wonderland

So the theme of Halloween this year (and yes there is always a theme as of late) was "Alice in Wonderland."  Most people who look at this blog also see my sister's so perhaps this is all old news, but I still need to do my own post (I am just very behind right now).  I stole pictures from her, but you can see her post here.   My boys were The Caterpillar and The Cheshire Cat.  I would have liked to participate too, but I was lucky to get their costumes made this year.

The kids usually start discussing what they will all be for Halloween sometime in the summer.  The Burch and Speier kids decided on Alice, but Jimmy had gotten it stuck in his head to be Mickey Mouse when that was in discussion a while before.  I really wanted him to to something with everyone else, but I certainly wasn't going to force anything on him.  I knew it would be a hard sell since he hadn't seen the movie and had only read a book of it a few times.  Plus, I was sort of looking forward to being Minnie with him and making Zach be Goofy.  However, I brought up a few of the character choices such as the Mad Hatter, March Hare, Cheshire Cat, or the Caterpillar.  He immediately wanted to be the Caterpillar before I even showed him the pictures (this probably had something to do with a popular childhood book that we all know and love).  At first I was like, "Yeah, that would be great!"  because I was excited that he wanted to do it.  Then I looked at a picture of the caterpillar online and realized how complicated making a costume of it would be.  As we stared at the computer together, I said, "Uhhhh, Buddy.  That might be to hard for mom to make."  He seemed sad and kept asking "Why?"   I said maybe he should pick one of the easier ones. Then that night at dinner he told his dad in a sad little voice he was just going to be the cat because "The caterpillar was too hard for mom to make."  Of course, it broke my heart and I said, "You can be the caterpillar! It's okay.  I can do it!"  That kid sure knows how to play me.  Plus, I looked at it as a challenge.  And what pregnant lady in her 8th month doesn't want more than to hunch over a sewing machine?  And yet I did it and am quite proud of myself.  Thanks to the help of my friend Jessica's Sewing Blog I had a good place to start on the costume base (Thanks Suz for the idea).  I just made pajamas with one of her tutorials and added four extra arms to the top and four extra legs to the bottom.  Jimmy helped me stuff them (not with the kind of stuffing you put in the turkey at Thanksgiving he likes to remind me.)  I hand stitched the extra arms so I could reuse the pajamas later, but so far Jimmy refuses to let me dismantle the costume.  He did, however, insist on wearing it to bed one night.  I let him  do knowing all the extra limbs would drive him crazy and he would never want to do it again.  Sure enough he woke up in the middle of the night fussing and wanting to take it off.  Basically, Jimmy loved the costume so it was totally worth making it.  It may have put me into labor (I was working on it until about 2 1/2 hours before contractions started) and I was still sewing it together right before he put it on for the night, but all in all it was fun.  

Jimmy loved that the legs were all connected and would move when he raised his arms.  As for the hat, I realize he kind of looked like Carmen Miranda, but it was better than nothing.  I didn't have time to actually make one so I just tied fabric (I ran out of the same color) around his head and tied it with a rubber band. As for the Hookah it is made out of and "I Dream of Jeannie" toy, a rope, the end of a pipe, and some electrical tape.

Gus got to be the Cheshire Cat.

I didn't know if he was going to be a boy or a girl when I made this, but I was pretty sure he would at least be born and need a costume.  The striped jammies used to be pink, but I dyed it all purple.  I felt to guilty to put another of my boys in pink jammies like I did last year.

Cute little Kateri was Alice.

Finn was the White Rabbit.

Lucy and Audrey were Tweedle Goose and Tweedle Geege (spelling Em or Allie?)

... as opposed to Dum and Dee.

Lily and Jack as the Queen and King of Hearts.

Do you play croquet?

This should give you some indication of how difficult it was to put him in his carseat.

We were so glad Aunt Erin could be in town for it all...

And I had someone to hold Gus for me.

Emily made these fun cookies.

And added some cute extra touches.

And Allie made this awesome pumpkin and some other fun decorations.

Trick or Treating was fun this year.  

Jimmy got more into it this time and had his, "Trick or Treat. Thank You.  Happy Halloween!" down pretty well.

And the candy was really exciting this year, but he only ate one lollipop since it took forever.

Gus went with us and slept the whole time like a good little boy.

At the end of the night we went to pick Nana up at the airport.  Jimmy and I went inside to wait for her and everyone in the very quite airport was laughing at Jimmy's costume.  One of the airport workers even took a picture of him.  Then when Nana came down the escalator, Jimmy ran all the way to her with all his arms waving and everyone in the whole place watching him.  All the people on the flight were sort of miserable from having their flight delayed by many hours, but Jimmy was so happy (and loud) that he was making them all smile.  One lady said, "You are just making my day... and it has been a really bad day.  I have had three flights canceled."  Nana, sorry your flight was delayed, but I think it was meant to be so that we could meet you at the airport.