Thursday, October 2, 2008

The October Dilemma

October is here, and I've got Halloween costumes on the brain.

We've had some good times with Halloween costumes over the last few years.

Here's 2005 (the year I went digital!) Bean is Robin Hood and Fish is a gorilla:

In 2006 Fish ran all over the house in his Peter Pan costume singing "You can fly! You can fly!" He was three and it was pretty adorable.


And I was so happy with how Bean's dragon costume turned out. I started with a dinosaur pattern and made the dragon stuff up. I wish you could see the tail in this picture. It was so much fun making this costume and Bean was so happy with it. Big-time warm fuzzy memories.


Last year the boys decided months in advance that they wanted to be Gandalf and Bilbo. Roo was a penguin chick because that's what I wanted her to be and she was too little to dissent. (It's good to remember periodically that there are some definite upsides to the toddler age.)

This year things are not yet falling together smoothly. We've had a lot of debate about Halloween costumes so far and no conclusions have been reached. Bean is getting more particular about how he wants his costume and we have yet to settle on something mutually acceptable. I'm trying to determine how much time and money I can spend on costumes. My big ideas about hand-making theme costumes for the entire family are unrealistic considering the demands on my time, but I will feel cheated if I don't get to make anything at all. And above all this whole thing needs to be fun!

Bean really wanted to be Aslan, so I was gearing up for that, but when he saw examples of lion costumes he didn't think those fit his idea of what Aslan should look like. So then he wanted to be Reepicheep, but I told him that if I made him a mouse costume not enough people knew who Reepicheep was for them to see that he just wasn't a mouse and he needed to be okay with that. So then he wanted to be Peter, but how do you dress up as Peter?

The whole Narnia thing was going nowhere, so we talked about other options. Now he says being a cowboy would be okay. I can make chaps and a vest, but I will have to hunt around town for a cheap but decent hat and/or boots, which is tough with four kids in tow. Any ideas, suggestions, comments on cowboy costumes or Narnia costumes or any kind of costumes?

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Newton was a cowboy last year, and we borrowed boots and a hat from someone in his primary class. Ask around, maybe you'll get lucky! If not, try Goodwill.

Annalea said...

How about "Peter, the High King of Narnia"?

Crown, sword, etc. I seem to remember that you have some play armor about. ;o) Fish could be the other king (the one whose name escapes my memory...aurgh.)

Hth! And your sewing is adorable . . .

Simplymom said...

What about going as the book itself? Two pieces of posterboard with straps to hang over his shoulders with the name of the book and author. Then he can draw Aslan and the other characters himself or print them off and color them.

Or, if YOU were the book, they could all be characters from it and people would recognize what they were better. With 2 boys and 2 girls, you could do all four of the kings/queens. Or a faun, a beaver, Peter, and . . . . ?

Jenilyn Collings said...

When I was expecting #2, I found an adorable lion costume in December for under $3. So she was a lion, I was a witch, and Samuel was the wardrobe (we attached doors to a piece of cardboard and then drew a light inside the doors). #1 was a dragon, or something that didn't fit in. Anyway, not many people figured it out right off the bat, but those that did thought it was hilarious.

Emily said...

Idea for and Tip for and Idea for costumes:

Black Peppercorn
Green Bean
Fish
Roo
??????????????????

Emily said...

OK so I just have to say here that my identity was stolen last week and the cryptic (and yet interesting) tip above was posted by my Ethan. It took me a while to notice it and/or figure it out ... but it has Ethan written all over it!!!