my superman

Superhero day at school.  And yes, yes I did allow my son to go to school in tights, boxers and a pillowcase cape.  You got a problem with that?

this is a first

I think this may be the first year that I haven't loved Halloween...shocking, I know.  I have been so tired and overwhelmed with health issues that the house never got decorated, no party planned and I murmured during most of the costume making process (who am I kidding, I always murmur during the costume making process)

Having said that I think the kids looked adorable this year.  We ended up with Robin Hood (Megan), Circus Ringmaster (Emily), Mad Hatter (Nathan) and Dracula (Luke)

Lets start with the  most time consuming costume of the lot - The Mad Hatter.  I found a tutorial on the internet for making this costume and it deceivingly said it would take 4 hours to complete - lies, all lies!  I started it Thursday afternoon at about 2 pm with Derek jumping in to help later in the evening.  He went to bed sometime around 1 am and I finally put down my elementary school child safety scissors (yes, we created the whole costume with a stupid little pair of scissors) at 3:15 am.  Four hours, my foot!

Looking at the costume I'm trying to figure out what took so long since there wasn't much sewing (jacket was a brown jacket from Goodwill and pants were khakis from Target - both dyed) but trust me when I say it took us forever.

The hat was the hardest to create but since I'm married to the best man in the world I had lots of help.  Let's just say we can now understand why the hatter was "mad".

Megan was on make-up artist duty and I think she did an amazing job.  This was one costume where the make-up really added to the whole appearance of the costume.

Emily looked adorable in her "I didn't have to sew a thing costume"  I love those types of costumes!  The shirt and jacket were purchases from Goodwill (man, I love that store) and the rest of the costume was pulled together with stuff from Target and a local Halloween store.  

All Megan wanted for her costume was something that allowed her to carry weapons and wear boots.  She would have loved to have been Katniss but I was not feeling terribly creative with that idea so we went with Robin Hood.  The only sewing here was the vest which turned out cute but while sewing I decided that sewing isn't really my thing.  I don't have the easiest time with it so I'm not quite sure why I keep sewing costumes every year.  Her shirt was from a costume I made her in 7th grade and everything else was Goodwill or Target.

Then there is Luke.  He wins for easiest costume...church pants, shoes and shirt put together with a purchased vest and cape from the dress up box.  Oh yea, I forgot...also a sweet little Dracula necklace.  My little blood sucker looked fantastic.

I'm glad the costumes are done and that Halloween is on its way out but I am hoping I'll be back into the Halloween spirit next year.  I'm also hoping that all my kids want to dress as Dracula next year!


And just because I love these pictures I'm including some photos that my girls (and their friends) took Tuesday after our youth Halloween party at church.

attitude of gratitude

so we've been told to have an attitude of gratitude...having insomnia is a good thing when your child needs a Halloween costume for school on Friday and you don't start making it until Thursday.  


See how grateful I am for my 5 months of no sleep.


In all honesty...I'm hating costumes right about now.  Hopefully I'll feel different tomorrow (today, I guess) when Nate wakes up and puts it on.  It better fit and look good or I might just lose it!

a not so wicked witch

I have been trying to download this picture forever - blogger has issues (but then again, don't we all?)

Emily was off to our churches youth Halloween party last night as a witch. SHe had a great time and looked good too.
Excuse the mantle decor that is falling off and one of my boys dirty socks. Hopefully Emily's smile is enough to distract you from all of that.

not done but close

Megan and Em are off to another Halloween party/dance tonight at church so I had to get Meg's Jane (of Volturi fame ) costume done. Unfortunately I didn't get it finished but it was ok for the evening.

I never hemmed the sleeves so they are just rolled up (hence the uneven sleeves in the picture - that will be fixed) I also need to make a few adjustments and clean up the edges around her neck but other than that It's mostly done and I'm pleased with how it came out.
The contacts are sweet and way creepy. Megan's eyes make this costume.
I need to get some pictures with the hood on because I like how it looks. When Meg gets all made up for Halloween we'll get more pictures.

curse you halloween costumes!

