Up Family Costume

I have a weird memory. I can’t tell you what I wore a couple days ago but I can tell you about that one time my sister called me “pig nose” when I was five. I can’t tell you much about my college graduation other than I did indeed graduate, but I can tell you about the time my sister flung food across the table and it got stuck in my dad’s chest hair (TMI? #sorrynotsorry). I can't tell you much about my wedding day, but I can tell you about the time when I crimped my hair in fourth grade and a girl named Ashley told me it looked like I got electrocuted. I can’t tell you very many things about the big, important days in my life but I can tell you about the silly, small and/or unimportant things like the time my sister threw up blueberry pancakes or when I jumped off the high-dive during swimming lessons and did a belly flop.

When it comes to Halloween, this same, weird memory kicks in. I can’t tell you about memories I made trick-or-treating or even what costumes I wore (I remember the ones I have pictures of) but I can tell you how I would pick out my costume each year.

A month or so before Halloween, my mom would take us to Jo-Anns and we would sit at the tables with the catalogs, sift through the pictures and pick out whatever we wanted to be. Any time I go to Jo-Anns now I am reminded of this memory. It was something I didn’t fully appreciate then but now I realize how spoiled we were. Any costume that had a pattern, my mom would make for us – and they always turned out amazing. Now that I have my own kids I have a hard time buying costumes. I have this urge to make them, but then I realize, “Oh yeah, I can’t sew.”

That is why my mom is awesome (and my dad, too, but we will get to him later).  I called her up, explained that I wanted to do an “Up” family costume and that I wanted her to make a Kevin costume for Emery. Of course she was happy to help. The poor woman didn’t have much direction from me but after a few phone calls she got her vision for what Emmy’s costume should look like and it turned out AWESOME.

Now, let me pause and tell you about another memory from my childhood: during the month of October my dad was always MIA. If you needed him, your best luck was to search in the garage. Each year my dad’s company holds a costume contest and each year my dad wins. He spends the entire month crafting/sculpting/sewing/gluing/etc. his costume and his creativity always blows everyone out of the water. He has dressed up as so many crazy unique things, I can’t begin to explain them now - that will have to be a post for later on. The bottom line is my dad loves Halloween. Also, he’s a kind of a genius.

My dad basically invented a machine that cuts Styrofoam. In his words, “it’s a CNC hot wire cutter that ‘prints’ out an image created from the computer.” When he tries to explain to me how he made it and how it works, my brain overloads and I feel kind of dumb. And by kind of I mean really. Anyways, a girl doesn’t have to know how the machine works to know she wants it to make something for her – in this case, Kevin’s head.

Long story short: my dad made Kevin’s head, long neck included, but it wouldn’t stay on Emmy’s head (too top-heavy) so it got chopped (RIP Kevin’s neck) and became an adorable, feathery head piece. The combination of the Kevin head and the poofy, feathery costume was just too perfect. My mom and dad make quite the pair.

Emery HATED her costume when we first tried to put it on. And then she hated it the next ten times too. I actually said a prayer that she would wear her costume for at least a little bit for our church’s Trunk-or-Treat; I didn’t want my mom and dad’s hard work to go to waste! My prayer was answered because that cute little nugget wore her costume for almost the whole night. I took the headpiece off occasionally just so she would stay in a good mood, but she really was such a trooper.

As for Tate’s costume, I may not be a great seamstress, but I do know how to use a glue gun! For his Russell costume, I found and followed this tutorial online. However, I didn’t use transfer paper like she did. I just printed the little merit badges to cardstock, cut them out and stuck them to the furniture pad things that she recommends (to the sticky side). Then I found brown fabric in the remnants section at Jo-Anns, hot glued the fabric so it appeared to be sewn and hot glued the badges to it.

For the rest of it, I bought a cheap white hat at Jo-Anns (thank you coupons!) and dyed it yellow along with one of Tate’s old white shirts. I used felt to make the Wilderness Explorer logo for his hat and flag. Then I got a little bit of orange fabric from Walmart, cut it into a square and hot glued it so the edges looked sewn and used this as his neckerchief. His costume wasn’t nearly as fancy as Emery’s, but in the end I was proud of my glue gun.

 

We found an old suit coat at Goodwill for $5 and that was pretty much all Jordan needed for him to be Mr. Fredrickson. I searched my closet for some clothes that could work for Ellie's character and threw on a pair of fake glasses from Claire’s. We bought temporary white hair spray and followed some makeup tutorials to make us look older.  I will say we definitely looked older. It was kind of creepy.

I am totally into family costumes and this is our third year doing them. I hope to continue the tradition as long as our kids will let us. We have decided that even when they start having their own opinions and want to choose their own costumes that Jordan and I will still do a couple’s costume. I am excited to see what all y’alls are going to be this year so I can ooh and aah and maybe steal your idea for the future. ;) If you need any Styrofoam creations for your Halloween, my dad is your guy!

Happy Halloween!

I linked up at http://www.iheartnaptime.net/