make believe

Wednesday night we attended a costumed fall party at the church, which meant old-fashioned games, cupcakes, steamy cider, s'mores, crafts, and lots of candy.

The original plan was to assemble costumes from items about the house: dress-up scarves and cardboard and belts and pans and sheets and whatnot. The boys were lukewarm on this idea, and kept asking things like, "But how am I going to look like Obi-Wan if you only sew together some sheets?" And I kept replying things like, "Well, see, the idea here is that you will make most of your costume. That's half the fun."

They remained largely unconvinced. Elle's mantra: "I will be a princess with a hat." So there we were.

Luckily for them, a dear friend donated a bunch of outgrown costumes our way, and the fellows had their pick of heroic identities. Em was a Power Ranger, Zee Batman, and Bee started as a Storm Trooper, but later switched out to last year's trusty ninja get-up.

And then there was Elle. See, I stopped in at the local fabric store over the weekend, just to get some elastic, mind you, and I was assaulted by shimmery stuff adorned with gold and pink stars that cried Princess Fabric! and was 50% off. I didn't stand a chance.


So Miss Elle was a Princess with a Hat.





And her brothers were fierce warriors who relished staged swordfights for the camera. (Except for Batman, who was booked up fighting crime and could not spare a picture. He was really cute though.)(Don't tell him I said that. "I'm a super-hero, Mom, I'm not cute!")





















We mustn't be late for the ball.





Do tell those bodyguards to stop all that sword nonsense and get a move on it.




And they lived happily ever after, what with the seven pounds of candy and all.