Arrrrgh We Be Pirates

Throughout the year we happened to receive lots of pirate costumes from friends and family that were getting rid of them.  I’m a sucker for a family theme, so we determined we would be a band of pirates for Halloween!

Cody bought a couple plastic swords and accessories and I thought he needed some facial hair, so in all we spent about $15 for our costumes this year!  What a steal!!

Every year I try to make some sort of Halloween cake for Cody for his birthday.  He LOVES them.  And I love making them for him.  I had sketched out a pirate face years ago that I hadn’t used yet.  This was the perfect year for it since we were all dressing as pirates! 

 

This was actually my first time using a cake mix in years!  True story: Jade even asked me, “Mom, what’s a cake mix?”  Ridge was happy to help with the beaters.

 

The kids loved the cake just as much as Cody did.  I told Cody if he ever doesn’t like these Halloween cakes anymore (like if he feels to old for them), to let me know.  His reply: “what’s not to like?!  This is so cool.”  I guess we’re still young at heart even if we’re getting older! 

 

We had two trunk or treats to go to on the Saturday before Halloween.  One at Jade’s school around lunch time and one at our church in the evening.  We’ve never had a car to decorate for a trunk or treat so I wasn’t really sure what to do.  In keeping with our theme, I determined I should go with a pirate treasure trunk.  I decided to make an “X”, a map, and pirate flag, and dress up our skeleton a bit—all using stuff we already had around the house. 

 

 

I was pleased the little bit of decoration cost $0 to put together and it did the job! 

To my extreme extreme extreme disappointment, Ridge ended up being really sick the day of the trunk or treats. I was really hoping he’d feel better for the second one, but he didn’t.  Cody had a busy week at work and actually enjoyed being home, snuggling his boy for a change.  That meant Jade and I were half a band of pirates for the day. 

First off was the school trunk or treat. 

 

It was well contained in the small parking lot, so Jade did good going around on her own while I handed out candy.  As soon as one of her best friends from class showed up, Jade stuck with her the rest of the time.  It was pretty cute! 

 

 

We had so much pirate stuff, I decided to change things up a bit for the ward trunk or treat.  I assumed Cody’s captain position for the evening.

   

The following Monday, Jade was excited to dress up again for dance class. 

 

After lots of rest and meds over the weekend, Ridge was doing muuuuch better.  Which was great because Tuesday morning we had a playgroup Halloween party to go to. 

 

He had a little nap on the way there and enjoyed all the toys and Halloween treats at the party, shedding pieces of his costume along the way.

 

Jade wore her costume to school on Halloween.  Then Halloween afternoon Ridge and I dropped in at the school for the Halloween parade.

 

Finally, that evening the entire pirate crew was together as Cody and I joined the kids in costume! 

 

  

  

Some friends in the ward invited us over for soup before trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.  Jade came away with six full-size candy bars and no tootsie rolls!  Crazy people. 

Jade ran off with the other kids as we walked behind with little Ridge.  He probably hit one in five houses that the older kids did.  He was so much fun to watch though.  He loved trick-or-treating!  I asked him if I could hold his bag as it was dragging on the ground.  He adamantly refused.  He wanted to hold onto his loot! 

  

When we got home, we visited the houses on our street, as well as a haunted yard Cody had seen in our neighborhood.  Several boys were dressed as zombies walking around the yard trying to scare kids.  Well, it worked.  Our kids were sufficiently frightened. 

 

As soon as we walked in our door, Ridge sat down on the entry steps to dig into his bag!  Jade had told us she wanted to go straight to bed, but as soon as she saw Ridge eating candy, she was wide awake again. 

 

Man I loved being in the States for Halloween!  I love that just about everyone celebrates and there are plenty of parties and activities to attend.  I love that we can trick-or-treat in our neighborhood and most people still get into the holiday! God bless America!