Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make

Last year, the kids got really into Halloween. They agreed on a family costume and were super (pun intended) into dressing up as many times as possible for photos.

This year, Lincoln decided he HAD to be P.T. Barnum from The Greatest Showman. He is beyond obsessed with that movie, we’ve watched it multiple times a week ever since it came out. Caroline was fully on board with that as a family costume, since she wants nothing more in life than to join a circus as an aerialist. The rest of us agreed we could live with being assigned other characters, which Lincoln was happy to choose for us.

None of these costumes are available straight from the store yet. I had hoped that Chasing Fireflies might have them when this year’s catalog came out, but I think most kids still want to be superheroes or unicorns instead of characters from a musical with a pretty flimsy plot line. But I am not afraid of hot glue and sequins, and once I realized that wasn’t quite enough I learned to use my sewing machine. None of it would pass a close inspection, but for trick-or-treating (or photos!) they worked great.

So for Halloween 2018, I officially present:

Lincoln…as P. T. Barnum

Caroline…as Anne Wheeler

Evan…as Phillip Carlyle

Finnegan…as The Tattooed Man

And me…as Jenny Lind

These photos aren’t going to win any awards for technical perfection – taking pictures inside dark spaces is NOT my specialty, four kids is a lot of kids to pose, and toddlers are not the best listeners. But that doesn’t make them any less fun. None of the kids care if the pictures are a little grainy, all they care about is seeing their dreams come true.

Sources (all Amazon affiliate links):

Tiny tuxedo
Red vest
Pink wig
Purple leotard
Sparkle tank top
Cream bolero
Hoop skirt
Black hat (this is the only one of several I ordered that actually fit Linc!)
Red Hat
Temporary tattoos
More tattoos
Girl’s dance tights

All the trim and fabric is from Joann’s. One stick is a dowel I painted, the other is from Party City. Evan and Finnegan owned most of their costumes, I got the vest at Goodwill and Finn’s undershirt at Walmart. All the sparkly jewelry is also from Walmart. Also a huge shout out to my amazing hairdresser Jackie at Wild Love Hair Studio for making me a redhead.

And the biggest thank you goes to The Garde Arts Center in New London. I sent an email asking about maybe possibly using just their lobby for some photos and within 24 hours they had found me a time to come in and use the whole theater. Carolyn was beyond generous with her time and resources (I think Finnegan wanted to go home with her) and I could not have made this magic without them. They are a non-profit organization that has worked to painstakingly restore this old movie house to its original glory. I made a donation to thank them for their time and we’ll be attending as many events there as possible, both because it’s an amazing building and because they’re a wonderful organization. (They’re having an awesome Halloween Movie event! You can take the kids to see Hotel Transylvania on Saturday the 27th!)

Happy Halloween!

Where it’s covered in all the colored lights
Where the runaways are runnin’ the night
Impossible comes true, it’s takin’ over you
Oh, this is the greatest show
We light it up, we won’t come down
And the sun can’t stop us now
Watchin’ it come true, it’s takin’ over you
Oh, this is the greatest show

We had another mild-weather Halloween here in Connecticut. It’s sort of unfair that my New England children have never known the joy of wearing their winter coats UNDER their Halloween costumes while freezing to death for some candy. We had friends over for an hour of trick or treating followed by an hour and a half of handing out candy, because that part is just as good and you feet don’t get as tired.

The kids got enough loot that they don’t actually CARE about all the candy, so it’s been consolidated and will be rationed out until I end up eating most of it. I wish there had been fewer Whoppers (ew) and more Midnight Milky Ways (yum), but more than enough of it is high quality to make it a successful Halloween all around. If you recognize the shark in these photos, it was Evan’s costume from last year, lent to a friend who was SUPER excited about it. Everyone’s costumes this year were amazing (they were all from Chasing Fireflies, which is why. All the monies, but so awesome).

Our neighbors were projecting Hotel Transylvania onto the side of their garage. Two thumbs up.

