My little pirate and parrot sure did.

Leyna rocked her No-Sew Parrot costume and Kendall’s pirate costume was thrown together with the help of his closet, the consignment store, and just a couple party store additions.

Since I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of finding him pirate boots or the annoyance of boot toppers, we embraced a more casual, beach-y pirate look.

The striped undershirt came from his closet (H&M). The jeans were last year’s, and now too short. I cut them jagged and a little shorter. The white dress shirt is a few sizes too big, purchased at the kid’s consignment store. The belt and sandals were part of his Easter outfit. We purchased the pirate hat on clearance at Walmart, and the eye patch and bag of gold doubloons (a must-have, thanks to Jake And The Neverland Pirates) were the only pieces purchased at the party store.

This was the first year I’ve done homemade costumes. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it every year, but I loved how they came out this time around.

Update on the Switch Witch/Candy Fairy:

I had a talk with Kendall yesterday, and he still wasn’t keen on the “Fahwy” coming to take his candy. So I took Gina’s advice and took the imaginary character out of the equation. I said, “Okay, we’ll tell the fairy not to come. Instead, do you think you’d like to take your candy to the sports store and use that to buy a new baseball bat? You’ll even get to pick it out.”

He eagerly agreed, so I think we’ll try to do that today or tomorrow. (He needs a new baseball bat anyway since daddy was playing with his and put a big dent in it.)

So, how was your Halloween? Did the Switch Witch or Candy Fairy come to visit your house?

Kendall is 3.5 and Leyna is 10 months old, and there is nothing like Halloween as the parent of young children.

We might have to make up some of these (originally from The Idea Room) for Kendall’s class this year… or, you know,  just for me.

Pinterest

I want to hang a wreath above the fireplace this year, and I can’t decide if I’ll put the TuTu wreath there, or something like this. I don’t know if it will creep me out too much to have in the house… or if it would be better suited for the front door.

We may try something like this this … perhaps on shirts again.

None via Jill on Pinterest

Do you have a Halloween board on Pinterest? I need to add to mine. If you’re not on Pinterest and would like an invite, leave your email in the comments below and I’ll try to get one to you as soon as I can.

“I wanna be Jake the Nevuhland Piwate!” he declared, and so we went with that.

Honestly, I have no clue what I’m going to do for his costume yet, but I thought all summer how I would put Leyna’s parrot costume together. I decided I would finish it today so I could forget that it’s ONE HUNDRED AND SIX DEGREES (stab, stab, stab TX summers)and pretend fall is here.

Believe it or not, this is the first Halloween costume I’ve ever made. ZOMG. I die from the cute.

What you’ll need:

Not a sewing machine!! Or a thread or needle of any sort. Don’t you just love me right now?!

A onesie you’ll use for the body-Leyna’s is a boys red turtleneck onesie from Carters. Bought it yesterday for $8. It is important to note that at Carters (and maybe elsewhere) the snaps for the girls turtlenecks are down the back and the boys are on the side. Do not get one with snaps down the back.

3 colors of felt- I used about 1/4 yard of each color for Leyna’s wings, but I’d suggest getting at least a 1/2 a yard so you have extra to work with, unless your wing span is going to be really tiny (more if your wings are much bigger).

2 feather boas- These are of the craft variety, with very fine feathers. I got them at Hancock Fabrics yesterday for about $5 each.

Scissors, hot glue gun + glue sticks, measuring tape, pen

Put the onesie on your baby and use a pen to mark where the top of the feathers on their butt should go and where they should end. I started Leyna’s just above the top of her diaper.

Measure the wingspan, from the seam of one wrist cuff to the next. Since the sleeves will naturally point down a bit, place your measuring tape across the back at the neck and measure a little above each sleeve if you need to.

Then measure from the top of the shirt (below the neck if it’s a turtleneck) down the middle of the back to determine how long you want the wings to be. I made Leyna’s stop 2 inches above where I wanted to start the feathers on her butt.

I determined Leyna’s wings would be 29″ by 9″ on her 24 month onesie. (Yes, she will only be 10 months at Halloween.)

Cut the first color of felt, the color you want at the bottom of the wings, the width of the wingspan you’ve determined. Then fold that in half and mark the length on the fold.

Starting at that point on the fold, cut up to the top corner, rounding it as you go.

Notch the edges to create “feathers.”

Do the same thing for the other 2 colors, but subtract 10″ from the width for the 2nd color and 20″ from the width for the 3rd color. Also, subtract 2″ from the length for the 2nd color and 4″ from the length for the 3rd color. For example:

Leyna’s final wing measurements
Blue- 29″ by 9″
Green- 19″ by 7″
Red- 9″ by 5″

If you’re making wings that are much bigger or much smaller, you might need to tweak these measurements. Do what you think will look best. This is why I suggest having extra felt. 

Laid out on top of each other, they should look like this:

Hot glue the top edges together by flipping each one up and running a bead of hot glue between the 2 layers.

I made sure they were really secure by applying another row of hot glue just below the first, but I didn’t glue the entirety of each layer of felt to the next so that it would look more like feathers and move better with her.

Place the wings, top (layered side… the one you want showing from the back) down, then place your onesie, belly side up, on top of it. Take a look at what the wings will look like from the front. I wanted there to be a little color peeking through from that view, too, so I cut a layer for each side that was about 10″ by 8″.

Again, I just hot glued under the straight edges and let the “feathers” be free. It looks like this from the front. (Keep in mind, at this point, you still haven’t glued the wings onto the shirt.)

To glue the wings onto the onesie, you may want to start by putting a piece of cardboard inside. I didn’t have any issues with the hot glue seeping through, but I’d hate for that to happen to anyone. This will be pretty important to do if you’re using fabric glue instead of hot glue.

Flip everything back over, make sure the back of your onesie is facing up, then line up the center of the wings and run a bead of hot glue from right below the neck to about an inch above where your wings will stop.

To attach the top of the wings, start at the middle and work out toward each end, a few inches at a time, one side at a time. Stretch the arms to meet the top of the wings until you get toward the end.

It will start to get difficult to get everything to line up around this point, so just go ahead and glue the sleeve down to the wings and trim the excess off the top.

Now you’re ready for the feathers on the butt. You may need to trim a string off the end of your feather boa. If you do this, put a dot of hot glue on the raw edge to keep it from… molting.

Start at the mark you made at the top of the butt. Glue your first color boa across the top of the butt, then back the other way. Again, when you cut it off, add another big dot of hot glue to the raw edge.

 Do the same thing for the second color feather boa right below that. You’ll end up with something that looks like this from the back:

And if you put it on a chubby baby, you’ll end up with something that looks like this:

Now, I can’t take credit for this next part, but the cherry on top of this whole getup is this FABULOUS feather headband made custom by Bella’s Bowtique. 

This photo shoot wouldn’t have happened without Aunt Kelly’s watch. I tried like hell to get a picture of her without that freaking watch in her mouth. This was the result.

She literally screamed, “DADA!”  as I shot this, as if she was telling on me and Aunt Kelly for torturing her and not even letting her chew on a little ol’ watch while we did so.

So she won. The watch was promptly returned to her chubby hands.

I think I’ll have a Halloween party. I think I’ll have a toddler Halloween party. That’s a fabulous idea! A cute little party, nothing big, just something for all the kiddos, something for Kendall. It will be nice to do this for him before the baby comes. Can’t be that hard… I’ll keep it really small.

4 weeks out

Time to send invites… let’s make it an Evite, keep it paperless and eco-friendly.  Super easy to just upload everyone’s email addresses…. Wow. So, hmmm… that’s a lot of email addresses. That’s a lot of people. Oh well, surely a lot of them won’t show up. It’s Halloween weekend. They probably all have other plans.

3 weeks out

Soooo… lots of yes’ RSVPs… not so many no’s. Where are we going to put 35 people in this house? Holy crap. Scott’s going to kill me.

2 weeks out

This won’t be so bad. Lots of people will be great! Lots of kids, lots of fun. We’ll have snacks and crafts. I’ll put in an order with Oriental Trading company. We’ll keep it cheap.

I’ll make some delicious pumpkin muffins that I saw on the Pioneer Woman, and I’ll make banana bread. I can even make some dulce de leche in a can to dip apple slices in.

I’ll use the Party Like a Kid Halloween printables for decorations, and we’ll set up a mini pumpkin patch in the back yard. We can even set up a photo opp spot with a hay bale and a giant scarecrow and some potted mums. The kids can all get their picture taken there and I’ll print them all out and mail them out after the party. Maybe they can even color their own magnetic picture frame at the party? Yeah.. that would be awesome! This is going to be so easy. Piece of cake. Nothing to worry about.

1 week out

Shit. I missed the shipping deadline for Oriental Trading Company. I’m exhausted and I need to go shopping for party crafts. I guess I’ll hit up Hobby Lobby tomorrow.

6 days out

Craft stores are where stress goes to get it’s freak on and procreate. Way too many choices, yet nothing I had in mind. No fuzzy magnetic Halloween picture frames? No foam stick-on pumpkin faces? No time to think this through. Kendall has about 5 minutes before he self destructs. Why did I ever decide to bring a 2 year old with me? Oh right… because I DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. Distractions? Tell him about the party! Include him! I know you’ve kept it hush hush up to now so he won’t bother you about it, but this will keep him quiet. Tell him we’re having a Halloween party with all our friends. Brilliant. I am a freaking toddler whisperer.

Not.

He thinks he gets a say in things.

Although, he’s adorable. Now telling everyone who passes, “Hewwo. I Kendall. I have Halloleen party at mah house wit mah fwiends. I get stickers.”

Yeah, okay. We’ll get stickers.

“At my Halloleen party, we dance to Katy Perry, okay momma?”

Here come the demands of the 12 year old girl trapped in my 2 year old son’s body.

4 days out

Get stomach flu. Puke brains out. Spend the next 24 hours not preparing for the party or cleaning the house AT. ALL. Instead, make giant messes everywhere.

2 days out

Begin cleaning flu germs out of the house. Nag Scott a little more about how important it is that the guest bath be back to fully functional in time for the party.

Begin to make mental list of all the things to buy tomorrow-
pumpkins for pumpkin patch
pot of mums
giant scarecrow
food
decorations
napkins and plates

and all the things to clean
the bathrooms
the windows!
the kitchen floor

and all the things to cook
the Pioneer Woman pumpkin muffins
the homemade cream cheese frosting
the dulce de leche

Start to wonder if I’ll get it all done. Foolishness! I’ll be fine. It’s just a simple little party with 35 guests. Check Weather.com and pray there’s no rain in the forecast. We’ll definitely need to let people spill outside.

1 day out

Begin metamorphosis into PSYCHOTIC WIFE OF DOOM. Breathe fire on husband every 30 seconds, nothing he does is right. Realize time is flying at warp speed.

WHY CAN’T I STOP TIME TO CLEAN THE HOUSE?? WHY DOES THIS HOUSE EVEN NEED TO BE CLEANED? WHY CAN’T WE EVER KEEP ANYTHING CLEAN? WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF? CLEAN, HUSBAND, CLEAN!!! FASTER!

Pick up printables from Kinkos because piece of shit printer doesn’t have enough ink.

Head to evil empire Walmart. Throw last 12 pumpkins in cart while shooting laser beams of death out of eyes at little old lady headed toward me for one.

F*ck Pioneer Woman’s fancy pants recipe. Am now making box mix cupcakes.

F*ck homemade cream cheese frosting. Betty Crocker for the win!

F*ck dulce de leche in a can. That shiz takes 4 hours to cook! And it very possibly could, literally, blow up in my face. Grab two tubs of caramel sauce.

Argue with husband, who thinks his opinion matters, about decorations and plates and napkins. Psychotic Wife of Doom amasses super powers while in evil empire, becomes even more psychotic, even more full of doom. Am now breathing fire AND spitting napalm.

Come home, clean more, bake my ass off, yell at husband, ignore child, QUESTION SANITY x 1,000.

Bed at 12:30

Day of party

Wake at 7:30, QUESTION SANITY, realize Psychotic Wife of Doom is still amongst us.

CLEAN. Half ass the windows. These are parents of toddlers we’re having over. Surely they will understand smudgy windows.

Contemplate dog murder after learning (via my nose) that the Labrador contracted some sort of foul case of flatulence mixed with deadly butt juice over night. Nix idea upon realizing dog murder would just make more of a mess to clean. Grab bottle of Febreze and light 50 candles.

Am pretty sure husband is drawing up divorce papers. NO TIME, NO TIME FOR DIVORCE! MUST SET UP PUMPKIN PATCH! NO, YOU ARE NOT PUTTING THOSE PUMPKINS IN STRAIGHT LINES! HOW HARD IS IT TO LINE UP PUMPKINS?!

Realize we forgot potted mums and giant scarecrow. F*ck photo opp spot. Am over it. Am over everything.

30 minutes until party

Everything is done, house looks great, Psychotic Wife of Doom is gone. Apologize profusely to husband and child. Put on makeup. Put on smile.

Ding Dong

Cue smoke and mirrors.

The party was actually a great success. We had over 30 other people here, including 14 kids under the age of 3. We had hot apple cider and coffee for the adults, cold apple cider for the kids. The pumpkin spice cupcakes I wound up making were DELICIOUS and so easy. Several people on Twitter suggested I try this recipe:

1 box spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin puree
Mix together (will be really dense), bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Seriously, YUM. I topped them with canned cream cheese frosting.

We also had banana bread and apple slices, all of which about 90% was left over. I guess it’s hard for people to eat when they’re chasing their toddlers through someone else’s house.

Kendall had a blast, the weather was perfect, and I *think* I did a good job hiding Psychotic Wife of Doom’s presence once people got there. I have, however, promised my husband I will never do anything like that ever again… at least not while 8 months pregnant. He is a saint for putting up with my moods sometimes, and there should seriously be an official, medical term for the level of psychosis that takes over me 24 hours before I host an event. It’s a freaking miracle our relationship even survived the days leading up to our wedding.

I wish I could share pictures of the party with you, but uh, I don’t have any that aren’t blurry or too dark or just plain terrible.

I do, however, have a few Halloween pics to share.

And a 32.5 week belly picture

Hope your Halloween festivities were fun! Please tell me I’m not the only one who loses her mind party planning.

Kendall is officially 2.5 today and I’m nearly 33 weeks pregnant. Holy. Shit.

However, after waiting too long to order the ribbon in bulk online (was thinking of getting it from JKMRibbon.com) and discovering that purchasing that amount of ribbon from Hobby Lobby or Hancock Fabrics would set me back close to $40, I decided to rethink my crafty plan of attack. My creative muse perked up as I walked past a display of spools of black tulle. I’ve made many a tutu for various little girls in our lives with spools of pink and purple tulle and they are SO easy. I figured I’d just apply the same concept to the wreath.  I love the way it turned out and figured I’d type up a quick tutorial for it. It’s really not much different than the concept for the ribbon wreath, but it ends up looking a little more fanciful to me.  I think it would be really fun to do the same thing in bright colors for a birthday party, and will store that away in my crafty mental box for next year.

Supplies:

1 14 inch straw wreath ($4 reg price, got it for $2 on sale at Hobby Lobby)
3 15 yard spools of black tulle ($4 reg price, got for $2.50 each at Hancock Fabrics)
1 10 yard roll of 2 inch black floral ribbon ($10 reg. price, got for $5 on sale at Hobby Lobby)
1-2 yards of orange floral ribbon (purchased a 10 yard spool on sale for $3 at Hobby Lobby, reg. price $6)
a couple pins to hold ribbon in place
small black scrap ribbon to make a loop at the back of the wreath for hanging

I kept the plastic wrapper on the straw wreath because I didn’t want to deal with all those bits and pieces of straw flying everywhere. Then I just wrapped the black ribbon around it tightly, securing it at the end with a straight pin.

Then cut the tulle into 18 inch long strips. I used all three spools to make it really fluffy.

Tie the tulle around the wreath and knot it with a square knot (right over left, left over right)

Continue to tie the strips all the way around until you have it as full as you want it. Make sure you keep all the knots lined up (I kept mine to the center left when looking down at the wreath). Don’t worry if it looks lopsided to you. You can always give it a haircut when you’re finished.

When you’re done, and it’s nice and fluffy and even, tie a simple orange bow to the bottom and a small loop of black ribbon at the top and hang. I have mine on a white Command adhesive hook.

Happy Crafting! (And yes, Sallie, I still owe you a pillowcase dress tutorial! It’s just a wee bit more complicated than this one, but I will get it done soon!)

Oh, and Kendall says hi!

