Jengo Fett, Strawberry Shortcake and their Peacock

This is Halloween for me. Seeing the kids dressed up looking so cute in their costumes. I love to watch them go through the process of deciding who they want to dress up as. Deke and I were bums and did not dress up this year. I figure last year I made the costumes and the entire family dressed up so that has to count for something right? I can't believe how much our kids have grown in this last year. They all look so much older :(Plus we already have a great idea for the whole fam to dress up next year. Hunter at first kept telling us that he wanted to be Harry Potter again this year. Then as it got closer he debated between Mario from Super Mario Bros. or Jengo Fett from Star Wars who I actually have no idea who that is :) In the end Jango Fett won out, we added some cool gloves to the costume and he carried one of his nerf guns and tada... a great Jengo Fett. I love that he asked me to "take some cool action shots." He also jumped out of bushes at least twice that night and scared me half to death all in the name of "being on a secret mission, part of a special team" there is no Halloween at this house without the imagination of this child. Who is every year in true character everytime his costume is on. Avery from pretty early one had mentioned that she maybe would like to be Strawberry Shortcake. The first time we went to Target and actually looked at costumes she also spied a hot pink batgirl costume with spiked gloves and a silver bat belt. "Actually, maybe I want to be that!" she told us. We decided to give her a little time to think on it. She decided to be strawberry and started discussing with Deke and I the fact that strawberry shortcake actually had pink hair and that she reeeeally needed the pink wig so that everyone would know who she was. So we checked out a wig. The costume itself was only $20 but the the wig alone was about $16, almost as much as the costume. "Sorry Ave, no wig" we told her but I added that I would let her wear makeup and give her freckles like strawberry. She agreed but still tried to convince us on the wig for about a week later. Once we put her hair in two ponies, added some blush and cute little freckles I thought she made a really cute Strawberry Shortcake. I love her poses for pictures with her hip thrown out to one side and her hands on her hips. Then there was Emma. I at first thought about making her be Ariel for Halloween for all the obvious reasons. But once I started looking at toddler costumes online and saw all the cute babies in animal costumes I realized that she is only little for a few short years. There will be so many years where she wants to be a princess, or fairy ever year. I definitely wanted to put her in a cute animal costume. I contemplated making her be Avery's strawberry and thought to myself how cute that would be, and then thought back to my own childhood with my sisters. I was Bo Peep they were the sheep etc. etc. I remembered loving this as the older sister but what about when you are the younger sister?? What if you got put in some sheep costume that clearly wasn't as cute or fun as the Bo Peep costume. What if you didn't even want to be a sheep but Mom thought it was cute because then your costumes all went together. If I had been forced to be a sheep I may have resented that. Hence last year, Hunter was Harry Potter, Avery was and owl so Emma was an owl. I decided that this year I needed to let Emma's costume be her own thing. Possiblities included a fluffy pink poodle, a cute blue and pink hippo and then I came across the peacock costume. The thought of her little toddling tush shaking side to side with feathers was enough to sell me. However they didn't have it it any stores and some places online had it really expensive so I had to search. The fact that it was hard to get made it all the more intriguing and fun since there probably wouldn't be a lot of other peacocks running around on Halloween. Don't get me started on my annoyance when I started calling around to stores and all they carried were "adult peacock costumes" heavy emphasis on the adult part. Finally after calling and going to quite a few store I told Deke if one more person offered me an adult women's naughty peacock costume I was going to scream. An adult peacock costume really? I am sorry but the pictures of them looked so ridiculous it was not even funny. Really lady, you feel sexy wearing that?? Wow. Or how about the three, three!, scantilly clad adult Strawberry Shortcake's we saw out trick or treating. Again, did you look in the mirror? You think you look sexy? I am sorry but I find it hard to believe that a naughty peacock or sultry Strawberry Shortcake is on the top or rather on any list of a husbands costume fantasy. Yeah, no. I may have had a couple of choice words come to my head for one of the special Strawberry dressed women who told Avery "look we have the same costume!" First of all , uh no lady, not even close. Second of all if you are wearing something that is a character that a five year old would like and giving it your own highly inappropriate rendition, get a clue, you look like an idiot. Keep it to yourself" I said in my head and I reiterated to Avery that her own costume was much cuter and that it was appropriate. Anyways back to the peacock...So I ordered it and was so excited when it came. I love it. I love the pictures of her in it, but believe me when I say they don't even do justice to how flippin cute she looks when she walks and runs in it. When I first put it on her it sort of scared her and she went around and around like a puppy chasing its tail trying figure out what the heck was behind her. Hilarious. After having her wear it everyday for a little while she soon loved it and would go into our closet and point at it wanting us to get it down for her. I had really wanted to put some cute little tights on with it but it is az and so of course it was way to warm for that even in Oct. Look at her little bum. Ooohh so cute. That night after a quick bite to eat we headed out to trick or treat. We brought the wagon for Emma but she hardly spent anytime in it wanting to follow big brother and sister up to the doors. Hunter and Avery wanting to run up and down from the houses, me calling to them to slow up as I watched the toddling peacock's little legs running as fast as they could trying to manage her pumpkin bucket and keep pushing her head feathers out of her face, hurrying to keep up with them. They got into a groove and would take turns holding her hand and helping her walk up to the door. When they would knock she would raise her little fist to the door and give a little pound. Hunter and Ave would say trick or treat and raise their buckets and in between them a little bucketed hand would jut out waiting for a treat as well. They were so cute. Watching Emma this year was so much fun. She was so adorable. So adorable in fact that we had four random people take pictures of her. Three on their cell phones, commenting how cute she was then click whipped it out and took a picture of her. Shouldn't you ask someone before you take a picture of their kid or is that normal these days? Anyways then we had another lady take a picture on her digital camera. I have never had this happen so this was new to me. I am glad they thought she was cute but it was also a little wierd to me. When they finished at a house, she would come back from the door with the most recent piece in hand to show me. Once I had commented on it then she would drop it in and hurry off to catch up with them determined not to miss in on the action. I couldn't believe how much she walked.This year in our neighborhood there were some people that were wearing pretty scary masks which scared both the girls. One guy was wearing a full out Batman costume that looked like the real Batman it was pretty cool. Also a lot of people had done their houses up really creepy with decorations so there was a couple that Emma wouldn't go up to. We passed this house that had this creepy thing out front of it. Hunter started walking towards it and a guy in a gorilla mask jumped forward trying to scare him. Hunter who had no reaction and looked completely unphased held up is bucket an asked Trick or Treat?? Deke and I were dying, the lady who owned the house was cracking up as well. I was amazed that he wasn't scared. After walking a very good portion of the neighborhood Emma finally resulted to the wagon and Hunter and Avery admitted that their legs were getting pretty tired so we headed back to the house. There all three dumped their buckets and spent a half hour inspecting, trading and sampling their loot. Of course they got way too much candy of which they will probably only get a small small fraction of to actually eat. Then take Deke and I's cut off the top and the rest will be history to help us all stay healthy. HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone.