Halloween

The month of October was filled with travel (for us, not for the kids), so we didn't do as much to celebrate Halloween this year as we normally do. Plus, having Halloween on a Wednesday night makes it tough. As for Abbie's ambitious idea of making fully articulating bird wings, she stuck to it. It turns out that they were actually meant to be angel wings, not bird wings. Her goal was to be Castiel from Supernatural. For those of you who don't know, here is a photo of the look that she was going for:

As you can see, those are some pretty big wings. We did our best to secure the tie and the trench coat at Goodwill, but the wings were somewhat intractable until another mother, who had made wings for her daughter in the past, came to our rescue. She volunteered to make the wing frame and then supplied us with the feathers to glue on. It didn't work quite as well as I would have wanted, but Abbie views it as a starting point that she can improve on in the future.

Given the size of these wings, we encouraged her to use them for trick-or-treating, but not to wear them to school. She agreed that the risk of damaging the wings wasn't worth it, so she went without them. Here is how it all turned out:

In case you are wondering, that is not her actual hair. that is a wig that we tried to cut to look like Castiel's hair, which is far more difficult than I would have expected it to be. She took it in stride, though, assuring me that "the hair is always the hardest part to get right." Also, in case you were wondering, the tie is purposely backward. Apparently, that is part of the character - an angel that is trying to dress like a human, but has no idea how to do it.

You may also notice a rather frightening child standing next to Abbie. That is Emily, of course, but I will get to that on her blog! :) 

As for other October activities, we had Abbie's parent-teacher conference recently. Abbie was dreading it. Apparently in the old days she always felt like it was a time for the teachers to get her in trouble for stuff. As it turns out, though, there was no need to dread anything. She received glowing reports, with the homeroom teacher saying that she asks great questions, participates in class, has a good attitude, and is intellectually curious. So, all around, it sounds like she is doing well.