Yes, I love Halloween - we are all very aware of that but the costumes, the dreaded costumes...

After some stressful days wondering how I would get 4 costumes done along with a bunch of other stuff I have going on the kids all decided to use costumes out of the costume box or in Nate's case a simple diy costume - bless you sweet children! Unfortunately there wasn't much for Megan in the box except her Ravenclaw Hogwarts uniform which she was happy to wear. I on the other hand let the "your not a very good mom" guilt trip enter my head and decided she needed to have a costume she hadn't worn before. I don't mind costumes being worn more than once I just prefer that a new kid get to wear it.

I tell myself that I only have to make one costume and I'll pick something easy. Here are the pictures we used for inspiration...

Jane Volturi, of New Moon fame. How hard can it be, I ask myself. Simple black cloak, tights. mary janes and some great black make-up. I can handle this - yeah, right!

It is now 2:23 in the am on Wednesday as I type this. Megan needs the costume tonight (she actually could have used it last night/Tuesday -(she and Emily went to a Halloween party/dance at the neighboring LDS Stake Building) but lucky for me she was willing to go as a nerd so I could work on the Jane costume. Well, remember what time it is? Yes, I'm still not finished with the costume. It is mostly done but I still need to add trim, hem it and accessorize - will it ever end?!?!? Not tonight it won't - I have to get to bed.

So look for pictures tomorrow of the dreaded Jane costume. This costume thing is making me so crazy I'm wishing a vampire would head my way, bite me and get me out of this mess. Why, why must I love Halloween so much?

coming up with costumes

Halloween is popping up in stores and I have to admit I am giddy with excitement.  We even have 3 Halloween Super Stores opening up in our general area - yippee!  

No Halloween party this year which is currently depressing me a bit but I'm not in a place to handle the work load of a full blown party this year.  I'll have to concentrate on just decorating the house.

I have also started thinking about kids costumes.  Here are a few I ran across today that I love...

the Yip-Yips from Sesame Street - I love these guys

Hello Mrs Butterworth - how cute are you?

I am in no way encouraging anyone to be a YouTube "Drunk Guy At Party" with this next picture but I am encouraging you to imagine the possibilities with this costume.  

Not sure what the costume is on the right but it downloaded with the picture on the left - I'm loving the garden gnome costume - simple and cute.  Put it on a teenager or adult and it becomes simple and funny.

If anyone has fun, creative ideas for costumes please let me know - I'm always looking for good ideas.

my little dobby

Because we have Harry Potter on the brain in our house I thought I'd share this picture of Luke as Dobby, the house elf.  Luke, along with 2 friends from church were the winners of the costume contest at Borders for the midnight release party for the last HP book.

This was a last minute costume.  All my other kids had Hogwarts robes, etc and I just figured Luke wouldn't care - oh so wrong.  To avoid a total melt down we had to come up with something quick and this is what the mom brain pulled out.  Rip up a pillow case, add lots of socks and band-aids on the fingers and we were good to go.  Why do the last minute ideas sometimes turn out to be the best?  I love this costume and the adorable boy wearing it.

can't forget the other kids

Luke was not my only child dressed up for Halloween - it was all just a blur that went by quickly with not much picture taking.  Bad mom or busy mom - you make the call, just be kind.

Emily got to go to her first dance at church - always an exciting event.  This picture is of the girls right before the left to go and get their Halloween Dance groove on.  

My kids were great about costumes this year.  They all knew that I was probably not going to find time to sit at the sewing machine to make costumes but none of them got bent out of shape.  All 4 kids have are so considerate and easy going when they sense I am on the verge of a mental breakdown - I love them for that.

Emily was a creepy doll - it was a costume I made Megan a couple years back.  In fact Megan wore it to her first dance.   She looked cute and she loved the new red shoes I bought her to go with the costume.

