.  Like last year the Godfrey and Myers families came to beg candy from our neighbors.

This year Wesley wanted to be a ghost. He was keen on the idea of running around saying Boo!, but less keen on the idea of getting his hair sprayed white.

Jillian was less clear on what she wanted to be. A duck, a turtle, a ghost-duck, a ghost-turtle. Since she actually fit into the costume we made for Wesley’s first Halloween (after cutting out the feet) she got to be a turtle.  Plus, I wanted pictures of them both in the same costume.

The only downside to having Jillian dressed as a turtle was that she walked as slow as a turtle. She only hit every third or fourth house and was often being carried. On the upside she was pretty well content after she got three pieces of candy and would often stop to show me how much she had gotten.

By the end of the night the kids were ready to come home. Wesley raked in 3.25lbs of candy!  His bucket was pretty much full to the brim. He is currently hording it in his room. I just don’t understand that boy. I never could have let it sit like that. I’m more of an eat until I’m sick kind of a guy.

All our Halloween 2009 Photos on Flickr!

For all of Jillian’s crafts and her earlier pumpkin she has wanted happy face pumpkins, Wesley wants mean or angry faces, and Redmond just wants to eat them.

Both kids did  a good job assisting in the gutting of the pumpkins and neither was too grossed out (different than last year).

The finished product. From left to right: Jillian’s Happy Face, a Redmond inspired dog paw, and Wesley’s Angry Bat. He drew it on the pumpkin himself. I just did the cutting.

Heading to class.

Getting some window washing in before class starts.

All the kids in costume - and Becca too.

Playing around before we left...Cats are sure yummy!

Then after music class we went to Joshua’s work (Tel West) to do some trick or treating.  Joshua took with him a bag of candy and passed it out to his coworkers so the kids could get some treats.  Jillian was a bit unsure of what to do.  She saw Wesley run off and say “trick or treat” but she stayed back and just watched for a while.

Wesley just wanted to eat candy!

Both with a mouth full of candy.

She was the sucker queen today.

After a busy morning, we went home and had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon resting up for the big event.

We walked down to the library at about 6pm to meet our friends/Joshua’s co-workers to trick or treat as a group.

Getting a ride to the library.

We spent some time taking pictures of all of the kids before we headed out…

They were all very excited!

We are ready......

Just before we left.

The first full block (the blocks here are very big – as you know everything is bigger in Texas) was a bust.  There were no porch lights on.  But after that, it really started to be more exciting for the kids.  Wesley kept up with the big kids very well.  He did a lot of running – and also a lot of falling down.

Next house please.

Jillian stayed up the whole night.  She did a fair amount of trick or treating herself.  She was so cute – she would put her hand out or in the bowl, plop the candy in her bucket and say “Ganck You” then head down the driveway.  About halfway into it she had a lot candy in her bucket.  We put her in the stroller and snapped the bucket in too.  She would not let go.  While Wesley and the others finished the houses, she tried very hard to get into every piece of candy in her bucket.  She was successful with a package of Whoppers and a sucker.  Everything in her bucket was very sticky at the end of the night.

I think I like this bucket!

It was a great night.  Once we were done trick or treating we took the head off of Wesley’s costume.  He was just dripping with sweat.  I guess this costume would have been much better in the Northwest…  But he did not complain at all.

Super sweaty!!!!

Once we got home, at about 8:30, it took a long time for the kids to wind down.  There was a lot of screaming and tantrums, but with the amount of fun they had – it made that terrible hour a bit better.

We are looking forward to next year.  I wonder what we will create for them next year.

Wesley in his T-Rex costume.

We started with the body which Amber found at the thrift store.  It wouldn’t be hard to sew one yourself if 1) you knew how to sew and 2) you owned a sewing machine.  Neither of these apply to me.  From there we glued two blocks of Styrofoam together to make the snout.  Something I hadn’t considered is that the propellant in the spray glue would dissolve the Styrofoam.  As you’ll see later everything is covered in tape so I could apply more spray glue and to ensure the two blocks would not pull apart.

Blocks of styrofoam glued together.

Once the blocks were together I began the process of cutting and sanding them to the shape I wanted.  I was just making the top jaw to which I would attach the teeth and eyes.  I decided the best thing to do was mount this to his bike helmet which would form the rest of head and give us a nice secure way to put it on him.  I cut a docking point for the helmet as well.

Carved foam with area for helmet.

Carved out nose/snout.

I had originally planned to make the eyes out of Styrofoam as well.  But the glue melted my eyes to the point where they were not usable.  So, out came a big old sponge (which we actually used as a form for the spider costume from last year).  I attached it with staples and tape.  Then the whole thing got covered with tape to protect the Styrofoam from the glue I’d used to attach the fabric.

Eyes attached and covered in tape.

Once it was all taped up I attached the helmet using a couple of nylon ties.  It needed to be strong, but not hurt the helmet which will go back to its usual job of preventing brain damage this weekend.  I covered the snout with spray glue a small area at a time and applied the fabric, stretching and pushing it into the grooves I had carved.

Helmet attached and ready to go.

We added some pink felt for the mouth (Wesley calls it the tongue) and used stiff felt for teeth.  The felt is best attached with hot-glue.  We trimmed up the fabric, leaving it long in the back so that it could be tucked into his costume and act as the dinosaurs neck.  We added a few green spots to match his body, glued on some eyes and nostrils and it was ready to go.

