Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust

Every year since Brinleigh was born, I've wanted to make her Halloween costume myself. Pinterest really gave me all the confidence in the world that I could create some magical one of a kind ensemble that would surely make all the other neighborhood toddlers swoon over.  But every year Halloween snuck up on me and next thing I know I'm racing around town to find all the matching pieces of a store bought bumblebee costume. Because if her costume is gonna be store bought, it's for damn sure gonna have all the matching pieces ::insert eye roll here::

So this year, being Easton's first Halloween, I of course turned to the Pinterest God's for ideas. I was mainly on the hunt for costumes to accommodate the Lilebaby carrier since I planned to wear him when we went trick-or-treating. This is where I found the idea for the Peter Pan theme. The blog that was linked was a tutorial for a DIY Peter Pan costume, which I could obviously master because, well... Anything Pinterest can do I can do better🎤

If I was going to make Easton's costume then I had to make Brinleigh's too! I can't have her collecting candy in a generic store bought Tinkerbell costume while Easton was carried around in his glorious made by Mommy Peter Pan outfit. All the other moms would surely judge me for obviously loving one child more than the other.  ::eye roll::

So THREE months prior to Halloween, with all my Pincourage, I began my hunt for all the materials I would need to make not one but two magical and unique costumes for less than $20. (Because I'm also determined to save money.) 

Spoiler Alert: I was still running around a week before Halloween trying to gather all of my materials. (Let's just insert a side eye here to switch it up a bit.)

Brinleigh's costume required a green crochet bandeau, 10 spools of ribbon and 2,397 yards of green tulle which was covered in about 15 pounds of glitter. Some canvas shoes from hobby lobby and two of the worlds largest white poms.  

The shoes were the easiest part of the costume. I painted them with Modge podge, covered them with green glitter and then sprayed them with a glitter sealer.  After I let them sit for a few days, I sewed the poms onto the top of the shoes. 

The Tinkerbell dress (I'm giving my biggest eye roll possible) made me scream, cry, throw things and say A LOT of really bad words. I assembled the dress to look just like a cute picture I found on Pinterest, put it on Brinleigh, realized she looked like a giant ball of green tulle, took the entire dress apart, and then spent 2 days trying to vacuum up glitter from the floor and the couches as well as Gunner's back, my legs & Easton's head.  
Repeat this entire process 5 more times. 
I finally got the dress to a point that was somewhat acceptable and I decided that was going to have to do. I ended up going back and trimming the tulle shorter 2 more times, the last time was two hours before trick or treating. I didn't make Brinleigh try it on again after the last trim and decided to just cross my fingers and hope for the best. 

Easton's costume consisted of a green size 18mo polo shirt and some girls white size 18mo leggings from the kids consignment store and a yard of green felt. I had to cut off half the leggings and dye them green and then cut up the polo shirt. I hand stitched some pieces of felt together to make three different hats before I finally got one that was a decent size for his head. Halloween day I was putting together the outer piece for the front of the baby carrier and I decided that I didn't like how the polo looked. So during his afternoon nap I followed the DIY tutorial and stitched together some more felt to make his top as well. 

Just go ahead and roll your eyes now because Easton ended up staying in the carrier the entire time we were out trick-or-treating and nobody could even see his outfit. So really I could have just made the front piece for the carrier and his hat and called it a day. I didn't try everything on him before trick-or-treating and the carrier piece ended up being too big so I had to tuck it in a little bit and it worked fine. 

Our plan was to dress up as a family.  I was going to be Tiger Lily (because Wendy Darling was just too plain) and Kolt wanted to be Captain Hook.  But shortly after this plan was discussed, his deployment schedule changed and he ended up being gone on Halloween.  I decided I wasn't going to dress up since Kolt wasn't going to be with us and then the day before Halloween I changed my mind again.  Shocker!  Since it was so last minute I decided to just use what I had at home and wear something resembling Wendy.  A blue shirt, some ballet flats and a ribbon in my hair.  Done!

We went to our friends Kate and Coopers neighborhood and Kate went out Trick-or-Treating with us.  Brinleigh was a little apprehensive at first but after the first couple houses, after realizing she just had to knock on a door and someone would appear and dish out handfuls of candy for her, she quickly adjusted.  After every house she would ask if we could go to another one.  She had a great time and we ended up walking for about an hour and a half.  Her bucket got so full that she asked Kate to carry it for her, LOL. 

Easton fell asleep in the baby carrier.