Halloween Weekend 2015

Happy November! I can’t believe we’re here already. Did October fly by for anyone else?

I hope you all had a great weekend and are starting the week feeling extra rested, thanks to “falling back” for Daylight Savings Time. Surprisingly enough, I don’t. We had a pretty busy weekend dressing up for spooky festivities, and every free moment of our time at home Friday and Saturday was consumed by making DIY Halloween costumes.

Scott and I ordered costumes online, but due to our procrastination this year, they didn’t come in on time. After I wrapped up my work day on Friday, we headed out to about six or seven Halloween stores to look for a backup costume idea that only required one of us finding something specific for around $30.

After several hours of coming out empty handed, we decided to go a different route this year…

Think about it… what are we wearing? (And how are we posing?)

White Trash Prom! Ha.

Thanks to the inspiration Scott got from a guest at his own Halloween party several years ago, we got the idea to literally show up as “white trash” and design outfits fancy enough for prom. Everything you see on the outer layer of our outfits is made out of – you guessed it – trash bags.

I actually wore the dress I changed into for our wedding reception as a base layer (the tooled skirt really gave it some oomph!), then cut and tied four trash bags to shred and layer for my skirt. I made the top out of one trash bag by cutting a slit on top, slitting the front, and tying it similar to how you would tie a button up shirt. It was super comfy and surprisingly cool!

Scott’s get up, on the other hand, didn’t breathe very well. He spent hours cutting and hot glueing seams to perfectly “alter” a trash bag suit that included an undershirt (with silver duct tape buttons), tie, and belt. He wore white long johns on the bottom and a white undershirt under the layers of bags to help with the see through factor.

Believe it or not, we already had the wigs at home (can you tell we usually dress up for Halloween?), and I accentuated the not-so classy theme by applying press-on nails meant for dress up, obnoxious fake crystal earrings, and a “diamond” wedding ring made out of an old dance earring and silver duct tape.

Scott and I made blue and red flowers out of the drawstrings from trash bags, and the whole outfit came together after an afternoon of trial and error!

We weren’t sure how our friends would react to our costumes, but the overall feedback was a hit. In fact, we won the “Most Creative” prize at the first party we attended and came in fourth for “Best Costume” at the second one. Not too shabby for a super last minute, completely homemade set of costumes for under $20, right?

The best part of it all is that they doubled as ponchos, and we stayed dry through the on and off rain showers throughout the night! If that’s not the definition of practical, I don’t know what is.

Saturday night came quick, and we started our Halloween shenanigans at our friends Kelly and Brian’s house. Scott made his popular spicy queso spinach dip for the occasion, and there was an impressive spread including (un-pictured) chili and cornbread.

How cute are these Frankenstein finger pretzel sticks and mummy pigs in a blanket?

We had a creative little bunch!

Halloween parties are too much fun. Whenever we dress up and go to a Halloween themed event, I always laugh so hard it hurts. When else can you dress up as literally anything you want and act the part for hours and hours?

We had a lot of laughs when our group put on a Halloween Fashion Show to properly display each costume or set of costumes in order to vote for prizes. One by one, each couple came out in character and danced or acted out to music in a way that complemented their outfits. It was hilarious!

Some of the costume highlights included a firefighter and dalmatian, loofah and bath man, Guts competitors (<- do you remember that show? The Aggro Crag! Ha!), Wendy Peffercorn and Squints from The Sandlot, “Grandma and Grandpa”, and Jim Harbaugh and a U of M cheerleader to name a few.

It was an honor for us to win the “Most Creative” costume award in that bunch!

We hung with our friends as long as we could before it was time for us to head over to party #2 in Metamora. Our friend Dan and his wife, Andi, hosted quite the spook-tacular event and decorated every little corner of their home.

Dan made a great Joker and Andi was a fantastic Harlequin. It was clear that they spent a lot of time planning their party, as each and every room was decorated and accented with things like skeletons, bats, Halloween-themed treats, and red eyes on family photos.

They lined the entire garage with a tarp, and set up a photo station for guests to take pictures throughout the evening. The first two photos of this post as well as the one above of Scott and I with the hosts is thanks to Dan.

I could have taken a hundred photos of all of the themed-out finger foods and decorations, but I left that to the professionals. (Fun fact, Dan is a professional photographer who previously worked for the Pistons for nearly two decades!)

Scott and I had a lot of fun touring the house and spending our Halloween night with fellow thrill-seekers.

We eventually said our goodbyes and thanked the lovely hosts for a great time well past midnight. Thank you for a great night, Kelly and Brian and Dan and Andi!

Even with an extra hour of sleep, I had a hard time waking up for the late service at church yesterday. I caught a bit of a cold (I blame the roller coaster hot and cold weather), and I would have slept an extra eight hours if I could.

We celebrated a friend Liam’s birthday on Sunday afternoon, and then hung out with our friends until dinnertime. Before I knew it, I was drafting up this post and the weekend was over!

 

Giveaway Winners

Thank you to all who entered the Fresh N’ Lean Organic Meal Delivery Service giveaway.

After two weeks of reading your entries (it sounds like a lot of you would enjoy the service… woo hoo!), I was given the green light to randomly select the winners via Rafflecopter.

A big Congratulations going out to…

Entry #1 (<- whoa, that never happens!), Maggie S. 

Entry #49, Kaitlin G.

Entry #464, Ashley K.

You have all been emailed and each won a meal package of 5 entrées and 2 breakfasts to be delivered on your week of choice!

 

Well friends, I’m off to take a barre class and will be spending the rest of my day cleaning the house while pretending it’s Sunday again to catch up on life until I go to work later this afternoon.

I hope you all have a great start to your week!

 

» Linking up my Weekend Snapshots with Katie and Erin.

 

Questions of the Day

• Did you dress up for Halloween this year?

• What has been your all-time favorite costume?