Harry Potter Halloween

This post is for die hard blog fans only, as it has about a million pictures of our Harry Potter Halloween. The weather was uncooperative and I was unable to get a group picture. So I will present all the participants one at a time. I was also unable to really capture any action shots of the kids all cursing one another.

Luke and I started planning Halloween on November 1st of last year. Harry Potter was at the top of the list. We had no idea at the time that we would be with cousins and would be able to pull it off with a huge cast. I had a little scare in September when Luke almost changed his mind and wanted to be Tack Gentry for Halloween (I could write a whole post about accidentally getting Luke addicted to Louis L'Amore). He was easily persuaded back to Harry Potter, however, once we started planning.

The costumes are representative of one of the things that I love most about living near my sisters-- collaboration. Ashley and I stayed up late every night sewing the robes for Ian, Luke, Adelaide and Noah. Emily used her mad art skills to create patches and sew Isaac's hat. We all brainstormed, collaborated and borrowed to come up with costumes. It was also a delight to look things up about the characters so that we got the costumes just right. (I was under the impression that Moaning Myrtle was a Gryffindor, it turns out she is Ravenclaw.)

Here are the patches:

Here is the star of the evening, our very own Ian as Harry Potter himself.

Nat and I were Tonks and Lupin. Nat's costume would have been much better if he hadn't had to shave and get a haircut for a last minute job interview on Friday. He had quite the stash going.

Tommy made quite the dashing little Gilderoy Lockhart.

We had initially planned on Samuel being Norbert the dragon but ended up feeling like we needed him to play baby Harry. Harry's parents were killed, after all, on Halloween night. We thought it appropriate to remember them in this way.

Ashley was Lily Evans Potter (Harry's mom)
We thought an ironic twist would be to have Caleb dressed as Severus Snape. (Ten points if you can identify what is ironic about this couple.)

Luke was going to Fred Weasley at first but changed his mind once Eliza informed him of Fred's eventual fate. He decided on Ron instead. This was fine with me-- the costume is the exact same. And, yes, I really dyed his hair flaming red. With permanent dye.

Aaron was supposed to be Arthur Weasley but changed his mind at the last minute and claimed to be Xenophilius Lovegood instead. Whatever, he still looks like Arthur. Emily was an excellent Molly Weasley and, as usual, avoided being photographed.

Adelaide might have been my favorite of the evening. She was Moaning Myrtle. She is 2 1/2-- enough said. (Ashley wants me to point out that Addie is, indeed, wearing white makeup and that she is not really that pale. We were going for ghostly. She also had glasses which I broke while trying to adjust them to fit her.)

Noah made an excellent Draco Malfoy.

Jakob was also Remus Lupin.

Eliza scared us all as Bellatrix Lestrange.

Isaac proved himself a delightful little Dobby, the house elf.

Jakob has proposed that next year's theme be Lord of the Rings. We'll see about that...