Halloween 2012

Yesterday our town did all of it's Halloween celebration stuff, blocked off the streets down town and a lot of the local businesses and churches and whatnot had tables set up, some with games, for the kids. We are still doing trick or treating on Wednesday of course, but just as with probably everybody reading this blog, Halloween is a month long celebration for my family, and we look for any and every reason to dress up and go out for free candy.

The kids went as Gotham City Impostors this year, which was great for me for a lots of reasons. I freakin LOVE that game, love the art design, costumes, etc. and I love Batman and Joker, obviously. So I had a blast coming up with stuff to put into the costumes. Being that in the game the costumes are all made up of homemade stuff, I got to flex my creative muscles a bit, and only made one trip to Dollar Tree and one trip to Walmart, for a combined total of less than $20 on both costumes. Halloween costumes are great, cheap homemade Halloween costumes are AWESOME.

Jacob went as a Bat...

 The cowl was the first thing we decided on, I had been wanting to make one of these since the first time I saw it in the game. It's hilariously awful, and I knew it would look awesome. I took a cardboard box from work, spray painted it blue, cut out the eyes, drew the mouth on a piece of paper and taped it to the front. I got the gloves at Dollar Tree, cut the fingers off, and drew in the Bat symbols and stripes with Sharpies. You can't see them in the picture, but he's also got some old school looking knee socks with black and yellow stripes at the top, which also came from Dollar Tree. For the cape, I just safety pinned a blue towel to around his shoulders. The handcuffs we found at the bottom of one of the toy boxes in the kids room. Finally, I let him draw and color the Bat symbol, then cut it out, and I safety pinned it to his shirt. All in all, I was really happy with how it turned out, even though absolutely NOBODY got the reference. The most frequent questions we got were "Are you Lego Batman?" and strangely "Are you a robot?". I don't know what the hell kind of robots these people grew up watching, but I've never seen one that looked like a Gotham City Impostor.

For miss Caitlin, she was all pumped up to be Joker...

 For hers, the most expensive thing was the shirt. I got a dress shirt/tie combo thing at WalMart for $8. I also got the makeup and green hair spray stuff at WalMart. The purple and black tights, and purple skirt we already had, as well as the boots. The feather boa we found at Dollar Tree. Again, I was really happy with how the costume turned out. She looked great, and was immediately recognized by almost everyone as Joker.

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I had intended for us to carve our pumpkins this year when we got home, but everybody was too worn out and I decided to just wait until this morning to do them...

 I had seen a Leslie Vernon design from "Behind the Mask" online earlier this month, and figured I would give it a try for mine. As per usual, I don't print out stencils or anything like that, I free hand sketch on the pumpkin with a sharpie and then do my carving. Unfortunately I couldn't find my saws when I went through the cabinet I keep them in, which means either the kids got them out and lost them, or a Halloween enthusiast broke into the house and stole only my pumpkin carving tools. In any event, I had to carve Leslie with a regular kitchen knife. I'm pretty happy with it, but can't help but feel like it would've looked better if I had my stuff.

Jacob kept with the Batman theme and did a Bat symbol. I told him this year I wanted him to do his own, without my help. I sketched the symbol on the side of the pumpkin and let him have at it. I was highly impressed with the end result, I think he did a great job. This kid just might have a future in pumpkin carving...

Finally, for Caitlin's, the original idea was to do the classic Jack O' Lantern from the credits on John Carpenter's Halloween. She seemed to dig the idea, but when I cut the top off and started cleaning out the guts I had her helping me, and after pulling out her first handful of pumpkin guts, she looked at me and said.."Dad, this is gross...it's making me sick." in true dramatic fashion. I asked her what she thought about having the pumpkin puking his guts out, and of course she loved the idea. I know it's cliche, but I had never actually done one of these before and I figured it would be fun for her.

There ya go, Halloween at the Bones household this year! The kids got tons of candy and we all had a blast. And there's still regular Trick or Treating on Wednesday to go! This is exactly why October is my favorite time of year. Happy Halloween kiddies!