Thursday, September 23, 2010

Halloween

Jumping in where my mind is, Halloween. Its been weeks now since school supplies have been out, and now those have moved to the clearance racks, and out pops Halloween. I'm the first one to get excited about pumpkins and candy corn, but there's something about waiting until October 1st to outlay my decorations that has become a tradition in our home.

This year, it seems to have snuck up on us, more on me than anything else. The boys have been talking about what they want to be for Halloween, and R and I got a flier at ClovisFest about the BooWalk next month, so between the two, costumes have been discussed amongst all of us. Leave it to one of my favorite "mommy" magazines, Family Fun, to put out their annual article on homemade Halloween costumes. I couldn't wait to open up that magazine, I was poring over all the food, house, and costume ideas, from the moment it came here. Mind you, I have no clue where my domestication gene came from, I know my mom wasn't big on decorating, or baking, or anything like that, she was always busy w/ us kids, taking care of what needed to get done. I still feel this sense of pride, and accomplishment that every year I've been able to make the boys their own costumes. There was one year where they wanted to be police officers, and another year was fire fighters, and we used their play outfits that we already had at home, but otherwise, I made them. Superhero capes and astronauts were big hits then, and are still worn during dressup (and as a mom of three boys, I was pleasantly surprised by how my boys love to play dressup). This year, G saw a wizard costume in Family Fun, and told his brothers; oohs and ahhs, and I want that, can you make that for us? was all I heard. I thought to myself-well, it looks easy enough, let me see what I need to get together, and go from there.

It always strikes me that things happen the way they're supposed to happen. I was at Walmart this afternoon picking up the replacement steam mop pads I had ordered, when I decided to browse through the craft section (dangerous territory for someone who's trying to watch extra spending). Sure enough, there were bolts of fabric that were on clearance for $5 each. Well, I had the $5 gift card from a recent mailing, so I bought two bolts of fabric for $5 total-three wizard costumes coming right up! I also had promised a mom from E's preschool that I would make her a cape like E wore to preschool one day (one of his brothers, since it seems his got lost this summer, so I'm going to make him another one). There's plenty of fabric to do all those projects, and possibly more. I am over the moon about my find-and I'm so glad I was able to find it and now can get costumes squared away just in case this baby decides to come early.

Let it be said, I'm not anti-store, or against prefab costumes; Gymboree and the Children's Place often come out with cute as a button costumes. However, its not me-and its not my boys-yet. I think its amusing how M and G tell their friends how their mommy made this or made that, and I don't really think twice about it-I just love being crafty (and don't know where I got the gene for that) I'm going to soak up the time I have with my boys, make the costumes, sew on the patches, do what I love to do (and save myself a fortune at the same time). When the kids want the store bought ones, we'll cross that bridge. Until then, I'll cherish thumbing through the ideas, discussing how we should decorate them, and enjoy the fact that my boys still think Mommy's cool because she makes their costumes.

No comments: