Halloween Costume Watch 2017: The Pea

Every Halloween I like to blog about the costumes we're wearing and how we made them. I usually feature each member of the family, but this year I have to make it a one-man show.

This year, The Pea decided to go all out for her high school's Spirit Week, which is held the week before Halloween. For each day of Spirit Week, classes (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors) are assigned different themes, and students dress up in that theme. Every day, each class nominates two students to represent their class in a costume contest. Each day, Pea came up with a costume each day that got her nominated four days out of five, and won Best Costume twice (today's results aren't out yet, so hopefully she'll get a third trophy!).

There's no point in featuring anyone else's Halloween costumes. Mine is a store-bought Pooh onesie. 3Po and Jammy haven't even started planning their costumes. They'll probably wear one of The Pea's costumes.  Alfie isn't even wearing a costume. This year, all the oohs and ahhs belong to The Pea. She totally deserves it.

Haunted Halloween for Scaredy Cats

It's October again, and for teens and pre-teens in the Bay Area, that means Great America's Halloween Haunt is back! We visited Halloween Haunt for the first time last year, and we enjoyed ourselves so much that I bought Gold Season Passes (which offers unlimited Halloween Haunt admission) this year. There just isn't enough time to see all 8 haunted mazes in a single visit, so we have been looking forward to going multiple times this year so we can enjoy each and every one.

The only problem? The Pea doesn't like haunted mazes. She hates getting startled when costumed actors come out of nowhere. The Dia de los Muertos maze, which is more is more artsy than scary, was all she could handle last year.

How to make a candy lollipop centerpiece

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and part of the fun is gathering insane amounts of candy that I would never let the kids have any other time of the year. Over the years, the kids have graduated from cute little treat bags to gigantic pillowcases, and those longer legs meant greater stamina for collecting candy on Halloween night. So we've ended up with far more candy that even I would let them have.  The solution? Candy crafts to the rescue! We've used candy for gingerbread houses (which no one eats), candy wreaths, and candy centerpieces like the one in the photo.

Lollipop trees make great holiday table centerpieces. They're also a great way to display the candy given out at the doctor's office or school front office! You'll need a 3- inch styrofoam ball, a 4-inch decorative flower pot, and a LOT of lollipops.

Simply stick the lollipops into the styrofoam ball, all the way around. If your styrofoam ball is dense, don't use the lollipop sticks to poke holes into the ball, because the sticks will bend. Use a metal skewer instead. You don't have to stick the lollipops all the way in; just an inch or so will do. Try not to leave any space between lollipop heads. When you've covered about three-quarters of the styrofoam ball, rest the ball on top of your flower pot.

Halloween at The Yahoo Lady's House

The Must-Do Halloween House in our neighborhood is, without question, The Yahoo Lady's House. That's what all the kids call Marissa Meyer's home (they used to call it The Google Lady's House until she moved to Yahoo). She has a home just across the street from the kids' former elementary school, and just from looking at it, you wouldn't really think that it belonged to a multi-billionaire tech giant -- unless you happened to pass by during Halloween.

Marissa is always the subject of a lot of press, and not everyone likes her, but say what you will about her, she puts on an over-the-top Halloween show for the neighborhood. Every year the house is decorated to the nines, with cornstalks, pumpkins, and life-sized ghouls.  The highlight is always a giant carved pumpkin. She started out with just one, and now she has at least three or four. The pumpkins always look amazing at night.

On Halloween night, there are always long lines at her place, because she gives out movie theater-sized candy, as well as plush Beanie Babies! Usually parents send their kids to the front door to get candy while they hang around on the sidewalk, but not at The Yahoo Lady's House.  Here, the parents line up with their kids so they can check out the decor.... and get a glimpse of Marissa Mayer. She always hands out candy personally.

Last year, Marissa took a cue from Disneyland and created a mini hay bale maze so that people could look at stuff while they waited in line. Her front lawn doesn't have enough space for it, so she used the parking lot of the empty funeral home that she bought (she turfed up the parking lot and she uses the space to host fabulous parties).

By the way, those are photos taken from Halloweens past.  I stopped by her house the other day to take some photos of this year's display. It's difficult to say which one is my favorite!

See you at The Yahoo Lady's House tomorrow night!

