Ode to Ortega Halloweens

Halloween is my favorite holiday, and this Halloween is bittersweet for me. I love putting my whole family in matching costumes! And it is super easy to do when your kids are young and don't have a strong opinion on what you put them in. Benjamin goes to kindergarten next year, and so I figured this would be our last matching year. I was wrong, last year was. This year Benjamin insisted on choosing his costume. I decided that it would only be fair to let Luna pick as well. This makes me happy and sad. I love that Benjamin wants to be involved in his Halloween costume, but I'm also going to miss all of us matching. So I decided to write this post that goes back to look at the past four Halloweens of our family matching.

2013 - Monster's Inc.

This was Benjamin's first Halloween. He was 7 months old. We came across his costume at the Disney Store, and picked our characters and costumes around him. Benjamin was Mike, I was Boo, and Gerson was Sully.

2014 - Sesame Street

That year Benjamin's favorite parts of each Sesame Street episode was the letter of the day with Elmo and the number of the day with The Count. Benjamin was Elmo, Gerson was the Count Von Count, and I was the Count's girlfriend (who appears in a few episodes), the Countess.

2015 - Classic Halloween

This was Luna's first Halloween. She was almost two months old! We decided to recycle old costumes since we had just spent a lot of money to bring Luna into our family. I wore the same dress from the previous year and put a witch's hat on. Gerson wore his witch hunter's costume from 2011. We put Benjamin in his church clothes and added a vampire cape. And we put Luna in a black onsie and pants that she already had and added cat ears. We actually look pretty great and it's one of my favorite costume sets! My mom also tries to match with us when it works out, and she was a zombie.

2016 - Pokemon

With the release of Pokemon Go, we thought it would be fun to have a Pokemon Halloween. Gerson and I were Pokemon Masters, Benjamin was Charizard, and Luna was Pikachu. My mom and brother matched with us that year as well. Michael was Ninetails and my mom was some fairy pokemon from generation 6 that I can't spell or pronounce.

2017 - You'll have to wait until tomorrow!

This year Gerson and I are wearing old costumes again. Since I'm pregnant, I didn't see the point in spending money on a new costume - especially because I really do not like any of the store bought maternity costumes. I do have a sewing machine and the capabilities to make my own, but I just didn't have time with being sick earlier in the pregnancy, and then preparing for a Disneyland trip! I did take the time to make Benjamin and Luna's costumes, and I'm super proud of myself! Watching them get excited about their costumes as I've measured and tried them on throughout the sewing process has been pretty priceless. They are so excited for tomorrow, I'll post pictures then. :)