{ Adventures Before Halloween }

Happy FALL!! I hope everyone is enjoying this season as much as I am. I love all things fall but have especially been thinking about fall holidays, specifically, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, because it's one of my favorite holidays and my side of the family is visiting us! I cannot wait! Halloween because it happens to be tomorrow and it is also Ellie's first Halloween! I think I just really love holidays! They are so fun. But anyways...

As September flew by I could not help but try to think about what the perfect outfit would be for Ellie to wear on Halloween. I saw many awesome candidates! Carter's had adorable baby animal costumes. Babies R Us had an adorable ghost. Then, of course, there was always the generic "My first Halloween" tutu from Etsy. If you took a guess at which one I chose, yes, it was the tutu! So I found my top two, that I absolutely loved, and sent the pictures to my hubby. Usually our system of 'narrow the options and hope we choose the same one' works. But it didn't work so well this time. We both liked different ones. By this time it was the early days of October and if you have ever ordered from Etsy you know to order as far in advance as possible! The pressure was on! I pondered on the tutus and tried to find a third option that we both loved more, but, my search and thoughts turned up nothing. I had decided it would be better to go with the one Joey preferred instead of trying to convince (...ok. manipulate) him to choose the one I liked. I contacted the seller and she quoted me a price...$50. Call me cheap but she's going to wear it once, not going to remember it, she's not old enough to even tell me if she likes it, she is tiny, and I saw how to make it on Pinterest. $50?! Not happening. So yes. I decided to make her costume myself. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me at all!

I scanned Pinterest to find that pin I had saved so long ago (does anyone else feel like they need to clean out old boards??). I miraculously found it and headed up to Hobby Lobby. I had no idea what theme I was going for and no idea if this would even work. I pretty much thought I would look for candy corn type stuff, or purple, orange, and green typical Halloween colors. The item that sealed the deal was the baby leggings! They only had one pair that looked at all Halloween. They made the decision easy and the theme was born!

I spent the next thirty minutes running back and forth trying to think through all the pieces I would need to make this thing work. Somehow I got everything in the first trip! Not only that, Halloween items, 40% off! Fall items, 20% off! And 40% off a regular priced item! I made it out of Hobby Lobby spending a grand total of $30-ish dollars! I was a little concerned that I had forgot something and that number would continue to rise but, was happy to find that was all I would need!

I made it home and could not wait to get started! The same night I made the tutu. It took me maybe an hour. It was so easy that I watched Harry Potter with my husband while I worked. Score 1 for multi-tasking!

Of course she had to try it on right away...prepare for a sneak peek! We barely go this picture before she realized she was wearing something that was very fun to play with! After she noticed that we could hardly get her attention at all!

The rest of the outfit was procrastinated until the day of the "Trunk-or-Treat". Not a fact I'm proud of but...life happens. In the end, I finished before we had to leave so I consider that a win. On the day of the "Trunk-or-Treat" I had to iron on the letters for her onesie and make her bow. The leggings were done when I bought them. I had to put zero effort into them. The onesie was a rough one. At some point, my instructions for how to apply the letters were thrown away so I resorted to using the trial and error method. The result? Error. I do not think I took a picture of the disaster but I'm not proud of how I thought the letters should be applied. Not my brightest moment!

I did what any other stay-at-home mom would do during naptime...I woke Ellie, forced her into the carseat, drove all the way to the store so I could find another set of the same letters and read the back of the package. Not! I was not about to disturb naptime! I called Hobby Lobby and asked them to read me the directions. Were they thrilled by my request? Not in the least! But did they do it for me? Yes, yes they did. Let me explain my thought process here...when my husband and I built a fire pit for my Dad, Joey had me call and ask the nice man at Lowes for clarification on directions. The man was very happy to help. He even remembered helping Joey pick the stones. So why should the same direction clarification not apply to craft stores? By the way, I readily admit that Joey did pretty much all of the work for the firepit. I had every intention to help more, but he seemed to need me to supervise more than he needed me to dig, lay filler rocks, level, etc. Anyways, major bunny trail! The lady helped, I removed my poorly attached letters, and correctly reattached the letters. I am not totally happy with the way the word 'Halloween' looks but, the end result was still ADORABLE! Shirt finished, I moved on to her bow. 

 I decided it would be too much work to get the sewing machine out for the bow and so I found the tiny emergency sewing kit and got started. In hindsight, it would have been worth setting up the sewing machine! The bow took 10x longer than it should have and I broke the plastic thimble that came in the sewing kit. FYI, there's a reason thimbles aren't made of plastic. The back of a needle to the nail bed...not fun! Not at all! I finished the bow with time to spare and could not wait to show the whole look off to Joey! 

When he returned home from work we ate a super fast dinner and then prepared to go to the "Trunk-or-Treat". Neither of us had ever been "Trunk-or-Treating" so we had no idea what to expect. I imagined ten to twenty cars parked in a lot with us sitting behind ours and a few kids running around collecting candy. I couldn't have been more wrong! We pulled up to a HUGE bonfire (courtesy of the fire department), an area for dancing complete with a DJ and a projector screen, games inside the building, and thirty-or-so cars completely decked out! I forgot to mention the hundreds of people!! It was so much fun! Plus, Ellie looked adorable...if I do say so myself.

To wrap things up her costume turned out adorable! She got tons of compliments on it. She loved playing with the tutu. I saved $30. It was super easy and tons of fun to make! And I have enough tulle for another tutu if I so desired! Halloween costume #1...Success!!