Megan said she would be whatever I could find at the costume store - this proved to be difficult. I'm now stepping up on my soapbox...what in the world are people thinking?  Every female costume is so inappropriate it's unbelievable.  I am not going to send my 14 year old out in a hoochi-fied costume.  Think of any character - snow white, a baby, a butterfly, even frankenstein and they have that costume available completely skanked out for girls to wear with everything exposed.  It was making me crazy.  I ended up finding an almost decent witch costume - everything was good except the length - it was so so short.  I found black fabric that matched the sleeves on the dress and so I made an underskirt for the costume to give it more length (so I guess I did get on the sewing machine for a few minutes)  The costume turned out well and Megan stayed covered.

Nate was the easiest.  We have a gorilla costume - doesn't everyone? and Nate said that was what he wanted to wear.  Alright by me - how easy can that be?!?!  He loved the costume so much I would occasionally find him wearing it before Halloween.  The picture below was days before Halloween - he just put it on to watch tv.  Not sure how that could be comfortable but you can't really mess with a gorilla so we let it go.

from the mean streets of london, circa 1985

So much for my favorite holiday - it came and went without much fanfare.  

I managed to pull together costumes for four kids without much sewing.  Luke's costume above was all Goodwill with pants from Target and a can of red hairspray from the costume store - not to bad.

I'll have to dig up some pictures of the other kids in their costumes - in addition to not being in the Halloween mood this year I obviously wasn't into a picture taking mood either.

i'm peanut butter and you are jelly

Oh Roadshows (a 15 minute production that the youth in our church put on every two years)....It was a great experience for Megan as well as all the kids involved  but I am so glad that I don't have a house full of costumes anymore.  I have been wanting post some pics from the performance but I don't have many - I never had a minute to pull out my camera (I am waiting for friends to shower m with pictures)  I did get a few from a friend and I just had to share them because these costumes were amazing.

These costumes were a huge group effort with my  contribution to them seriously lacking but I am so happy with how they turned out.  My friend Max came to the rescue when I was seriously worried about how I was going to make jelly costumes.  She came up with the idea for the jelly costumes and even brought me a scaled down model that she sewed so that I could see what she was talking about.  I had an idea for the bread but my attempts to get what was in my head produced into a costume were pathetic - it was not turning out like the glorious vision in my mind.

Erica to the rescue...not only did my friend Erica come up with a superb bread costume she also took over all the sewing of the jelly costumes.  She was amazing!  Her talent and skill is unbelievable and she did an amazing job on these costumes (she did much more than sew these costumes but these are just my favorites)

I did the labels for the costumes - a couple of Jif labels and some strawberry, raspberry, grape and honey labels.  I added some striped socks and big character gloves and the costumes were complete. 

one fish, two fish how will we do this?

We don't do Halloween at our school but they do let the kids dress up for literary character day ?!?!  Go figure.  Anyway, I got a call from a neighbor (thanks Aimee) and she reminded me that the next day was dress up day (bad mom forgot yet one more thing)  The boys had a few ideas of what they wanted to be, none of which we could pull together from our costume box so Derek and I were off to Costume Castle.

We started by looking at the Thing 1 & 2 costumes because that is what Luke wanted to be. Derek was not keen on the $30-40 costume so we bought some blue hair spray and a cat in the hat hat (Nate had mentioned he wanted to be that) and called it good.    After a quick stop to pick up a red tshirt we headed home.

The boys were asleep so I couldn't get kid approval on the costumes.  I made the thing 1 sign on the computer and decided at the last minute that I better make thing 2 because I had a feeling that Nate would be diggin' the blue hairspray and would want to be the same thing.  Let's just say that I'm getting good after all these years of being a mom.  Nate wanted to be thing 2 so we cut up a red sweatshirt so that it would look like Luke's shirt and ironed on the sign.  Score one for Mom!

This was the aftermath during Nate's bath after school.  

another costume?!?!?

The Monday after Halloween Emily had "Walk Through the Ancient Worlds" at school. The kids had to wear costumes (who planned that for a few days after Halloween?) As you already know I had hit my costume making quota so it was back to Costume Castle (I should buy their stock) to get a Cleopatra costume.

