There were no groans this year when I proclaimed what our family costume theme would be. I think that was partly because we love this movie so much, and partly because I’ve been planning this since last Halloween.

Last year we didn’t do a family costume theme. I was actually out of town for work over Halloween. So everyone got a pass and did their own thing. This year I was back in the game and excited to incorporate a baby into the theme.

Admittedly we won’t be winning any awards for originality. I imagine we will see lots of these on Instagram this year, but I didn’t care. Big T was excited to be Dash and Lil’ J was so excited I let her get a wig to look like violet. She was thrilled about it at first but halfway through our church Trunk or Treat party it came off and she was happy to rock her curls with a headband.

My husband is always willing to dress up for pictures but he’s quick to take off his costume right after. This year he wore his shirt to Trunk or Treat. And I imagine he’ll wear it around the block for trick or treating (though he’ll likely ditch the mask).

Lee Lee has so much hair and I probably could get some of it to stick up like Jack Jack but I opted to slap on an orange bow instead. Lil’ J insisted I pick out the onesie with a tutu for her, so she’s a very frilly Jack Jack.

I was very very close to getting a full on Ms. Incredibles costume but I didn’t want to spend the money for something I’ll wear once and I know I’ll wear this shirt all the time.

This Incredibles theme may not beat our Zootopia family costume we did a couple years ago. Or the Peter Pan theme from the year before that, and the Flintstones the year before that. But I’m happy that my kids were still happy to dress up together and Lil’ J even said “Next year we should…” I don’t even remember what she said we should do, I’m just thrilled to be included.

Happy Halloween!

What are you all dressing up as? Have you ever done a family costume theme?

Growing up summer was easily my favorite season. Summers in Georgia were hot, but there were water hoses and sprinklers to play in and plenty of rainstorms to cool us down. Summer meant no school, and lots of time outside. I loved scouring the yard for giant pudgy caterpillars, poking ant piles with sticks, and catching lightning bugs as the sun would set.

As I’ve gotten older summer hasn’t had the same appeal. For one it’s way hotter, especially being in Texas now. No, what I look forward to are these fall months. 70 degree day hikes, afternoons where we leave the windows open and the kids jump on the trampoline and swing on the swing set for hours.

I look forward to trick or treating with the kids, visiting the pumpkin patch and decorating pumpkins (decorating because with me we rarely get around to carving). The pumpkin patch is like Disney World, something we all love to do together. But a lot less expensive and way closer.

I think we’re about 5 for 5 on years we’ve gone to our local pumpkin patch but 0 for 5 when it comes to carving them. But I still love the tradition of picking one out to potentially carve.

Why? Let me tell you!

1. The photo ops. When else am I going to have an excuse to dress my kids up in coordinating clothes but for holidays and festive activities like these?

2. The hunt. I asked my daughter why she likes to visit the pumpkin patch and her favorite part about it and she said “choosing the BEST pumpkin!” There’s something about searching for the perfect round pumpkin that’s not too big and not too small. I usually leave this part entirely up to my kids to decide.

3. The wagons. Wagons for pumpkins, or dragging sisters, or daddy dragging you in, or to sit and enjoy a snack in. Next to the pumpkins themselves, the wagons were my son’s favorite part about the outing.

4. The activities. My favorite pumpkin patches have corn mazes and hay rides. Or face painting and games. Our little pumpkin patch down the road doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. But it still gets us outside together. Which leads me to #5.

5. The time we spend together. Fresh air, good weather, and cheap entertainment. We’ll bring our own snacks if we’re wanting to avoid hitting any concessions. My daughter ate one of her favorite CLIF Kid Zbar Filled Apple Almond Butter with apple almond butter. while she sat in the wagon. If it were up to me we’d spend hours at a pumpkin patch and leave when the kids were ready to pass out on the way home. The one we went to this year is really small so we weren’t there too long, but I love being together outside in the beautiful weather, picking out pumpkins even when we know we aren’t really going to carve them.

We didn’t grab a family picture this year at the pumpkin patch which bums me out a little. But we did get one last year at the same place, that I still love.

Did you make a trip to the pumpkin patch this year? Here’s the bigger question… Did you ACTUALLY carve the pumpkin?

I’m passionate about getting my kids outdoors to play, and making meaningful memories together. That’s why I’ve partnered with CLIF Kid for 2017, to share our adventures of being active as a family. CLIF Kid Zbar® Filled is crafted with creamy, delicious nut butter filling and a blend of nutrients for energy to help keep your kids zipping and zooming along. Their products are free of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors.  You can learn more about this product here. 

It’s been a while since I’ve typed the letters DIY around here, but what can I say, the holiday bring it out of me. The cool thing is my kids are finally old enough to where I can hand them some supplies, rough directions and let them go for it.

