The weekend, part 2

Here's the whole gang in their costumes. My life was made much easier by the fact that four children chose costumes that were already made. That would be L. as a bunny, K. as a Dalmatian, D. as a lion, and TM as a frog. G. was a butterfly, wearing the first purchased costume any of my children have worn. But it was cute, I needed another baby costume, and I bought it at a rummage sale. P. and A. had new costumes. P. was a chimney sweep, which only required me turning a thrifted suit coat into a tail coat. A. was having difficulty deciding what to be, so decided to go as a chimney to accompany P. (Her head is supposed to be the smoke.) This required no work on my part, since long ago J. and I divvied up costume making into two parts: I do all sewing and he does all constructing. Chimneys definitely fall into the construction category. M. and B. were not in traditional costumes because they had other plans for the evening...

They and five of their friends decided since they were really too old to go door to door, they would put on a show in the front yard for the passers-by. They choose four fairy tales, which they rewrote into small one-act plays. The week before they rehearsed and made props and costumes and most of Saturday they created the stage. It was quite ingenious. Two sheets were used as both a backdrop and a scrim and they had four flood lights...two to light up the action and two to create shadows on the scrim. They also had a stand to tell what play was being performed:

And a hat to take donations...of candy:

The whole project was a great success. They learned to time it so that when a crowd was coming toward them, they would start. Once the audience was caught, they usually stayed for at least two scenes. Even though it was a bit chilly, the 7 of them performed from 4 until 7. (In case you're curious, this works because our neighborhood seems to be a 'destination' area for children in search of candy. We passed out over 350 pieces Saturday night...and that was even carefully doling it out one at a time. We definitely have the masses to supports roaming audiences.)

And because I think they're just too cute. Here are a couple more gratuitous pictures of the babies: