Friday, November 1, 2013

Calvin & Hobbes

Right after Todd and I first got married, before Evie was even a twinkle in our eyes, I told Todd that someday I wanted to dress my kids up as Calvin and Hobbes for Halloween. This year, that dream came true. The girls were the perfect ages and colorings for their costumes. Evie, at 2.5 years old, loves jungle animals, so she was fine with being a tiger. We found an old Tigger costume at Goodwill for about two dollars that was only a half-size too small, and I bought some craft fur and basted it to the belly to cover the letters. The whole thing probably took an hour and a half to finish.

Elizabeth's costume was trickier. I was sure that a red and black striped shirt would be readily accessible. Just basic colors that every store will surely have at least one variation of, right? Ha! Boy, was I wrong! NOBODY carries them, apparently. Even online, nothing showed up. So I finally just bought a little red shirt and some ebony fabric paint. Using masking tape, I made thin black lines on the shirt. It wasn't perfect, but I was running out of time, and the imperfections aren't immediately obvious, so whatever. I managed to find some black pants and maroon shoes in her size at Walmart for only a few dollars each. I've been bemoaning the fact that my baby's hair is nigh unto invisible for months, so I decided to just gel the little blonde tufts so they would stand up like Calvin's. In an ironic twist of fate, her hair was actually too long, and so it just fell into stiff little curls on top of her head instead. Curses! All told, her costume took three days to complete (although, to be fair, most of that was taken up by letting the fabric paint dry overnight twice--once for each side.)

Instead of individual trick-or-treat bags, Todd and I wanted to reference one of Calvin's cardboard creations. Although the "transmogrifier" might have been more readily recognizable, we decided to go with the "duplicator." My rationale was this: we don't want to turn the candy into something else, we want to make more of it! Luckily for me, I happen to have Calvin & Hobbes font on my computer (thanks, Mom!), and what seems like billions of empty wipes boxes on their way to the dumpster, so I commandeered one. Twenty minutes later, we had our "duplicator."

In another stroke of luck, Todd's sister has a red wagon that she let us borrow. Ideally, I would have preferred one without the wooden guardrails, so as to be more authentic, but "don't look a gift horse in the mouth," and "beggars can't be choosers," and all that. Actually, this was a genius move on my part (not to toot my own horn or anything, except that this is my blog and I'll toot my own horn all I want)! I figured that, with two little girls under the age of three, their legs would probably get tired more quickly, and we'd either have to carry them or...pull them in a wagon! Ta-daa!

As for Todd and me, at the last minute we decided to go as Calvin's parents so as to complete the theme. Todd, with his dark hair and glasses, looks the part with practically no effort at all. All he had to do was put on a dress shirt, like he does every other weekday, and his costume was complete. I, on the other hand, needed a lot more work. I found a weird sweater shirt at Goodwill for a couple of dollars that looked perfectly out-of-fashion, and I already had old ballet flats. However, my hair proved impossible. My hairstyle was perfectly wrong so no matter how I styled it, it would look nothing like Calvin's mom's. Still, I looked for a temporary light brown hair dye, but it was sold out in ALL of the stores around here. Go figure! So I just gelled my hair back as best I could, and called it good enough.

The night before Halloween was the ward's Trunk-or-Treat activity. A lady in the ward was taking family pictures, but I haven't gotten them from her yet, so I'm just posting the ones from my camera.
While we were at the activity, it finally occurred to me that Evie, as a tiger, needed some whiskers! So I whipped out my eyeliner and quickly drew some lines on her face, just in time for the following pictures. Obviously, we were incapable of all looking in the same direction at the same time. *Rolls eyes.*
The photo-op was followed by the costume parade. I was gratified to see recognition and humor flash in about three people's eyes as we wheeled our girls around in a circle, and now I want to be friends with these people because they clearly have impeccable taste! Seriously, though, are these not the cutest little versions of Calvin and Hobbes you've ever seen in your life?
For some bizarre reason that I still can't fathom, I didn't have the same stroke of genius about Evie's whiskers on the actual night of Halloween. So for the entire night, she rode around bare-faced. But still adorable. We went trick-or-treating up in Thornton with Todd's brother Scott and his family, so half of these pictures were taken in their living room and the rest were from out on the sidewalk. And still not a single good picture of both of them! Apparently, my children cannot grasp the concept of holding still and looking at the camera long enough for Mommy to take a decent picture! So, instead, you get blurry shots of the cuteness.
And, of course, two-thirds of the way through the night, Elizabeth started getting really cold, so we wrapped her in her bear coat, and for the rest of the night, our girls were...tigers and bears, Oh My! But even though nobody really seemed to "get" our girls' costumes, I still felt a glimmer of smug superiority in knowing that my costume idea was really quite clever and it wasn't my fault that nobody else was enlightened enough to understand the reference. ;) Plus, we scored lots of treats and I got to collect the Mommy Tax, so all's well that ends well. Happy Halloween, my little Calvin and Hobbes!

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