Our Halloween decorations are still up in the attic but instead of waiting for my husband to go up and grab them for us (because I don’t want to deal with spiders thank you very much), we went ahead and made something new to display until we get out other things down.

These are juice box monsters, and they are so easy to make. So easy my kids basically made these by themselves. And they turned out super cute.

Here’s the materials you’ll need to make these:

Construction paper
Tape
Scissors
Juicy Juice boxes (empty or full)
Glue
Googly eyes

Step 1 (optional)

My son liked drinking his juice box then working with an empty juice container, but this is optional. If you’re hosting a Halloween party with kids you may want to keep the juice box full and have these little monsters set up as a decoration that doubles as a fun drink.

Step 2

Cut the construction paper to fit around the juice box. No need to be exact, it can fold over itself a little bit. Then tape it down.

Step 3

Decorate the front with silly faces. Use googly eyes, cut pieces of construction paper to make mouthes or hair etc. You can also get creative and use other household items such as toilet paper to make faces.

My son isn’t into crafting at all. Coloring isn’t his thing, and glue gives him the heebie jeebies. But he was happy to participate in this activity because it involved drinking his favorite juice. He made a monster all by himself and proudly showed it off when he was done.

My daughter on the other hand made half a dozen by herself, and even kept going once I was done taking photos, so we’ll be drinking from decorated juice boxes all month.

You can find a bunch of other family time activities on the Juice Juice Family Time page. Juicy Juice products are made from real juice, with sweetness that comes from the fruit and no added sugar or artificial sweeteners!

I’m teaming up with Juicy Juice this to share our family adventures and inspire others to enjoy family time together. All opinions are my own.

Each year I begin to panic a little before Halloween wondering if I’ll get everyone on board for a family costume once again. Let’s review our costumes for the last few years. We were the Flinstones in 2014, in 2015 we were characters from Peter Pan, and this year… Well, you’ll see.

Earlier this year Lil’ J declared Zootpia as her new favorite movie. Not really a surprise, it was a huge hit in the box office and kids and adults loved it. She said she wanted to be Judy Hopps for Halloween. Of course instantly my mind began whizzing around thinking of the roles the rest of us could fill. Big T was an obvious candidate for Nick Wilde.

I was more likely to make a terrible Gazelle. Then I remembered the scene where Nick fluffs Assistant Mayor Bellweather’s “hair” and Judy tells him to stop because you’re not suppose to touch a sheep’s wool. Enter #NaturalHairProblems.

It fit.

I decided my husband would be Chief Bogo and he agreed to play along. It was either that or Mayor Lionheart and playing a buff police officer seemed more fitting.

Later while watching a cute Amazon Prime commercial where a dog had a lion mane it struck me that Snoop needed one of those, and HEY! Amazon also has dog suits. BOOM. Mayor Lionheart.

Here we are in all of our glory. 

Despite pulling it together this is the family theme that almost didn’t happen. A few months ago Lil’ J decided she didn’t want to be Judy Hopps, she wanted to be a witch. A witch in a pretty dress. She proceeded to tell everyone that she wanted to be a witch but I was making her be Judy Hopps.

Now let me say I didn’t date let her browse Halloween costume magazine because I know it would lead to indecision after indecision and I really wanted to get at least one more year of a family theme in. Besides, six months ago we agreed she’d be Judy Hopps. No takebacks!

Judy Hopps

My daughter finally came around when my little sister Kimberly asked if we were doing another family costume theme to try to win the church Halloween costume contest. Lil’ J’s ears perked up at the idea of winning a contest and she was all in. I left out the fact that we’d be visiting family in Utah during the Halloween party, but when her costume arrived in the mail (I didn’t have the energy to make all of them this year) she was head over heels excited. Her favorite part being the tail.

Nick Wilde

I got my son a Nick Wilde jacket on clearance at the Disney store months ago but it was still warm all October so I got a this cheap costume on Amazon. I’m not into the double head situation so I got him a different pair of ears and glued the corners to make them more fox-like.

Chief Bogo

My husband’s costume was the most work. Though he’s an officer he obviously wasn’t going to parade around in it for Halloween, so I got him a officer-looking shirt at Goodwill, ripped off the weird dragon pockets and hot glued on a good amount of crooked felt stars.

I also made him a felt badge by tracing the one from the Judy Hopps costume.

The horns I made by… Ok well I sort of cheated. I bought Maleficent horns, and re-glued them to the headband and painted them grey. I cut and hot glued some felt ears and BOOM! He’s a buffalo.

After all that work he refused to walk around the neighborhood in it, saying he only contractually agreed to pose for this photo.

Assistant Mayor Bellweather

My costume was probably the easiest. I have so many blazers in the back of my closet from my news anchor days. I got a pleated skirt from Goodwill and these giant fake glasses off Amazon. Put my fro up in a top bun and pinned a little bit down in the back. I ordered my cute sheep ears from this etsy shop.