The finished head.

The costume was a great success.  Wesley loved it and told me thank you several times for making it.  He loved “eating” things with his T-Rex teeth.  I’m glad they were soft and flexible.  By the end of the night they were all pushed out at different angle and I was calling him snaggletooth-rex.

The costume is a hit!

You may catch more flies with honey, but you catch more little boys dressed as spiders by handing out free candy. It didn’t take Wesley more than one house to realize that this was the best day ever. By the second house he was trying to go inside. If they give out candy at the door imagine what they have stashed away in the living room.

We only went around one block and it went pretty well. It is a little different here than in Washington. The weather is so warm (it is 10p here and still 69F) that a lot of folks sit around on their porch, driveway or lawn and hand out candy. Wesley was a little intimated by them if there were more than a few especially if they were in costume.

Near the end he did get frightened by a boy in a “Scream” mask. He was pretty terrified and let out a sad squealing sort of scream before I scooped him up. I carried him home as Amber and our friends finished up the block with their son. Wes and I turned on the LED “candles” in the pumpkins (so Wesley didn’t get burned) and waited. We had more than I thought and we gave away a pretty good chunk of candy. I’m sad, but it is probably for the best. I’ve still got plenty to munch.

Of course the trouble with having kids of your own is that while you are out begging strangers for candy, you can’t be giving somebody else’s kid cavities. It is kind of a catch-22. We mostly got older kids, but all costumed so it was still fun.

Jillian did great. She was asleep in five minutes but still super cute. She is covered in glitter, but none got in her eyes so no major screaming fits. She just looks good in bug eyes and pipe cleaner antennae. I’m not saying she should dress that way all the time, but if she did I’d be okay with it.

Here is the step-by-step for the costume creation starting with the spider.

We decided early on that Wesley would have eight legs total. His own two arms, his own two legs and four extras. I wanted Wesley to be the spider, not be wearing a spider. I mounted the legs, made out of pipe insulation, to cardboard with nylon ties.

Next we created the body parts using a can of expanding foam insulation. It is light, cheap, and can be made any shape you want. It cures in about an hour (longer if you make it as deep as we did). It puffs as it dries and sticks to darn near anything. I wore latex gloves and safety glasses. The thorax was sprayed directly over the legs and the abdomen was sprayed onto a paper bag and then placed over a sponge to give it a curve and make it look fuller. I ran out of foam and could have used more, but it turned out okay.

Once it had cured we cut and sanded the foam until it was the right shape. Then the legs were spray-painted black to cover up the writing and give it a better color. Unfortunately it didn’t stick well. Nothing really stuck to this stuff. The hot glue melted it and nothing else came close to bonding to it. Worked out okay though.

Because the foam was full of bubbles we covered it with black fabric. A little spray adhesive and it was done. It is a little lumpy, but okay. Ideally I’d have stretched the fabric more and used staples to keep it in place. Next time…

We attached the two pieces of the body together with Velcro. That way if Wesley sits down he won’t rip it apart, it will just pop off. The whole thing was then attached with Velcro to Wesley’s sweatshirt. So we can take it off of him easily without having to undress him. Here he is trying it on after we cut down the legs to be a more reasonable length.

We felt that it needed a bit of something to draw the costume together. So out came the silver spray paint. Amber drew the patterns and gave me direction on where all the stripes should go. I also inserted some lengths of wire clothes hanger and bent them to get a nicer look on the legs. Without the wire once we cut them down to size they stopped curving and just stuck straight out. Here is the finished costume with his spray-painted sweat suit. Ideally he’d have a hat with extra eyes, but Wesley doesn’t wear hats.

The fly costume was supposed to be the easy one. And while it did take fewer hours overall to put together it posed some real problems. Originally we thought we’d use a little headband to hold the antennae to Jillian’s head. But a brief trial left such deep red marks on her that we decided to go a different route. Here she is trailing the headband.

The eyes were made out of egg shaped Styrofoam that Amber got at a craft store. They were cut lengthwise and then carved out to fit the shape of Jillian’s round little head.

We then used spray adhesive to cover the eyes with mostly red glitter. There is a little bit of green in there too to give it that iridescent look.

I should have worn gloves for this part too.

The wings were a bit of a trick. I wanted them to be sort of shiny and clear like real wings. I did spray-paint some silver wings, but they just looked terrible. So we decided to make the wings out of bent wire and cover them in plastic wrap after seeing a similar set of fairy wings (though covered in nylons-like material). The trouble with plastic wrap is that it is clear so you can see the back (no tape) it melts with hot glue (had to be very careful) and it doesn’t really stick to anything. I went so far as to try to shrink it using a hair dryer. In the end it just took a number of tries and careful use of the hot glue gun. I think they look better in person than in the photo.

Since the elastic headband was too squeezy we made our own. I just folded over and sewed some black fabric and made a clasp out of velcro. To that we glued the eyes. I then cut a slit in the headband between the eyes, pumped it full of hot glue and inserted the shortened antennae. The longer version looked like a threat to nearby eyes. She isn’t too wiggly so the non-elastic band stays on just fine and doesn’t mar her little scalp.

All finished the fly costume looks like the photo below. Jillian adds a whole level of cuteness that really makes it adorable. More pictures of the actual trick-or-treating later.

And of course, like any good craftsman I kept my work area neat and clean.