Costume Crazies

Another empty nest moment.....Halloween has a whole different feeling this time of year with only one in my nest.  As any mother knows Halloween and the days leading up to it can be downright SCARY when you have children with grandiose dreams of what they want to be for the Scariest night of the year and you have to make it happen! I remember working so hard to create my children's costumes.  Ashton's pink princess costume that changed at the last minute into a pink bride.  I scrambled trying to transform the amazing princess costume that I had sewn into a bride, saving us from a young girls' tears by creating a long pink bridal veil out of leftover fabric. And it worked!  A happy bride trotted down the street in search of sweets. 

Dallin was always my ultra, creative, out of the box child who seemed to want something a little different every year.  We had our fair share of superheroes, ninjas and knights but the year of the lion with Dallin was awesome!  I spent hours looping yarn around the hood of a sweatshirt and sewing it by machine to create the fabulous lion mane.  It took hours and I have to admit that there is a bald spot in the back of his lion's head where I just couldn't sew another loop of yarn onto that silly sweatshirt.  Nobody ever noticed, but I know it's there.  Landon and Easton have both used the lion costume since then and it bugs me knowing that I didn't give 100% and finish the dang thing.  The year of my two little musketeers was great.  Landon had planned on being a musketeer but as I created Landon's costume Easton made it very clear that he wanted to be what Landon was.  He knew the color of the fabric was burgundy so he thought that Landon was going to be a "burgundy".  When people would ask what little Easton was going to be for Halloween he would proudly tell them, "a burgundy!"  Creating a robot for Landon out of foil cooking pans had to be one of the all-time best.  Landon got so many compliments from the people passing out candy and he was happy.  It was hard for him to walk and carry candy with the silver dryer tubing that that encased his arms and legs, but it was worth the discomfort.

As I pour over the Halloween scrapbook at the Halloween costumes of our past I really do have wonderful memories of trying to create special moments for my children.  I wanted them to feel cool and successful in their costumes.  I wanted them to have the costumes of their dreams.  I wanted them to feel loved and special.  I hate to admit it but, I do miss the creative process I went through each year.  As stressful as it was, I enjoyed the finished product....a happy child!  And guess what Easton, my cool seventh grader is going to be this year???  A lion with a bald spot on the back of his head.  I still have little time today, maybe I should fix it!