Post-Halloween

The festivities are now over, but the decorations are still up and costume parts are probably still scattered around. I know for sure that the treat bags are still filled to the brim with candy and toys. We were lucky enough to enjoy Trick-or-Treating with 3 of our grandchildren this year. Ron and his oldest son, Terry, came home from their annual hunting trip to join us before heading back out into the woods.

After preschool, Callie and the boys met Jaylynn, Archer and me at the duck pond to burn off a little excess energy. We let them wear their costumes, hoping to get a few pictures of them as well. (We have to be kind of sneaky about photos these days since they generally do not want to pose for us.)

We played for a while. . . a dinosaur, pumpkin and baby cat.

Then, headed down to the water to feed the ducks my leftover hot dog buns.

BabyD2 was totally enchanted by the ducks and geese and chased them all over the place, hoping to hold one. Callie narrowly saved him from the water at least three times.

At some point, he also realized that we had snuck a tail onto his costume and he wasn't exactly thrilled about that.

Toddler D, however was ALL ABOUT HALLOWEEN this year.

We trick-or-treated at the Norton Art Gallery (before the crowds got too bad, I might add)

Then the parents took the kids to houses on our block, while Ron and I joined the neighbors around the annual Halloween Fire Pit, where we pass out massive amounts of sugar to kids that stop by.

It was such fun to get to experience Halloween through the eyes of these three little goblins!

Let's Dress Up - Halloween Costumes 2017

2017 has literally flown by. Here it is, the end of October and I have not even caught up on my posts from September! One of my favorite things about fall, besides the cooler, weather, changing colors, crunching leaves . . . .  Okay, let’s be real. I love almost everything about fall! But, one of the most fun things I do is to create Halloween costumes for each of our grandkids.  And this year is no exception.

We now have six grandchildren, ranging in ages from 11 years to 16 months.  For the first time since I’ve known him, Michael picked out a store-bought “morph suit” costume and I can’t wait to see him all dressed up.  But, each of the others had special requests that I was happy to comply with. First up was Adellelyn. I received this picture in a text and knew I needed to follow up with a Facetime consultation to be sure I could capture her vision.

Adellelyn had very specific instructions for her Blue Maccaw (from RIO) costume:

·      Feathers under her arms to be her wings using the boa below

·      Light aqua blue color

·      Tulle is too scratchy

·      Soft full skirt for tail feathers 

For some reason, I can't find any photos of the outfit while working on it--I could have sworn I took some.  :-(  While she added different pants for a book character day costume, you can get a glimpse of what I created in this picture:

Archer loves dinosaurs! Last year I made a fun triceratops costume from a pattern I found online, but this year he wanted to be a T Rex.  There aren’t lots of great tutorials or patterns for a T Rex, so with old episodes of “Project Runway” playing, I channeled my inner Tim Gunn and “made it work”.  I pretty much love the way it all turned out!

Toddler D has been talking about his costume for months: a pumpkin! He went to the fabric store with me and also requested that it be very soft, so soft he gets!

For comparison's sake, here is a picture of his daddy at about the same age.  :-)

His other request was that his baby brother be his pumpkin seed. Instead, I was able to negotiate with him to carry seeds and let BabyD2 have a different costume. I made a treat bag with felt seeds on the front, but he really wanted to carry real seeds, so I added a clear plastic pocket to the front to hold his real pumpkin seeds.

Silas didn’t quite understand what picking out a costume meant, so his parents and I decided to go with one of his favorite books:  Dragons Love Tacos.  Silas will be the dragon, Jana the taco and Rob will be the jar of spicy salsa.

One of my favorite features of Silas's dragon costume is the fact that I made slits on the inside for his hands, so that when he raises his hands, his wings soar a bit.  :-)

Of course, he discovered that they still don't let him actually fly, but I think he's okay with that. 

Last, but not least, is our tiniest grandson, BabyD2. He loves dogs and cats, so a black cat seemed like the natural choice for him.

Well, Halloween is just hours (or days) away, so I'd better hit the Publish button and move on. I can't wait to see all of our little goblins decked out for the holiday!

Operation Halloween Costumes 2015

I have offered to make Halloween costumes for each of the grandchildren for the last couple of years---well, since I've HAD grandchildren.   The kids get to choose whatever they want, and so far, I've been able to come up work up a costume that they have been happy with.  The first year, Adellelyn requested a black cat costume and Michael wanted to be Spiderman.  It would have been a lot easier and definitely cheaper to just buy one, but in the end, they were so pleased with how they turned out.  (I didn't make the Blue Man costume)

Last year, the requests were a bit more difficult.  I probably spent way too much money and time on the costumes to transform  them into Art and Boo from Monsters University, but it was so worth it when I saw how much they loved them.

Plus, there were two new grand babies added to our family.  Archer already had an elephant costume provided by his other grandmother, but I sewed a penguin costume for baby D.

This year, there is another new grand baby so I knew I'd need a little extra time! After several changes in requests, Adellelyn settled on being Mavis, the vampire girl from the movie Transylvania.  Here was my inspiration photo.

I purchased some net sleeves and red/black striped tights and was all prepared to sew together a black dress, when I happened upon one on the clearance rack at Target.  She had seen a headpiece that she really wanted, so I picked that up at Big Lot's and only had to sew a vampire cape.  I forgot to take any pictures during the process, but they sent me this one yesterday, after the package arrived--(her mama will kill me when she realizes I posted with the messy living room showing, but hey, that's life with kids)!

At first, Michael wanted to wear his Art costume again, but a couple of weeks ago he changed his mind.  His request:   a brown dog that covers everything except his face.  Done!

After a visit to New England, Jaylynn requested a Crab Costume for Archer.   I had to think about how exactly to make that one, but in the end, it turned out pretty cute.   The "shell" straps on like a backpack.  

Baby B's parents decided that he would be the perfect "garden gnome", and I couldn't agree more!   The inspiration photo even looks a little like him!  

I can't wait to see him in the costume!

Callie and Jordan requested a Minion costume for Baby D.   I looked all over town for a yellow shirt with no luck at all.   So, yesterday, he and I made a trip to Joann's and bought a yard of fabric to make our own (plus some puppy dog fabric that caught his attention---I mean, how could I not??).  

I drafted a pattern while Baby D worked on a picture of his own.  

The shirt came together quickly and easily and looked pretty good.  I found overalls at Old Navy and only needed a cap.  Here is the inspiration picture for this costume.

I downloaded a pattern and cut out a cap, but could tell after the first few seams that it was not going to fit, so I turned to plan B.   Using a different pattern, I stitched the hat together and added a black band to mimic the goggles band.  

Fortunately, I held off on sewing the lenses to the hat on until I tried it on him this afternoon.   While it might have fit him fine, he HATED it!  (they are just laying on there there in the above photo)  When I attempted to try it on him to check the fit, not only would he not keep it on his head, he wouldn't come near it when it was laying on his couch!  

Enter plan C:   construct a hood instead of a hat and stitch it to the neckline of the shirt.  So far, he has tolerated the hood on his new rain jacket fairly well, so perhaps he would like this better than a hat.  

As I finished up this last costume, it occurred to me that the Baby B and Baby D don't have Trick or Treat bags.  It is too late to get one to baby B (next year!), but I put together a quick one this evening for baby D.

Things have been crazy busy the last week or so, but, I think they are all ready for Halloween now!  I would love to have a photo for them all together in their costumes--maybe next year!