Emily had a great time. She got to eat a lamb sandwich for lunch. While most kids were chucking theirs in the trash, she tried it and found out that she liked it. Good for her!

halloween costumes

I am so behind on Halloween posts - it is a long road to recovery after the party :)

Here are the kids costumes this year...

Emily was a pirate. This costume gave me more grief. The pattern was one of the worst I have ever used. It seemed to add 3 unnecessary steps for every one step - it was complicated. I am sure I could have produced a similar costume with much easier steps. However, all that really matters is that it got done and Emily loved it. She looked cute and was blissfully unaware of the mental anguish her mother went through to get the costume done.

Nate's costume did not cause near as much trauma. Frankenstein is an easy costume to pull off especially when all it takes is a $12 suit, a black shirt borrowed from your sister, and $7 awesome high boots purchased from Goodwill. Halloween memories - priceless.
Here is the story with Luke. He was supposed to be the most adorable parrot you have ever seen so that he could accompany Emily trick or treating and repeat everything she said. The costume I was going to make was seriously so cute - covered in feather boas. No boas on the costume below? Why, you ask? After starting Em's costume and realizing I was probably in over my head I decided to spare my sanity. I asked Luke what he would want to be if he could be anything from Costume Castle (our local costume store) and he said Luke Skywalker. So I swallowed my "all good mothers should make costumes" pride and bought the thing, which I might add cost too much money. Why do costumes made with cruddy fabric cost so much? I thought he looked cute and the costume kept me out of a strait jacket. I do feel a little bad for him though...he has had very few handmade costumes in his lifetime.
Megan wore her gypsy costume. This picture is horrible but you can check out the costume here if you have a burning desire to see more pictures.

for aimee

I saw your post today Aimee so this picture is for you and any of your blog readers that happen to stop by here.

Here is another picture from our Halloween party - I have a feeling pictures will show up on this blog periodically for the next few weeks. I just don't have it in me to sit and post them all at once or to get them all on SmugMug.

This picture is of our neighbors Jason and Aimee. They came as Dog, the bounty hunter and his wife. I have never seen the show but have heard enough about this couple from other people to know who they are. Aimee was especially funny because she is pregnant. You can only imagine how great black vinyl is stretched over the pregnancy belly. They looked great - as did everybody that dressed up.

forgot one

I forgot funniest. 1st place went to Jack and Wendy. Jack played the part all night. He handed out Jack business cards, brought his own food from Jack in the Box and even gave Derek and I some Jack cash to use at jack in the Box. I can't remember who was 2nd or 3rd but we have Sonny and Cher and gum on the bottom of a shoe.

costume contest winners

I didn't take any pictures at the party so I am waiting on some more decoration pictures from friends before I post them. I do have costumes pictures on my camera that a friend took for me so I thought I would share those with you.

The winner in each category won a trophy and skull chocolate. We do a prize for the winner only but we always have the 2nd and 3rd place winners come up too so that we can all get a good look at the costumes.Best Male - 1st place Jack Skellington, 2nd place Red Neck (and yes, that is Derek) 3rd place Boy George

Best Female - 1st place the beating heart bride from the Haunted Mansion (this costume had an amazing red beating heart that doesn't show up in the pictures), I can't remember how 2nd and 3rd place went (there was obviously a tie from the number of people in the picture) The other costumes are Wendy from Wendy's Fast food, Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, and the Snow White meanie (what's her name?)
Most Like Self - 1st place Barbie, 2nd place an injured person (he really was injured from a pretty bad fall he took a week or so ago - his wife came as a personal injury lawyer) 3rd place Red Neck (so does it frighten anyone but me that Derek placed in this category of most like self?)
Best Couple - 1st place Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, can't remember the rest of the order but we have Jack and Sally, Vampire couple (we had a few vampires thanks to Twilight) and Boy George and Cindy Lauper
Scariest - 1st place beating heart bride and her groom, 2nd place Jack and 3rd place Boy George

We had a lot of great costumes. I'll post more costume pictures soon. I love that everyone gets into the costume thing - it makes for a very fun evening.