bibbidi bobbidi BOO!

Now that it is December I figured I would follow my annual tradition of posting about Halloween.    At least last year I had the excuse of a new baby, but this year no such luck.   However, I think with two little boys' birthdays, Halloween, and Thanksgiving I have a pretty good excuse.  I do my best.  Oh well, at least I am months ahead of my sister (seriously Em, just post something already!).

So this year, there was a big debate amongst the Burch Jerks and Speier Kids and Weisse Guys about what we could possibly do to compete with previous year's costumes. Lots of ideas were thrown around.  We were trying to stick with doing something all together, but nobody could seem to agree on anything.   Once I suggested to Jimmy that he and Gus be Jaq and Gus Gus from Cinderella, he was stuck on it.  The other guys decided to be "How to Train Your Dragon" characters, which honestly Jimmy would have loved if it had been the first thing I suggested.  He would have made a great Toothless, but I might have needed a few months advance notice to make a dragon costume.  Just to make sure he wouldn't be disappointed, I double checked that he didn't want to do something with his cousins, but he said he wanted to be the mice with Gus.  We were sad to break our tradition, but it ended up being fun for Zach and I because we go to dress up too.  We even made a Cinderella's Carriage Pumpkin:

Our costumes weren't too complicated, but somehow they still seemed to take me forever.  I mostly just had to collect lots of odds and ends from our personal wardrobes, Goodwill, and the fabric store.  I decided to be Cinderella in the rag costume because it seemed easy and I never was the fancy princess type .  Jimmy wanted me to be the one in the blue dress, but I told him that was too expensive and/or hard to make.  So when we told people what we were going to be, he would like to say, "Mom doesn't want to be the one in blue because it is too expensive."  (He actually often talks about how things are too expensive so maybe I am rubbing off on him too much)  At first, I wanted Zach to be Prince Charming, but he opted for the Duke because he wanted to shave his beard into an awesome mustache.  And it certainly did turn out awesome.  Here is what we were going for:

 
And here is how we turned out:

My brother Danny went as Marty McFly which I thought was awesome so I had to share even though the only picture I got was a little blurry.

 Here are the folks from "How To Train Your Dragon":

Luke Speier's brother Justin really got in the spirit and rented his own Viking costume (I think it was meant for a female).  He had lots of fun leading his fearless group of Vikings trick or treating and threatening to pilage the houses if they didn't give them candy.  See more pictures on Allie's blog.

The Burch Jerks are pretty tough stuff.

My sister and her kids actually got dressed back in costume to come over to our house the next morning for Jimmy's birthday.  So my boys and I gladly got back in our costumes to have a little photo shoot.  Emily and I both agreed that our actual Halloween picture session was very rushed as the sun was slowly going down.  I actually never managed to get Gus in his full costume once we got out of the car at Emily's house.  I never got his whiskers painted on and since he really wouldn't keep the hat on, he didn't have much other than a yellow belly shirt and brown socks over his shoes.  I was so happy to get a chance to get some cute shots.  Zach thinks the pictures shouldn't really matter and you should just enjoy the moment, but he wasn't the one spending all that time making the costumes.  These are memories that must be captured for posterity!!!  He just doesn't get it.

Cinderella and her mice.

Jimmy as Jaq:

Gus as Gus Gus 

(Not gonna lie, this is the cleaned up photoshop version.  See further below for the real deal)

We found that giving Gus a Twix made him happy for picture taking. Messy yes, but so worth it.

Me and my cute boys.

These two boys are such little goofballs for the camera:

Hiding in the Bushes:

A sneaky little mouse:

I had to get a shot that featured the tail:

Our "Max Boat" became a Viking ship and Jimmy got a chance to be the dragon after all:

Then we took our traditional glowing pumpkin picture later that night and Gus got to be in it this year. 

(See previous years here and here)

They rotted within a few days of these pictures and Jimmy was almost in tears over it. 

I explained that we took pictures of them so we can always remember them, but they don't last forever. He was mostly okay with that since like me he loves looking at photo albums.  So the point is: Take pictures of everything even if your husband complains!

Happy Very Late Halloween.