Happy Halloween from Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

Happy Halloween! Tim and I managed to pull our costumes together in time for our friends’ annual Pole Barn Halloween Bash on Saturday. Here’s what we did (and a few things we’ll do differently if we wear these costumes again):

• For Paul Bunyan, Tim wore a flannel jacket, jeans, and his Elmer Fudd hat. He had Important Meetings during the week and didn’t want to have too much beard scruff going on, but he did have some nice stubble the day of the party. He made an ax out of wood scraps, gray spray paint, and black electrical tape. To give himself the “giant” effect, he glued plastic farm toys onto plywood pieces covered with green felt. He tied the two scenes onto his hiking boots with pipe cleaners. Which worked, except it was really hard for him to walk!
• If we were to do this again, I think we’d use an old pair of boots and attach the plywood directly to the bottom of the boots. (With nails? Glue gun?)
• For Babe, I made horns out of blue Model Magic clay and ears out of foam that I stapled into cow-ear shapes. I hot-glued everything onto a blue headband, stuck on some fake eyelashes, and wore the bluest hoodie and yoga pants I could find. If I’d been feeling better last week, I would have shopped around more for a proper cow nose. Instead, I found a nose online, printed it out, colored it blue, and glued it to a popsicle stick. For the tail, I sprayed some rope blue and frayed the end a bit. (Can you see my little witch holding it up for the photo?) I also wore a cowbell around my neck, but I took it off so I could play along with our friends’ amazing band.
• For next time: I would use brown foam sheets to make hooves to wear over my hands and feet. And I would probably wear a blue wig or spray my hair blue.

Are you dressing up for Halloween? I always love to see the clever costumes people come up with.

Lots of fun things happening around here today: the kids have classroom parties, followed by the annual Halloween Parade. After that we’ll enjoy our traditional dinner of chili and cornbread and wait impatiently for Tim to get home from work so we can head out trick-or-treating.

I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween!