Time to Make the Costumes!

Halloween is just around the corner and I'm finally getting in gear with buying and making this year's costumes.  The kids helped us to pick Toy Story as a family costume theme.... and we're all really excited about it.  Daddy is going to be Woody, I'm going to be Jessie, Andy is a green Army Man, Mary is Bo Peep and little Angela will be a Sheep :)  After debating it back and forth in my head, I decided to purchase the kids costumes and make John's and mine.  This week I picked up the fabric and made patterns for Woody's vest, Jessie's shirt/cuffs and Jessie's cow print chaps and will be finishing everything up this weekend (I hope!!)  I will post pictures once everything is completed.

So I've been strolling down Memory Lane of Halloweens Past and wanted to share, hope you enjoy!

Andy's first Halloween, he was 10 months old and the cutest little Tigger around <3

This is Mary's first Halloween.  Andy was 20 months old and Mary was 4 month old.  They looked adorable in person dressed up like Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  They really enjoyed being dressed up, contrary to what expressions were captured in most of the pictures I took ;)

This was the first year I attempted to make both of their costumes and I was so thrilled to do it!  Andy was a Scarecrow and Mary was a Pumpkin.  Loved how sweet they looked and the costumes were a hit :)

 

Moving on, the following Halloween I purchased Andy's Magician costume and made Mary's little white Bunny costume.  I was really excited about the idea when I came up with it :)  John and I decided somewhat last minute to dress up as well... and if you look closely, you'll see my baby bump I was almost 5 months pregnant with Angela <3
 

 

Now we're up to last year's costumes.  I had no say Andy and Mary's costume choices so they are not related to each other in any way.  Andy is a Garbage Man, John and I made the entire costume and it came out awesome!! Mary was Cinderella and baby Angie, 6 months old, was a Flower Fairy... a costume that I thoroughly enjoyed making for her <3  These pictures were taken at a Halloween Party a few days before Halloween.

Notice on Halloween night, Angela's costume has changed... we lost her headband and I didn't have time to make a new one, so she too dressed up like Minnie on her first Halloween :)

Wishing you and your family a super fun and safe Halloween this year!!

Mary's Dress-Up Clothes & Accessories Storage

Mary LOVES to play dress-up, in fact the princess clothes and accessories come out daily.  Keeping this stuff organized and easily accessible for her has become somewhat of a challenge.  At first, I kept all of her dress-up items in a basket/chest, but as the collection grew it became a big mess that was always overflowing onto her bedroom floor.  When my youngest munchkin recently outgrew her changing table, I decided to use that to help get Mary's room organized.  At first I loved it... but found that everything, although placed on a shelf, still looked very messy.

Then, while browsing Pinterest, I came across a dresser that was turned into a hanging closet for princess dresses.  At that moment, I decided to remove the shelves and add a solid metal rod to hang her dresses and voila!  The shoes are neatly kept in the top drawer and her headbands, necklaces, bracelets, boas, scarfs etc. all have their own place on top, either in the basket or in the mini-storage drawers.  Her purses and some other random items are kept in a chest and her tutus stay below in a basket.  It looks so much cleaner and she is now learning how to take better care of her favorite things!

Andy's train table is now a Lego table!

My son Andy is 5 and he has always loved all things that move, so he was thrilled to receive a train table when he was 2 yrs old.  The thing is, he never really got into playing with trains.  The table quickly turned into a parking lot for his cars which served a good purpose for a while, but over the past year it's been collecting stickers and not "working" in his room.  I had been thinking about giving it away, when I came across a Lego playroom on Pinterest.  This room had Lego building plates stuck to an entire wall... how awesome is that?!?!!  Since Andy has recently become very interested in building with Lego blocks, it gave me the idea for a great use of his train table... I would convert it into a Lego table, I just knew Andy would go nuts for it.

Here is the original train table.

I flipped the boards over so he would still have the train table to play with if he chose to.

I first used double-sided craft tape, just wanted keep the option open for removing the building plates if need be.  Wasn't the best idea, the plates lifted when the kids pulled apart their creations.  Then I used hot glue, also not a good choice because it lifted, too!  Finally, I used an all purpose craft Tacky Glue which did the trick beautifully!!  :)  This table took 6 Lego building plates to cover.

So far, so good... it's only been completed for a couple of weeks and all three of my little one's have logged quite a few hours of play in Andy's room.  I love to have an activity like Lego's that work so many skills like fine motor, creativity, thinking three-dimensionally and of course team work to name a few...  but most of all an opportunity for my kiddos to all play together and have fun.... oh yeah- there is one more bonus for mommy... a little down time to get some stuff done around here!! :)