Halloween 2015-2017

It appears that I have not posted about Halloween in the past few years, so I thought I should catch up. Before kiddo, we didn't really dress up, but post-kiddo, this has become one of my favorite holidays with mostly hand-made family-themed costumes.

2015: Mars
So for our kiddo's first Halloween - I happened to see an adorable martian outfit online, and came up with Mars themed costumes for both of us. The movie the Martian had just come out, water had just been found on the planet - so the theme was super topical.  I ordered painter's coverups from Amazon for Spouso, and added a few print-outs of a NASA logo and American flag, taped them on - and he was an astronaut. I ordered the largest orange sweatshirt I could find - cut off the sleeves, painted some random black and red splotches, and taped on a picture of the mars rover. I think I tried to get a hulu hoop inside to make me more circular- but ultimately ditched the idea.

because his first 2 teeth had just arrived

2016: Monsters/Dragons
Last year, I also found a cute costume online as a monster for him, and decided to make us matching monsters too. I ordered hoodie sweatshirts and pants online - and then glued on some leftover felt pieces for our bellies and horns. The tails were really my proudest part - I used cheap hand towels, cut them into long triangles, and then sewed them closed with more colored felt triangles as spikes. Then I attached them with belts around our waists.

monster family

tail close-up

2017: Sea Creatures
So this year, on a trip to Target, we swung through the Halloween section and found a few costumes that would fit the boy.  As the first year he could opine on the subject, we asked him which costume he wanted (though I'm not sure he really understands why we are dressing up) and he clearly chose a shark costume. I poked around pinterest a bit to figure out what we could be as part of the theme - and ended up going with a octopus and jellyfish, as two relatively cheap and easy costumes. The jellyfish was really quick - I ordered a dome-shaped clear umbrella, cut up some of the plastic tarping that's all over the house, and just taped on the pieces. For the octopus, I ordered a really big hoodie, cut the front and back all the way up to the armpits for 3 legs in the front and 3 in the back. I would've liked to stuff them and sew them together, but my sewing materials are all boxed up, so I just stuffed the arms with newspaper and stapled them closed into legs. I cut up some circles in leftover felt, and glued them onto the undersides as suckers.

master of the cheesy smile

tail

there was a fin too

jellyfish was awesome in motion

octopussing. 

didn't like the hat parts

octopus attack

A trend?
So - it seems that the pattern I have fallen into is to order a premade costume for the kiddo so that he can be super cute - and then pay no more than $20 for some random stuff on Amazon, definitely including at least one cheap sweatshirt, to make a family theme for the two of us. I'm not sure how many more years of family-themed Halloween costumes we will have - but so far this has definitely become one of my favorite holidays.