Halloween 2017: Our Circus

Have you ever heard the phrase, "Not my circus, not my monkeys"? Basically, you use it when referring to situations you don't need to take ownership of. Soon after our family began to increase in number, though, I realized that the opposite was the case for us! This WAS my circus, and these were definitely MY monkeys! Our life is a constant source of laughter, suspense, thrills and probably some stinky smells wafting through the air from some unknown source! LOL! So, when DH came up with the idea that our family present itself as the greatest show on earth at our church's trunk or treat, I hopped right onto the circus wagon with
him.

You may well remember my April-watching days earlier this year. Lucy's bestie had decided she wanted to dress up as April the giraffe for Halloween, so Lucy decided she wanted to be April's baby giraffe, Tajiri, which fit in perfectly with our circus family plan. However, figuring out to make a boy giraffe costume wasn't super easy since everything on pinteres seemed to involve a tutu of some sort. I just kept thinking something would come to us eventually though...
Annie Beth was set on being Peppa Pig for the second year in a row (I think she wanted to follow in her Daddy's footsteps. He was Indiana Jones for I'm not sure how many years in a row as a child!), but then she got the idea of being a pink kitty cat, so we went with that instead. We found a cute little accessory set on Amazon and it turned out to be the most precious thing ever...especially since it had BELLS on it, which we had no idea about until we got it in the mail! Literally, she jingled every time she moved, which was just too cute for words! This was our first time trying out little piggie tails on her hair (paying respect to not being peppa pig this year, I suppose;-) I wasn't sure if she'd really want to keep her paws on or not, but she seemed to really like them and kept them on for the most part. It really was an adorable costume! She got to wear it to preschool for the day and parade around in it that morning for their costume parade--so cute!
Gabriel also had a last-minute costume change from Batman to a puppy dog. I think once he saw everyone else's animal costumes coming in, he realized it would be fun to join in on the Toller Circus idea, too. (Although we always support the idea of "Always be yourself, unless you can be Batman, and then ALWAYS be Batman..." LOL:) Amazon, once again, came to the rescue, along with DH's awesome face painting skills. Seriously, who knew DH had such amazing face painting skills? Gabriel looked adorable and was the cutest little Dalmatian puppy EVER! One of his favorite Paw Patrol characters is Marshall, so he was excited that he got to look  like him.

Evangeline was able to fit into Gabriel's old sock monkey outfit which wasn't technically a costume, but definitely worked well for this purpose. She wouldn't keep the hat part on for most of the night, and she ended up taking a walk in the "duck pond" game so she didn't have any socks on most of the night, but she stole the show in her sock monkey ensemble! It really was the perfect costume for her, because I swear that child is trying to become a monkey! She is CONSTANTLY climbing anything and everything! We literally cannot take our eyes off of her for one second, because she just is so mischevious! She's super busy, but I think it's because she's super smart. She also really, really, really likes bananas ;-)

Thanks to a sweet church friend's mom, DH and I were able to pull the Toller Circus together with the last piece to the costume puzzle with some awesome shirts with the saying mentioned at the beginning of my post: "This is my circus and these are my monkeys."  The past few years I really had given up on trying to get everyone to dress up as a matching group, so it was fun to get to make it
happen this year--totally not on my own accord though, but all thanks to DH's brilliant idea:)

Back to the giraffe dilemma though...you'd think after all of my April watching days that I would be full of ideas on how to concoct the perfect Tajiri costume, but I was completely stumped. I did, however, come across one pin where someone had used masking tape on a t-shirt to section off giraffe type spots and then painted the shirt and then removed the tape. The problem: it was supposed to be cold and rainy on Halloween (it hasn't been since then here!) and I couldn't find a long sleeved yellow shirt anywhere, not to mentioned that brown leggings were absolutely NOWHERE to be found in our city! After spending a good 4 hours trying to locate some, I was about to check one more store when I "happened" to drive past a store that caught my eye who "just so happened" to have an entire rack of brown leggings sitting out for $1.99 along with ONE lone yellow sweatshirt that "just happened" to be in Lucy's size for $2.99. ((((WHAT??!)))) I smiled as I handed the cashier $5 and

some change for the two items it would take to complete Lucy's costume. I know there's lots of debate on whether or not Christians should take part in Halloween or not, but regardless of that, the truth is that we serve a God who cares about every little detail of our lives. He's interested in everything that matters to us and is involved in all of it. He reminded me of that last week through a simple, affordable giraffe costume that brought the biggest smile to my little girl's face. You see, there's nothing we cannot bring to Jesus. Just as my favorite little boy's favorite show, Paw Patrol says, "No job is too big and no pup is too small," my Jesus wants to remind me that "No problem is too big and no request is too small..." And just like I could hear every single step Annie Beth took in her costume because of the bells on it, I can rest assured in the promise that my Jesus has walked ahead of every step that I am going to take, so I can trust Him fully to lead the way for me. I'm so glad that Jesus doesn't look at me and say "Nope. Not my circus; not my monkeys." Instead, he gathers us around the middle of the ring and invites us to join him for this thrilling adventure He wants us to join Him on! Just like I refuse to grow tired of chasing my little mischievous monkey around, my Jesus won't give up on me either. He loves me, He longs to meet with me and to guide me, and He has so many wonderful things in store for me if I will just wait and see!