Storybook Parade and Halloween

Every year Alyssa's school does a storybook parade. Instead of having the kids dress up for Halloween, they dress up as characters from a book and they parade around the school. It's a really fun event to see all the creative characters that the kids and teachers come up with.  This year Alyssa wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood so her costume worked perfectly for both events. She even let me curl her hair the day of the parade. I had a lot of fun making her costume. We even improvised a little vest with lace trim from the same fabric as the cape.  I'm probably biased, but I thought she was the cutest Little Red Riding Hood at the school!

 Marching in the parade.

A close up of the costume. 

The girls at the ward Trunk or Treat party.  Kira was a zebra, Tori a Warrior Cat, Alyssa was Little Red Riding Hood and Mackenzie a cow girl.

Coming up with Mackenzie's costume this year was quite an adventure.  She knew early on she wanted to be cowgirl.  I was thinking, "Great!  This will be a piece of cake."  Give her a hat and some jeans and she's set, right?  Apparently she had a very vivid idea of what a cowgirl wears.  She had to wear her jean leggings because she's just not into jeans.  We borrowed the pink cow girl boots and bandanna from a friend.  Hat from the dress up box, and the jump rope and belt were found around the house.  The shirt caused some drama.  She swore she wanted a blue shirt.  I looked around and couldn't find something so I reached out to some friends with boys.  After getting a variety of blue shirts: plain blue, checkered blue etc. she ended up picking a long sleeve pink shirt from her drawer.  We made the vest from felt and a pattern on-line.  Then we added some fancy fringe to make it look authentic.  We had a great time adding glitter glue to the felt star to make it shiny! 

 Tori the Warrior Cat.  Warriors is a book series that Tori is really into this year.  I can't remember the name of the cat she is but they all have names like Wing Star and Lightning Kit.  Maybe this is the last year, but she enjoyed hanging out and trick or treating with us this year still.   

Can you guess what Ben was?  An e-mail.  Get it. . .an E and a male!  I thought it was clever.  I was a funky witch with tights that were just too small for a tall gal like me!  I ended up cutting them off and making them into improvised knee highs for Halloween!

Trick or Treating at the bishop's house who lives right around the corner. 

 Kira enjoying her first ever treat!  She was not going to let that dum dum sucker go.  She loved the whole idea of trick or treating and was thrilled to be riding around in the stroller all night.