Have a good enough Halloween.

I LOVE to plan parties. In fact, I plan really excellent parties...in my head. You should have been at Barry's 30th! The paintball, the matching table cloths, and god, the invites! In my head, my creativity and brilliance made it a huge success. In reality I think I might have bought him a cake. Maybe.

For this year's Halloween party I had all sorts of homemade crafts and baking on my agenda. A vegetarian menu was designed that kid & mom friendly, fall themed, and unlikely to cause severe allergic reactions. I spent many hours debating the best possible mother/daughter costume and imagining art projects for the kids. I probably spend more time thinking about parties then actually working on them.

Then one day a box came in the mail from my aunt. A box with a chicken costume inside. I thought, "Yellow! Her favorite color! Perfect." And that was that. I even had a costume from a previous year I was able to re-use for myself. With absolutely no effort, this is funniest costume I could create:

Now you know which came first.

It's no vending machine, parrot or even fisherdog with giant fish, but it's good enough. For the record, this is the best homemade costume ever -

Barry's mom made his outfit, and BARRY MADE THE TRUMPET. Yes, he went to a week long camp and MADE IT.

As far as this year goes, Z's mom was the only one with the skills and perseverance to make a handmade costume to go with our barnyard theme. Isn't it the best!?

How many kids have a custom fit costume? (I wonder if they'll make it into a sheepskin rug when she outgrows it.) I didn't even have Mari's try on her costume on to see if it would fit. I just crossed my fingers and got really, really lucky.

After days of debating which entree would go best with which side dishes, the dog-eared cookbooks were thrown back on the shelf and I went to Costco. Two shopping baskets and a swipe of the debit later, we were done. I put up the decorations I could find, called in backup to help corral children, and had a great time with 20 friends and kids.

(click on picture for larger version)

Tonight we might go to the neighborhood parade. We might trick or treat. We might just sit at home. Whatever we do, it will be me and my chickadee and that's good enough for me.

This post was done as part of a blog blast for Blurb, the coolest make-your-blog-a-book service out there, coordinated by the Parent Bloggers Network.