The aquarium always does fun stuff for Halloween and we’ve been going since Evan was a baby. This year the costume dress up weekend was “Pirate and Princess” themed. Unfortunately, I spend a bazillion dollars on costumes that are not pirates or princesses but were TOTALLY aquarium appropriate…so the kids dressed up anyway.

Although they weren’t eligible for the pirate/princess costume contests, I can promise you Evan won Unofficial Best Costume, just based on the fact that EVERY person we saw commented on it. Because it’s AMAZING.

p.s. The weird spacing thing on photos with captions makes me crazy but I cannot fix it so try not to let it drive you crazy too.

She traded her mermaid crown for one she made in the craft room

LOOK AT THAT COSTUME

They loved all the throwing games to win “pirate gold”

I wonder if the seals are getting nervous about the shark staring at them.

There’s an art installation set up about ocean pollution. This one was adorable/sad.

He’s goldfish. FYI.

Evan saw the pirate and yelled “JACK SPARROW!” and the pirate said “CAPTAIN. It’s CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow!” This was like the 5th time we ran into him just walking around, obviously they’re BFF’s now.

This is the best I can do for family photos right now.

Sorry Linc.

Then we went home and painted/carved pumpkins, something we never managed to get around to last year. Painting is genius, since carving is such a PITA.

I’ve already posted these pictures in other places so apologies if you’ve already seen them. Feel free to roll your eyes at me for showing off my adorable kid all over the place. STFU Parents, amirite?

p.s. How excited am I that he wore this costume again this year? (Last year’s photos here) It makes spending way to many dollars on that Max suit hurt a lot less.

She is a mermaid princess, in case that was unclear by the random blue dress.

The light-up sneakers are a nice addition to the costumes, don’t you think?

Wheeeeeee! It turn out inviting every single person I saw for three weeks didn’t mean any of them wanted to drive out in a snowstorm to attend my Halloween party, so I didn’t end up with the huge crowd I was worried about anticipating. It also turns out all it takes to wear out my kids is running in circles for three hours (at least an hour of which was LITERAL running in circles – our first floor makes loop). Good to know, hard to replicate on a daily basis.

Most of the food was inspired by Pinterest, so check out my Halloween board here for details. I also used the free printables found here for some of the decoration and labels. I also FINALLY used the cookbook I got at The Creative Connection that had all the cute “gross” food in it. The rest of the stuff is a mish-mash of craft store decor and Target purchases that are probably not really worth listing. I’m going to force myself to limit the photos on this post to a reasonable semi-reasonable almost reasonable number, but check out the blog Facebook album for ALL the rest (probably only something you want to do if you were actually here and want pics of your kid.) They’re all kind of terrible, because the light in my house is terrible without sunshine – and we don’t get much sunshine during freak snow storms – but I can’t stop myself from putting them up anyways. It’s a sickness, really.

Pumpkin decorating station

The kids loved it, but next time maybe I won't set out so much glitter.

Spooky mantle decor

Little Evan's best friends are adorable

Hot dog mummies, dead fingers, ghost lollipops, zombie pizza (which was way cuter before it was cooked)

Clementine "pumpkin" pyramid

Sparkling cider & V-8 Fruit Fusion as spooky drinks, chocolate coverd rice crispie treats, mini donut eyeballs, ghost pretzel sticks

Sea monster veggie dip

Trifle with Death trifle

Penant banner & pumpkin lights

I don't think E was very happy I made him wear a costume

Too-dark photobooth was still a hit

Thanks for coming! Have a great night! Dinosaur rawr!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who came, and also HUGE apologies to anyone local who I didn’t invite in time. I passed them out at Stroller Strides a few different days but kept forgetting who had gotten them, so I promise you were SUPPOSED to be invited and I just suck. Next time I’ll just put a general party announcement on my Facebook and hope no creepy strangers show up. But YOU’RE not a creepy stranger, you’re a blog friend, so next time you’re invited too.

Whew. Now I’m going to spend a week cleaning my house and hiding from the thought that Caroline’s 1st birthday is in less than 7 weeks. Poor second child’s probably getting a store bought cake and a balloon.