1. WTF is up with kids old enough to drive trick or treating?  Seriously.  Are you that hard up for sugar that you need to be pushing past the cute 6 year old ladybug only to shove your bigger than an F-150 pillowcase full of candy, undoubtedly stolen from those weaker and cuter than you, in my face?  And then you can’t even muster up the balls to say TRICK OR TREAT?!  Get off my porch you punk.  Oh, and get a better costume.  If you show up here next year, you better work harder for my candy than throwing on a Jack Daniels t-shirt with your baggy jeans and pointing out to me that you are a bottle of liquor.

2.  How is it that mass quantities of kids have missed the memo that in order to get candy while trick or treating one must actually say, “trick or treat” not, “give me some candy” or nothing at all.   I can’t tell you how many kids (and we’re talking ones old enough to text message, so you bet your ass I think they are old enough to talk) stood on my porch, bag wide open, blank face staring at me.  The first couple of times I just stared back, hoping they would remember what they were supposed to do, but the mutes were clogging up my porch so I had to just throw some candy at them so they would leave and keep the line moving.  One little brat had the nerve to not say anything until after he had received his candy.  Then he paused halfway down my driveway, looked back at me and screamed, “TRICK OR TREAT SMELL MY FEEEEEETTT!!!”  And of course, his mom did not stop him and perhaps remind him to say thank you  or correct him for being such a little turd.  She laughed at him.  Yes.  You’re child is such an adorable little shithead. Let us all laugh.

3.  Big props to the parents who actually paid attention to their kids, encouraged them to be polite and reminded them to say thank you!  Sadly, it was the exception, but I would say 25% of the trick or treaters were accompanied by some pretty kick ass parents who not only insured their kid wasn’t being a little punk, but most of them dressed up and seemed to be having a lot of fun.  When I grow up I want to be a parent like that.

4.  Halfway through the evening I saw a middle aged couple walking their dogs down the street.  They were cute dogs, some small breed that tolerates being dressed like a human, dressed up in doggie Halloween costumes.  They made me smile – good for them for getting into the spirit! – then they made me think, huh?  Seriously? with this –   As they made their way up past our driveway the woman shouts, “We’re trick or treating for doggie treats!  Do you have any?”  I, visibly perplexed, cocked my head to the side and said, “Urrrrr….uhhmmm…  I don’t think we even have any for our own dogs right now…. sorry!”  Weird, but at least they put for the effort to dress their dogs up, I guess?  It’s more than I can say for some parents, which leads me to…

5.   Lazy parents suck.  If you let your kid go out trick or treating with out any sort of costume, you are lazy and you suck.  Now,  before you try to defend these lazy sucky parents by saying, “maybe they are poor!”  let me just say this.  You do not NEED $$ to make a Halloween costume.  You need a little imagination, a dash of creativity, an ounce of thought, half a brain, and maybe a paper bag and/or a sheet.  I felt so bad for these kids, and there were more than a few   I hope your parents suck less next year.

6.   Now, if the alternative to showing up in no costume is coming out in something you stole from your mother’s lingerie collection, perhaps you just need to stay home.  Pedophiles must delight in what Halloween has turned into – a chance for girls as young as nine (yes, I swear to sweet tiny baby Jesus there was a nine year old dressed as a “sexy bumblebee” parading up and down our street) to dress up in shit that I couldn’t even muster up the courage to wear in college.  The last two trick or treaters of the night were girls no older than 12 (I don’t know why I’m bothering with the ages… if you are young enough to trick or treat, you are too young to dress like this).  One was dressed as a Playboy bunny, complete with platform stripper stilettos and fishnets and the other was a French Maid, complete with (as I saw them in all their glory when she bent down to pick up the candy she dropped) frilly lace underwear.  Unbelievable.  Disgusting.  Most of all, sad.

6.  The scariest thing I saw or heard all night was a 14-15 ish girl who, after seeing Kendall sitting out there with us, proclaimed to her girlfriends, “Awwww y’all!  I REALLY want a little boy… a little baby boy…. like, now.”  To which one replied, “No way.  You’re too young.”  She responded, “No.  I’m serious.  I really think it would be cool.  I’m ready.  I want one.” AGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Don’t get me wrong.  There were lots of cute trick or treaters that were of the appropriate age and well behaved.  Overall, it was a really fun night.  It just, more than anything, solidified that I’m officially an adult and getting a little set in my old ways already.

Kendall is 6 months old today!!

Kendall will be 6 months old in 2 days!