[Halloween 2011]

Hope you all had a most wonderful Halloween full of spooks, spirits and seriously good loot. We certainly did and let me tell you, we are plum tuckered out.

The boys had very specific ideas for what they wanted to be this year and to my initial chagrin, they did not go together. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about this (try to convince them to pick something themed? etc.) but in the end I just went with it. I was happy I did as it brought an entirely new level of Halloween happiness to the Littles, and in turn myself.

Li'l O told me very early on, and emphatically, that he wanted to be a "puh'kin". He's a lover of all things authentically Halloween and after some initial apprehension, I couldn't be happier at his choice.

Initially I wasn't sure what to do to make this tried and true Halloween classic interesting for me and something we could call our own. But as we explored ideas, I happily settled on something playful, with a vintage vibe to it.

For the basic pumpkin shape I used the Simplicity 0418 pattern. I chose an orange felt for the exterior of the pumpkin and a simple vintage looking fabric for the lining. I switched up the shape of the stem and chose to go with buttons instead of Velcro to hold the straps together.
For the green striped "jammies" worn underneath, I took a couple of women's shirts I found at Walmart and refit them to work with Little O's proportions. I took the top in quite a bit at the sides, chopped the length and cut off the cuffs and sewed them back on a little higher. The leggings were a bit more complicated. I made these from a woman's XL shirt, using the arms as the legs. It was all pretty piecemeal and a bit haphazard, but it worked out well enough for us. For the face I used felt to create a vintage, cupie doll looking face which I then hand stitched onto the front.

Little O looked adorable in it and I couldn't be happier with his classic choice.

Little A was also very opinionated about his costume this year. After exploring a variety of ideas, he decidedly settled on Secret Agent Perry...the Platypus...from the ever popular cartoon (or at least in our house), Phineas and Ferb (thank you Netflix online...). I wasn't entirely sure what to do for this but he was dead set on it so it was full steam ahead.


I used Butterick pattern 3238 to create the basic body suit and hood. For the tail I put batting between two pieces of orange felt and machine quilted the diamond pattern and then sewed the platypus tail in place of the the tail used in the pattern. I then sewed simple felt eyes on to the top of the hood. Jon found a great hat for only five dollars at the costume shop and I made a simple beak out of yellow fleece.

For the feet I cut out simple felt shapes and sewed elastic to the backs. To prevent the feet from continually turning around and around his ankle, I punched a couple of holes in the top and pulled his shoe laces through and tied the laces atop. This ended up working out great.

It was fun to see how much he lit up when he put the costume on. He immediately turned into "Secret Agent Perry" and started to make "secret agent" stances. He also told me that he couldn't talk when he wore it because Perry the Platypus doesn't talk. It was pretty much awesome.

Not many adults knew who he was but with his fellow five-year-olds, he was a hit. And that was all that really mattered to him.


This year I really learned the magic of making your kids dreams come true. While it's very fun and magical presenting new and fun things to your kids...things that they couldn't dream about until you made that world possible for them, it's all together an entirely new thing making their dreams come true (both are important I think). It was so great to see little A's face light up with delight when he first saw himself as "Secret Agent Perry". And I have to say, it's one of the most gratifying things as a parent to see what your child's personality brings to world. I can hardly wait to see what the future holds for us!

I have to admit that after I was halfway through with Little O's costume he started listing several other costume ideas that he wanted to entertain. This was new to me as Little A never did this at his age (although he did do it this year). I decided to instill a new "once mom purchases the fabric, no more costume changes" policy. This worked well with Little A (who initially wanted to be a ninja, then Perry, then Bowser...and so on) but did not compute too well with a three year old. In the end, I decided not to worry too much about it and hoped that he would put his pumpkin on if he wanted to get candy. And well...it totally worked. He loved it and was more than happy to gear up and get going on getting candy, candy, candy!

By the end of the night, as with this photo shoot, the boys were tuckered out. We really didn't get very far before Little A just started sitting on the porch after ringing the door bell. The home owners were thoroughly entertained by this and I'm sure got the impression that we'd be trucking up and down the streets for hours. So after only about eight houses we called it quits and ended the night with cousins and grandparents. I was definitely OK with this as I'd been scheming up ways to prepare for the massive amount of sugar intake that was sure to ensue. However, having only gone around for a little bit, their treat bags were just full enough to be fun, yet sparse enough to keep a mother (and dentist?) happy.

It was a great haunting holiday for all of us. Here's hoping that you too had a very Happy Halloween!