If it weren't for those meddling kids...

It has become a tradition to find family-themed Halloween costumes (although I'm already in the planning process this year and it is getting more difficult). Our oldest son loves helping me scavange for pieces to our costumes hopefully without having to buy an actual costume from a party or Halloween specialty store. Other than Scooby, we were relatively successful last year.

I think a lot of people, much like me, think "I am not creative. I can't put that together." Uh, yeah you can. You get a picture of what you want to duplicate, think about the plain pieces you can find at inexpensive stores (Ross, Goodwill, eBay, your closet, around the house). It may take some extra time and planning, but it can be done.

For Shaggy, my son already owned brown shoes and brown pants, and we found an oversized green t-shirt at Goodwill for 50 cents! We did purchase the goatee, but big deal. It also came with a huge wig, that wasn't like the character at all, and my son's hair was already the right color.

I found Velma's red pleated skirt (actually a Reebok tennis skirt) at Goodwill for $8. The orange turtleneck on eBay for $24, but I can wear it as an actually sweater in my regular wardrobe, so the price was justified for me. The orange knee socks from Academy Sports, two pair for $6. The red maryjanes at Goodwill for $6.

For my husband, Fred, a pair of his own jeans and black Doc Martens, a white sweater (from eBay), a blue collared shirt from his closet, and an orange scarf (a bandana for 89 cents from the local craft/hobby store). I did get him what I *thought* was yellow hair spray, but it turns out it was flourescent to glow in the dark, which made it look green indoors. So, in that, I confused everyone. But outside, it the dark, it was pretty neat.

And little Scooby is just too cute (in my opinion) to not include, even if his dog tag is turned backward.

The gang at our church fall fest, with our senior pastor.



Catching Up

So I am apparently really terrible at keeping up with the blog. :/ I read my Bible every day, do the laundry nearly every day, check facebook every day, but for whatever reason, I can't even check the blog once a quarter.

Anyway, I've become (along with anyone else who has been invited) addicted to pinterest. I want to pin everything, make everything, travel everywhere, design my own dream home, live in some impossible-to-maintain garden, do crazy crafts with the kids, sew everything (and I don't even own a sewing maching). But I got to thinking, "hey, I've got a few good ideas, too!" There are two things I am good at. I love to plan a great theme  party from invitation down to the last party favor detail. And for whatever reason, we strive to make awesome family themed Halloween costumes, which is weird because neither of our families celebrated Halloween or went to the church alternative or any of that. But it's become this awesome opportunity to do something together with our kids that most parents wouldn't do. We dress up WITH them.

Two years ago, my oldest son was very much into Popeye, thanks to his daddy. So, for the most part we made our own costumes. We did buy Swee Pea's, but I'm sure if you know how to sew you could DIY...but I am not that crafty. It was felt that came to a point at the feet, and had a little piece of velcro in the back. But my husband and I made little Popeye's shirt, with forearms and all.

For Popeye's shirt, we took a black t-shirt, one size larger than what my son would normally wear, and first folded it vertically off center in the front, then sewed it to make it look like a button down shirt. We sewed three oversized gold buttons. I used stitch witch (or whatever iron-on adhesive) to put on the bright blue 2" ribbon sleeves, with the ends meeting under the arm. We took a heavier red material and sewed it into a square collar on the back, and again used stitch with to attach the black grosgain ribbon.

I was content with just drawing anchor tattoos directly on my sons arms, but my husband wasn't having that. He went to the dollar store for womens white tights, and sewed them double thick, and used cotton batting to stuff the forearms, and used permanent marker to ink him. My husband even went as far as "whittling" him a somewhat functional pipe that whistles.

His treat bag was made to look like a can of spinach,  made from felt and cotton, with an iron-on transfer of an actual spinach can label (the one that advertises Popeye on it), with pieces of green felt loosely coming out of the top like spinach. We did discover that the bag really needs a sturdier handle...the felt stretches very easily.

For Olive Oyl, I found a black stretchy skirt at Ross or some discount clothing store, and added a piece of yellow grogain ribbon, again with stitch witch, about 4 inches from the bottom. I also took a long sleeve red t-shirt from Old Navy (usually around $8) and took round velcro from the craft store to adhere a cotton eyelet lace trim around the collar, which later I removed and still wear the shirt!

For my husband, I looked in thrift stores for those yellow pants, but found them on ebay. Why Ralph Lauren ever decided men needed yellow corduroy pants, I'll never know! He already owned a black polo, and I purchased the teal ribbon long enough to tie in a belt. And both of the sailor/captains hats were found on ebay for dirt cheap. I think $2 for the Popeye sailor hat, and maybe $7 for the captains hat.

I do have to give my husband props for wearing the outfit. He was more than a trooper about it...he actually was getting irritated with me if I wasn't make the costumes absolutely authentic to the original cartoon. We received so many compliments and people asking us where we got the costumes, and were completely blown away when we said we made them. What a novel idea...to make your costumes as a family! Didn't people used to do that all the time before all of these party and Halloween stores started popping up?

I know this wasn't an actual tutorial with step-by-step instructions, but trust me, I am not crafty in the slightest...and look what I was able to do with a little help!

Vintage Christmas

I'm sure like most girls, I have an obsession with chick flicks and tragic love stories, which makes me a sucker for any and all things Nicholas Sparks. If you're not familiar, how about A Walk to Remember, or Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe, The Last Song, or...wait for it...The Notebook. Ah, yeah, now you know who I'm talking about. I absolutely adore The Notebook. I prefer the novel to the film, but it still makes me feel so many emotions. It's one of those movies, no matter how long it's been on, if I happen across it, all things else in life cease so I can escape into it. To make matters that much more personal, my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's, so it especially hits home.

Anyway, I had looked up photos of the making of the movie for whatever reason, or accidentally came upon someone who had done engagement photos inspired by the movie, and fell in love! They had found this vintage pick up truck, and they were wearing the attire. Oh, just, oh. Loved it! Made me wish I was Allie and he was Noah...and we were mad crazy about each other. So I set on the quest with my great friend/photographer to make our own Notebook inspired family photo session a reality.

The hardest part of all was finding the truck. You'd think with car clubs and vintage car enthusiasts there would be one somewhere, but no. And I knew, since my husband was already being more than reluctant to go along with me on this one, that there was NO WAY the truck could be a Chevy...he's a Ford tough man! Thankfully for my brother who had spotted one, and for my friend who works for the man who owns it! We were able to use the 1947 Ford with pull choke (which is apparently some cool car thing)...my husband even drove it! (man, was he in heaven!) I think someday, many years from now, my goal will be to surprise him with a truck like this on, although it won't be red (his most loathed color).

It was very cold, and windy, and toward the end, rainy that day. The boys did very well, especially considering they were freezing their tails off! My photographer is amazing and I love how she gave us three photo finishes for each photo...true color, retro, or b&w. My favorite for this particular shoot was the retro because it just worked so perfectly for the feel I wanted. Visit her website at http://www.tracynicolephotography.com/

And a special thanks for my friends Brent & Tori for tracking down this truck, driving with us out to the location...and especially for Brent acting as the photographer's assistant...holding the umbrella, dancing, yelling, singing to make children focus in the right direction! So much fun!

"So it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be really hard. We're gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, for ever, you and me, every day."

"That's my sweetheart in there. Wherever she is, that's where my home is."

"It was real, wasn't it? You and me. Such a long time ago, we were just a couple of kids. But we really loved each other, didn't we?"