Our halloween (and Christmas) outfits over the years

This week I'm in the middle of Halloween planning and it's a little crazy. I didn't grow up celebrating Halloween (although I remember going trick o' treating once) but I had no difficulty picking up the tradition when we moved to the USA. Now we've been here for almost 4 years, and it's becoming one of my favorite holidays (at least the funnest). I've had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for family costumes over the last few years but this year I decided to buy costumes instead of making them. Part of the reason is the boys are getting specific with what they want and I'm not sure I can satisfy them, the other part is they've reached the age when dressing up is fun and since I've been making and recycling all their costumes over the years they didn't have anything to play with when I was done. So this year we are buying costumes that I'm committed not to touch (no repurposing, or recycling the costume into PJs after Halloween) so we can start a stash of costumes they can play with all year.

Our first Halloween in Colorado, Josh was only 10months old (almost 11) and we were poor students (which we still are by the way) so I didn't want to spend any money. I decided to turn one of Joshua's hoodie sweaters (knitted by my aunt) into a mouse outfit. I added ears (pipe cleaners and felt) and a tail and it was done. I dressed up as a cat and Russ as a piece of cheese.

Our second halloween, we thought Josh would look super cute as a french man with mustache, beret and striped T-shirt, so we worked around the theme for the rest of the family. Russ was a French protestor (French riots were all over the news at the time), I was a French poodle, and baby William was an American tourist in Paris.

The following year's costumes were really fun to make. I decided on the theme a couple of months ahead of time and sneakily prepared Josh by showing him the movie "The Incredibles". It immediately became his favorite movie so when I innocently suggested we dress up as The Incredibles he was ecstatic. Little did he know he'd been brainwashed into it, haha!



I later recycled the costumes and turned them into Santa costumes for Christmas (by removing the logo and adding fake fur around the neck, front and wrists).

These were later turned into PJs, due to an obsession I have with reusing and recycling, which I'm trying to cure myself from by not making costumes this year (I'm not sure how logical or efficient this is).

This year the boys picked out their costumes and the best part is, without even trying they chose costumes that go together very well. Josh will be a knight in shining armor, and William will be a dragon. We went to the library this week and picked out lots of books about knights and dragons. We're building up the anticipation and it's so much fun to hear them tell everybody what their costumes are going to be. We're counting days!