hello again

my mom actually complained the other day about my lack of posts lately. REALLY. i told her that i’d had nothing to write about. at any rate, here’s my update for now, in relation to recent things.

we did decide to trick or treat. it was fun. shane’s mario costume actually came together pretty well, thanks to a little help from my friends. layla’s flower costume also happened, barely, also with a little help from my friends. (are you detecting a theme here?) micah’s monkey costume was borrowed from a friend. (for some reason, i have a beatles song wandering through my head right now, do you?)

here they are:

 

as i’m writing this, it’s reminding me of just how blessed i am to be a part of this community, family, neighborhood, etc. let me expound that part about a little help from my friends:

we’ll start with shane. he got the idea to dress up as mario after his friend, sean, mentioned that he was going to be luigi. so i chatted w/ trudy about what she’d gathered so far. she mentioned a green shirt she found at target, a link for the overalls and a hat she’d found on amazon. i grabbed the shirt (red, of course), and she ordered a red hat at the same time as sean’s green one. her husband found some mustaches and picked up two. i mentioned on facebook that i was having trouble finding overalls and my friend, tina, mentioned she had some he could borrow. PERFECT! they were a little big, which is fine because mario is a bit on the chubby side, so we stuffed a pillow in, and he was pleasantly plump. viola!

layla had decided she wanted to be a flower. i have to say this costume got the most attention while out trick or treating. she wanted her head to be the flower and her body to be the stem. i came up with the idea of the pot. our neighbor, susie, does a little gardening (that’s an understatement), so i figured she might have a pot we could use. she gave us an old, lightweight, plastic pot, big enough for layla to fit in. dave cut out the bottom, but we needed a way to keep it up. i remembered my friend, angie had mentioned that her daughter used to wear suspenders to keep her pants up. perfect! i sent a quick email and secured the suspenders. i got layla a green hoodie to be the stem and made the petals out of felt, glued around a headband. we had a little trouble keeping them from drooping, but borrowed some safety pins from susie and my mom and fixed the problem. layla and her friend robin, the black cat.

i didn’t know what to do about micah. i hate spending money on a costume that will only get worn once, and with him being the littlest, there’s no one behind him to wear it in a few years. :( so i sent out a mass email to my MOMS club to see if someone had a costume he could borrow. i got so many responses and wound up with a bagful from my friend, summer, to choose from. he wound up being a monkey and was SO cute i could hardly stand it. his costume had a tail – i think that was the kicker for me. later in the evening (after trick or treating) he discovered the tail and thought it was really hilarious. as did i.

  discovering his tail.

i have great friends and i’m so thankful for everyone who helped me pull this off! we had a blast and i’m glad we went.

   mario and luigi after their mustaches got too itchy!