So what do you think? How did we do? Do ya’ll do family costumes?

Here’s hoping I’ll get my family to cooperate again next year. If not, well, I enjoyed the last three, and this year we went out with a bang.

Alright, I must admit it probably was a little shady of me to hand my husband an elaborate 7-piece pirate costume when I just threw on some basketball shorts and a beanie. But what can I say?

In true mom fashion, I had spent so much time piecing together everyone else’s costume that I forgot to plan mine.

Initially I thought I’d play the part of Wendy. There are even some awesome cosplay costumes for under $20 on ebay. But I just didn’t get it together in time. So instead I went the Mr. Smee route.

The morning of Halloween I was exhausted. I had finally made it home from my trip. All flights into Austin were cancelled because of bad weather around the time I was flying in. In my eagerness to get home I drove down with my dad, but we eventually hit a standstill on the freeway because of a section of the interstate was underwater. It took us about 7 hours to make it past that one spot.

I was so happy just to finally be home with my family, and snuggle my kids that I nearly forgot it was Halloween.

When it was about time to head out trick-or-treating, my husband emerged from our room decked out as Captain Hook and man, I wish I had a camera rolling to capture Lil’ J’s squeals. She laughed and hugged him and teased him to chase her. Her little brother was in shock, having never seen his dad in anything like that all he could say was “Umm…” and point at him. I later realized he was most impressed by his hat.

 My husband had warned me before he would wear the costume for pictures but was NOT going out like that. I think he may have kept it on if it wasn’t so hot, but we are in Texas.

I think Big T had the most fun trick or treating. He quickly remembered last year, or got the hang of the process this year, and he didn’t want to go home after we had made the rounds.

“I say ‘trick-o-treat’… More trick-or-treat.”

It was so adorable. He’s not even really that into candy, but he loves people watching and filling up a bucket.

I can’t believe I didn’t take any Halloween video this year! I’m kinda bummed, but I did get a lot of photos. They’re some of my favorites to look at and compare from year to year.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever manage to pull off a family theme again. I suspect it’s the last year my son won’t have much of a preference. Lil’ J told me she loves Halloween the most and is already thinking about next year’s costume. Right now she’s thinking superhero.

Did you have a good Halloween?

After going round and round with Lil’ J about what she wanted to be for Halloween, we finally settled on Tinkerbell. We’ve been working to get a family costume coordinated.

Lil’ J already failed to convince her daddy to be Peter Pan so she settled for Captain Hook.

I sent my husband a text message with the costume I found, and it went something like this:

She says: Hey babe, I just ordered your Halloween costume!

He says: Oh hell no…

She says: Come on!! We are all going as Peter Pan characters and the kids will think you’re SO cool!

He says: They already do.

He is a cool dad, but this would give him major bonus points–at least with me. I showed a picture of the costume to Lil’ J, and told her she should ask daddy if he’ll wear it. She looked at the photo on my phone, gave it back to me and said, “Um, I don’t want him to get mad at me.” Poor thing probably had flashbacks of when she asked him to be Peter Pan.

A couple days later, I heard my husband announcing he had a secret to tell our daughter that she couldn’t tell me. They huddled and whispered over homework. They do this every now and then so I didn’t think anything of it and forgot how hard it was for my daughter to keep a secret… Until the next afternoon when she told me “Daddy says if I practice my numbers every day he’ll be Captain Hook for Halloween!”

My heart leapt. Oh, we could do that. Of course I hadn’t actually ordered the costume, but now I basically had his blessing. (Between you and me, I just ordered one even more elaborate).

Will he actually wear it? It’ll come down to Halloween night, we’ll see. It’ll be the first of a few battles that night, I’m sure. Others will be convincing our little Peter Pan to stay with us and not run away. Making sure our Tinker Bell doesn’t eat any candy before we inspect it (though she’s generally good about this). And arguing with Captain Hook about which houses are indeed passing out candy.

The general rule of thumb is if the porch lights are on, it’s game. But my husband likes to also see a certain amount of Halloween decorations out front before approaching. Just how many tricks it takes to meet his quota, I’m not sure. But we wind up skipping a lot.

According to Allstate, I’m right that the porch light is a good indicator, while dark houses are probably not participating.

Here are 5 more tips from Allstate to keep us all safe this Halloween:

• Take a working flashlight and/or glow sticks to make sure you and your kids are visible from afar. You can also add reflective tape to costumes and bags to increase visibility.
• Be sure to walk only on sidewalks, and to take extra caution when crossing streets. Never dart out from behind parked vehicles.
• Stick to familiar homes and neighborhoods or pre-plan where you will trick-or-treat.
• Shoes should fit well and costumes should be short enough so that your trick-or-treater won’t trip over their costume. If you buy or make a costume, use materials that are flame-resistant
• Homeowners: Keep pets, even if they’re friendly, indoors. They might frighten children or accidentally get loose.

