Random Thoughts Thursday (the un-random Halloween edition)

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Random Thoughts Thursday to bring you a Halloween-themed post.  This post is brought to you by the knowledge that there are far-away grandparents and an uncle in Australia who really want to see the girls Halloween costumes, and by the fact that I actually have time to blog today.

Random Thoughts Thursday will return at its regularly scheduled time next week.

About two months ago, Ellie told me she'd decided once and for all what she wanted to be for Halloween.  This is the girl who has fairly readily molded her costume ideas to my will for the past six years.  I should have enjoyed that more while it lasted, because this year she decided to be...a volcano.  I usually make the girls costumes, but even if I'd wanted to buy them this year, I have no idea where one would go to find a volcano costume.  So we got creative with the several yards of black felt that Chris has had stored in our cedar chest for the past 10 years, and here's what we came up with:

Pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself.  Here's another angle:

And one more, because I was feeling artsy:

Her original plan was to have her hair all ratted up and sprayed red, but we tried that for the church Halloween party, with traumatic results when it came time to clean it up, so we came up with the headband instead.  She got pretty good at explaining to people what she was supposed to be, and was over the moon when someone actually guessed right.

Lexi usually goes for simplicity when it comes to costumes.  Her main goal is to just have fun and get candy.  I completely understand that, and appreciate how easy it is to create her costumes.  This year we just had to hunt down a Viking helmet, and the rest I threw together in a few hours using a couple of t-shirts and some fake fur.

And the "okay, stop taking pictures now" picture:

Vicki originally wanted to create an elaborate steampunk costume, but as much as I would have loved to do that (and make something for myself, too, I just didn't have the time.  So she decided to be "Alberta" Einstein instead.

We had fun fluffing up her hair (you can't really tell, but we sprayed it white), and those eyebrows and mustache were a fantastic find.  This is one of my favorite pictures of her, ever:

Here are all three together:

And it wouldn't be Halloween without Chris and I in our goth costumes:

Scary, no?  We also had tattoos:

(That picture is from a party we went to a few days before Halloween.)

So, there you have it.  Hopefully this satisfies those of you dying to see what the girls came up with this year. The only things that scares me now is wondering what, exactly, Ellie is going to decide to be next year.  What could possibly top a volcano?

One last shot of all three girls:

And thus concludes the Ebert family costume roundup of 2012.  Join us again next year when we discover just how much weirder it can get.