Guac-O-Lantern Dip

Want to hear something scary? October is almost over, and I haven't written a single Halloween-themed post!  Usually my blog is filled with Halloween costume how-tos, recipes, and decor. It's not even that I've been doing my usual Halloween stuff and haven't had time to blog. I haven't even done my usual Halloween cooking/crafting/decorating extravaganza in real life. I guess life just happened (that's my standard excuse for 2015).

Well, better late than never. I've got two days left to turn the front yard into a graveyard (thanks to the drought and lawn watering restrictions, the dead grass will make the perfect setting). We'll definitely be carving pumpkins. And I did find time for to make a disgustingly un-appetizing appetizer for Alfie's office Halloween potluck. I like to call it my Guac-O-Lantern Dip!

Candy, anyone?

We are up to our ears in Halloween candy.  Literally.  Last week our school had a Halloween Candy for Troops donation drive, and guess who coordinated it?  Yup, yours truly.  It seems that not only did everyone's little ghouls and goblins collect far more candy than they were allowed to eat, people also bought far more candy than they could give away.  We received giant bags of candy that hadn't even been opened!  If I had a phone booth, I could fill it from bottom to top with candy.

Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Bank Robber

Whew! The Pea's bank robber costume came right down to the wire: I came downstairs today at 7AM and found her furiously making black masks.  I told her there was no way she would be able to make it to school on time without my help at this point, so why didn't she ask for help sooner.  She said she didn't want to stress me out.  Like cutting out felt masks when I'm supposed to be doing a million other things isn't stressful!  Sigh. Kids. I do appreciate her thoughtfulness, though.

The Pea is certainly spreading her wings.  This year, she and her bank robber posse are trick or treating by themselves, without an adult.  The idea freaked me out at first -- four thirteen year-olds, on the craziest night of the year, all by themselves!!  But I consulted my Facebook posse and almost all of them said it would be okay.  And when I think about it, they're right.  The Pea and her friends are good kids, very responsible, not flighty at all.  As long as we set the appropriate boundaries (location and time wise), and ask them to check in every now and then (thank God for mobile phones!), everything will be fine.  I know they'll be fine.  I'm just not sure about me!  But I'm going to be like Elsa and LET IT GO......

Don't Drink and Fly (or Drive) on Halloween!

Yesterday I posted about the things you need to take with you when you're trick-or-treating with your kids.  One of the most important items is a flashlight, because when it's dark and you have kids running around looking for candy, the last thing they're thinking about is road safety.  We need flashlights to make sure drivers see us.... but we also need drivers to realize that they need to take even more care than usual.  They have to remember that there will be little kids in dark robes crossing the street, darting in and out between parked cars in their excitement.  The last thing they need is a driver who shouldn't be out on the road... in other words a driver that has been drinking.

Halloween Costume Watch 2014: Minnie Mouse

Minnie Mouse is such an easy and fun character that I don't know why it took me so long to dress up as her for Halloween.  She was an easy choice for this year, because I already had my hands full helping 3Po and Jammy with their costumes, and I've had this costume assembled since April!  I made the skirt and collar at the Disney Social Media Moms fun run, so I was good to go.  I just swapped my running shorts for leggings, my tech tshirt for a sleeved cotton tee, and my Minnie ears cap for a Minnie ears headband. Easy peasy!

How to make an Arabian Nights costume

Every year the PTA at our elementary school hosts a fancy dress fundraiser. It's always held on the third weekend of October, so parents like to come in a costume that matches the party theme.  This year's theme was 1001 Arabian nights, so we had a lot of Arab sheiks, sultans, genies, and belly dancers.

There's a huge variety of costumes for this theme available for sale.  Most of the women's costumes are pretty skimpy, though; they're totally inappropriate for a school social event, even an adults-only one!  And many of them require more of a $$ investment than I'm willing to make for just one night. I found it cheaper and more fun to put a costume together myself by purchasing individual costume items.

Must-have items to take with you while Trick-or-Treating

Costumes? Check. Trick or treat bag? Check.  House keys? Check.  Phone? Check.  You may think you're all ready to go out trick or treating, but consider this: you're going out walking, in the dark, with a group of excited kids who are likely to consume large amounts of candy and get even more hyperactive.  Unless you want the evening to dissolve into tears and tantrums (or an early abandonment of your trick-or-treat plans), you'll want to bring a lot more than that.

