Let the costumes begin!

When I was asking for costume suggestions on Facebook a couple months ago, people were responding with "why are you thinking about Halloween in July?" Well because I am not your typical mom. First off, I put a lot of thought into what my boys are going to dress up as. Second, I don't just walk into a store and buy a costume. They are either way over priced and/or made very cheaply. I prefer to put it together myself   (hence beginning my research in the summer months).

Some of you might remember last year's costume extravaganza that involved me making a Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater costumes out of cardboard boxes. Very time consuming, but I think I spent a whopping $5 on both costumes. Luckily I don't think this year's costumes will be quite as time consuming. In fact I already have a pretty good head start on Greyson's. After much consideration I decided a pirate is what he shall be. And after about 5 minutes on Google I realized there are a million and one ways to dress like a pirate. Since I am designing for a 3 year I figured simple was the best route to go. So this morning we went up the road to Goodwill to see what treasures we could find and boy did I luck out on the first try! I found a pair of black pants, a white dress shirt and a red scarf that cost me a whopping $7! I will have to make a few snips here or there to make them more "piratey," but I am definitely pleased with my findings. The hardest decision really has been trying to figure out what to put on his feet. For some reason all the pirate costumes online have the kid modeling barefoot. Cute as it may look it's obviously not realistic. Now you can spend a small fortune on child size pirate boots, but being the mom I am that just wasn't going to cut it. Lucky for me I came across pirate rain boots. They are decorated to look like a pirate boot, but being that they are rain boots that means Greyson will get to wear them for more than just Halloween. Mission accomplished.

Now since Greyson is a pirate of course that means Rylan has to be something that coordinates. At first I really couldn't decide. A parrot seemed like the obvious choice although I had no creative ideas on how to pull it off. Then I fell upon this site. One look and it was decided - Rylan will be Peter Pan! Now I could imagine my husband's reaction when sharing my idea, but we are not talking about green tights here. Actually instead of making the pants like suggested, I purchased a pair of green leggings a few sizes to big. Now I just need to arrange a solo trip to the fabric store and I will be on my way. Again the shoes are a little bit of a dilemma. I am thinking of trying to find a brown boot that he could wear this winter, but that might change once I get working on the rest of the costume.

So for those of you that were questioning me before, I think you see why this is such a lengthy process. And all that was just the prepping and planning!