And one I should have thought of last year when my little sister came along and decided to ditch us for her friends: Choose a meeting place just in case your children get separated from the group.

You can read-up on more Halloween safety tips here before this weekend.

I’ll let you know Saturday if he wears the costume. You’d better believe there will be LOTS of proof wonderful family pictures documenting the sweet occasion.

Are you dressing up for Halloween? What is your family going as?

This post was written as part of the Allstate Influencer Program and sponsored by Allstate. All opinions are mine. As the nation’s largest publicly held personal lines insurer, Allstate is dedicated not only to protecting what matters most–but to guiding people to live the Good Life, every day.

Lil’ J has had Halloween costumes in mind for our family since last November. She decided we could all be characters from a Disney movie and settled on characters from Peter Pan.

Turns out what she had in mind for daddy’s costume is not what he had in mind. And she didn’t like that.

He says: What do you want to be for Halloween?
She says: I’m going to be Tinkerbell & you can be Peter Pan & Mom can be–
He says: I’m not going to be Peter Pan.
She says: Why not?
He says: Because…
She says: Ok you can be Captain Hook because you’re good at being mean.

There’s something about my son’s shaggy fro that always brings a smile to my face. Several months ago it struck me that he reminds me of a tiny cave man. His grunts, destructive nature, and, you guessed it… His wild head of curls all reminded me of Bam Bam from the Flintstones. Sure, the little cartoon character had bleach blond hair, but it didn’t stop me from somehow seeing a resemblance.

After deciding that would be his Halloween costume I realized it would be fun for all of us to be characters from the show and I set out to do some Flintstones DIY costumes. My daughter would be Pebbles, my husband Fred, and I Wilma. If I can find a purple dog shirt I’d love to paint dots on it so Snoop can be Dino.

I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on costumes, and I’m happy to say I spent a total of less than $30 on all of these costumes. I bought a thrifted orange t-shirt for my husband, small pieces of fleece for my son’s costume, a quarter yard of cotton fabric for my daughter’s pillowcase top (luckily the ragged tattered look is in for cavegirls cause I didn’t hem it or anything), and some thrifted blue shorts.

I pulled together my costume from a skirt and swimsuit cover-up I had in my closet, and made my necklace using thread and some styrofoam balls.

The “big spending” came from ordering a felt club for Big T and a plastic bone headband for Lil’ J off Etsy.

Aside from costumes I haven’t done much else in regards to Halloween prep. I took my sister and Lil’ J to a neighborhood pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins to decorate… Right, decorate, not carve, cause frankly I just didn’t have the energy for that this year. Lil’ J painted one at preschool, and the rest we did up with this Hallmark Jack-o-lantern sticker set.

My son even got in on the action, but I’ll admit, I helped him with his Halloween sticker jack-o-lantern because Lil’ J wouldn’t let me help her with hers, which turned out like this:

You have no idea how much willpower it took not to get in there and put the eyeball stickers where they belong, and take off a few of the extra mouth and mustache stickers she stuck on there.

“Don’t you think one beard is enough?” I asked her.

“NO! I like all the beards!”

… And eye-patches and other accessories, all in one clump.

Despite my frustration with her lack of anatomically-correct pumpkin faces, it was still 100% fun and 0% messy.

I’m planning to paint our last pumpkin teal this year and give out glow sticks and bubbles in lieu of candy. It’s keeping kids with food allergies in mind. Hopefully the neighborhood kids won’t TP my house later. I mean really, who needs one more piece of candy at the end of all this?

We’ve also done just a little bit of yard decorating. I bought this cool Halloween sign from a neighbor who hand made it for $10!

My family got all dressed up for Trunk or Treat at our church and surprisingly we won the costume contest (we didn’t even know we were entered!). It was a pleasant surprise. My husband is actually off for Halloween this year so I’m excited to go through the neighborhood all dressed up in my handy creations.

After Christmas, Halloween is probably my next favorite holiday. It’s the beginning of the end of the year, and I get to dress up my kids like adorable little characters (for a limited time).

Are you dressing up for Halloween this year? What are your costumes?

PS: I let my daughter pick out another costume because she wanted one to go with her Aunt’s and we have enough Halloween events to dress up for that I’m ok with her having two costumes. Bonus points to anyone who can name who she is:

***

I didn’t even get around to sharing all my other fun Halloween stuff, like our trick-or-treat greeter, drop and greet spider (which we actually had to put away because it gives me nightmares) and check out my Instagram for a video of Big T dancing with our dancing treat bag. If you’re still setting up for the holiday, or getting ready for the next, pop in your local Hallmark to get inspired for other ways you can get festive.

I’m passionate about making and saving memories, I’m partnering with Hallmark to share some of my life’s special moments and occasions including getting ready for Halloween! All opinions (and typos) are my own.