Halloween Costumes!!

As most people know, Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday!! I love it for several reasons... Mostly because it's all fun, no real burden of cooking/cleaning/stressing out. The kids LOVE to dress up and it's a very creative holiday, which I am great at! It has so many fun activities... pumpkin hunting at the pumpkin patch, bobbing for apples, making halloween cupcakes (my own personal tradition), and decorating the house in black and orange....

Now I know there are some Christians that consider the holiday a celebration of the "antichrist." I don't... I think you get what you put into it. If you base the holiday on scaring kids, dressing up as morbid creatures or killers, focussing on the negative, you'll only have those memories. Instead, I'd rather my kids remember it for the celebration of fall, celebration of family and innocent fun, and for getting to dress totally silly for a day.

So! Here's a trip down memory lane for me with my babies on Halloween. On Caleb's first Halloween he was a duck. He was only 4 months old, but I remember taking him to Alexxa's dance class dressed up in his duck costume. He was fussy because he was hot, so I ended up taking it off of him anyway. That year Alexxa was a cheerleader. She was SO cute, she used my pom-pons from my cheering days and had a blast. She looked SO cute. We took them to our church for their big festival with a bunch of jumpers, Caleb was tucked in his little stroller and a million blankets while Alexxa went wild in the jumpers, she had a BLAST! Here are a couple pictures of them that year:

The following year, we didn't have Alexxa. (We alternate each holiday every year). But Caleb was Pablo (the penguin from the Backyardigans), and Seth was a Rooster. Brian took Caleb trick-or-treating while me and Lily handed out candy at home, (she was only 3 weeks old..aww..) She had a little sleeper and hat that said, "Baby's First Halloween!" I'll go find a few pictures:

So THIS year, I'm SO excited, The kids are all getting older AND we have Alexxa! So Alexxa had been teetering between being a bumble bee, Princess Belle, and Butterfly... I showed her some examples of each costume as to what I could make and she decided she would be, (and I quote), a "Fairy butterfly-Princess!" I said, "no problem!" (all the while I'm staring at my patterns thinking.. 'how the heck am I going to do that?!') Well, I'm essentially a PRO at seeing a design online that is SUPER expensive and creating my own version for MUCH less. I googled around and found the perfect ideas. She actually had an expensive looking wing/want/tiara combo my mom gave her for Valentine's day one year, so we're set there. I'm going to working with a bunch of tulle, glitter and silk flowers to really dress her up! It's going to a lot of fun!!

On to the boys... Seth and Caleb are BEST FRIENDS... so it's only fitting that their costumes relate! DeAnna and I are SOOOO tired of the "Mider-man" (Spiderman) phase, that we were racking our brains trying to come up with something simple for the boys. A few months ago DeAnna bought "Toy Story," on DVD because it was on sale... Well now Seth is obsessed with "Wooood-y," so it was great when Seth said he wanted to be Woody for Halloween. I googled "Buzz Lighyear Costumes" to see if I could snatch an idea and make it, when I came across the licensed outfit sold at the Disney Outlet store for only $9.99!! It was originally $39.50, so I snatched it up! It ended up being a little over $20 with shipping, which is just PERFECT! I would have easily spent that much in materials if I made it, so that saved me a ton of time!! The next day I was looking at classifieds and ran across the exact disney version of Woody's costume and DeAnna bought it for only $22, shipped! So, check, check! THey're done! :)

Then comes Lily. She's going to be a little over a year on Halloween... I had originally thought to make her a fruit, (Strawberry, apple, banana, grapes, etc) but that's boring. Then I thought maybe a cute little spider... And now I'm thinking of maybe a Pumpkin or Flower... I want to keep it simple but really adorable (and most importantly: warm!)... So as I go fabric shopping for the kids' new room I'm going to keep an eye out for inspiration for her! I CAN'T WAIT... Until next time! :)