This is our 14th year of taking a child trick-or-treating on Halloween night, and over the years, I've amassed a must-have list of items to have with me.  Here's my list of items to pack in your Halloween night purse to make trick-or-treating less stressful and more fun:

Halloween Costumewatch 2014: Chinese Dragon

I don't mind spending on Halloween costumes -- it's my favorite holiday, after all -- I try to encourage the kids to alternate between buying a costume one year, and then making or assembling it the next. I've been kind of lax in enforcing it with the boys, so this year I redoubled my efforts to get them to make their own costumes, and save a few bucks in the process.  As it turned out, I think I spent more on raw materials for this year's costumes than if I had just bought costumes from a store.... but we did have a great time making the costumes, and they ended with kickass costumes that will blow those generic store-bought costumes out of the water!

Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival

I've just realized that this blog is over 8 years old and has absolutely no mention of the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival.  This is a serious omission, because the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival is our favorite festival in the entire region (I did write about why I love the HMB Pumpkin Festival over on Silicon Valley Mamas a couple of years ago).  We've attended the festival every year for almost a decade, and despite the crowds and traffic, we can't wait for the next festival to arrive.

Halloween Boo Bag Printables

We've halfway to Halloween night, but around here the spooky fun begins long before October 31. There are just way too many Halloween crafts and activities and parties to enjoy -- and we put in way too much effort on our Halloween costumes to show them off on just one night -- so we like to celebrate Halloween all month long!

How to make a Chinese Dragon Mask for your American Girl Doll

This year, 3Po decided he wants to be a Chinese Dragon for Halloween.  I put my creative hat on and helped him search for tutorials for make-your-own Chinese Dragon costumes. I found a great YouTube tutorial for a parade dragon and came up with a pattern based on their dragon head. I decided to make a small-scale prototype to see whether it would be feasible for us to make it without all the industrial equipment on the video.  By this time, I had spent so much time on the project, I decided to turn the prototype into an American Girl doll craft!  After all, dolls need Halloween costumes too, right?

Halloween, the day after (2013)

Where did the time go?  Halloween 2013 was the busiest season ever.  Between PTA duties and conferences and parties and playdates and home remodeling and doctor visits and soccer tournaments and dance rehearsals, I could barely catch my breath, let alone blog about it.   So I've combined all my October blog posts into one giant, supersized, mega recap post!   Here's what went on in the Bongga family last month:

How to make a Hogwarts student costume

After our visit to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and the boys' subsequent discovery of the Harry Potter series, how could we not dress up as Hogwarts students for Halloween?  To make things even more perfect, we took the Sorting Hat quiz on Pottermore, and we each got sorted into a different house -- 3Po to Slytherin, Jammy to Gryffindor, The Pea and Alfie to Ravenclaw, and yours truly to Hufflepuff.  Houses of Howarts, represent! Assembling your own Hogwarts costume couldn't be easier.  Here's how to do it:

Halloween Costume Watch 2013: Students from The Four Houses of Hogwarts

I'm so excited to be doing a family group costume once again for Halloween 2013! The first and last time I managed to pull it off was in 2007, when we all dressed as pirates.  Then the kids got older and started decided for themselves what costumes they wanted (so inconvenient!).  Fortunately, this year the boys have discovered Harry Potter, and I was only too happy to join them as a Hogwarts student!  

How to make a Toy Story Alien costume

This year, The Pea and her 2 BFFs decided they wanted to be Toy Story Aliens for Halloween.  We found ready-to-wear costumes, but they all looked hideous, so the gals decided they would make their own.

Ideas for No-Carve Halloween Pumpkins

This has been the busiest Halloween season ever!  Usually my decorations are up and ready by October 1 (okay, by the first week of October), but this year we were halfway through the month before I even opened my Halloween box.  We like to carve our jack-o-lanterns at least a week before Halloween night (okay, by the weekend before Halloween night), but this weekend we had so many things going on -- a conference, a party, a school fundraiser, Nutcracker rehearsals, a soccer tournament -- that I barely had time to buy pumpkins, much less decorate them.

Right now it looks like the only time we'll get to carve our Halloween pumpkins is the night before Halloween.... but that doesn't mean we can't transform those pumpkins into fun and cute Halloween decorations!  I decided to turn two of our pumpkins into Mickey Mouse pumpkin and a voodoo man while they're waiting to be carved.