When we were kids, I don't ever remember my Mom buying our costumes. We told her what we wanted to be, and we made it work with things we already had around the house. Last year, in the midst of our financial scares with no job, I had no choice but to make Ethan's costume on the cheap. This year, even though I'm working, those adorable $50+ costumes just weren't in our budget. Plus, I really enjoyed making his costume, and I wanted to do it again.
I really struggled with what to make Ethan. Last year he was an adorable Charlie Brown, and I wanted something just as unique and creative, but obviously easy enough to make. I originally decided to make him a pirate. Mom was going to help me with making his vest and eye patch, but I finally had to admit I just wasn't feeling it.
After a little internet perusing, I finally decided I really liked the cartoon character theme we went with last year and decided to go with it again this year. Good ol' classic Fred Flintstone. All for $4.02 (read, this used to say $1.72, but one mishap and that number ended up not as awesome as it had been.)
It started with a plain white t-shirt that my husband brought home for me from the sample box at his office. Could I have just gotten an orange t-shirt? Probably, but that wasn't free. So instead I splurged $1.50 on my budget for a small box of orange dye. And then I sprung the extra 22 cents on a piece of blue felt. We already had some black felt around the house for other projects. I love having an artist for a husband. Supplies galore.
It didn't. Dang t-shirt barely covered the diaper. Luckily we had a back-up that was a little larger, but I didn't have enough dye. The shirt came out yellow, which meant a trip to the store for some red dye to mix and make it orange. Enter the additional $2.48. How annoying. That's what I get for bragging that Ethan's costume was going to cost me under 2 bucks. I guess under $5 still sounds pretty amazing, but let's face it. It would have been way cooler. Anyway, moving on.
I was so excited how it turned out. I love the fact that it didn't have to be perfect to be cute, since cartoon clothes are never perfect. I couldn't wait to try this one on him and see how adorable he looked. So excited, in fact, that I decided to play dress-up the moment he woke up from his nap. That didn't go so well. He kind of yelled at me about it for nearly an hour.
However, he was much happier about wearing his costume yesterday. He was a hit at his ELC parade and really enjoyed trick-or-treating. We took him to a couple houses in my parent's neighborhood and then let him pass out candy to all the other neighborhood children. He loved putting candy in the bags for other kids, and was really proud of himself for the praise he was getting from all of us for listening so well.
I was also really impressed that all of the trick-or-treaters were so patient to wait for Ethan to drop their candy in their bags/buckets, instead of hurrying him along or snatching it out of his hand. Some even thanked him and praised him as well, and even a few little ones commented on how the baby gave them candy. Hats off to the parents of those kids, it was really great to see and I so appreciated that he felt included and important in such a "bigger kid" evening.
How was everyone else's Halloween?!
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