THE LYTHGOE FAMILY: Halloween 2012 :)

So I decided this year that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It will never beat Christmas, but I think it bumped Independence Day to 3rd place...which is saying a LOT. Fall is just such a FUN time of the year, and the fact that you can dress up as ANYTHING for fun and no one will judge you for it...well it's just awesome.

I started thinking about what our halloween costumes should be back in July. I knew I wanted to have a theme and include Perri in our plans. I have been told several times that I look like Astrid, the main girl on the movie How to Train Your Dragon. When Jordan and I watched the movie a while ago, I realized that Perri is Toothless the Dragon in cat form...like seriously the way she acts and stalks around with her head close to the ground...she looks EXACTLY like him. I can't believe how long it took me to come to the realization that that is what we should be for Halloween. I was stoked, and Jordan was willing to be Hiccup to complete my plans. :)

Our goal

Toothless :)

So, sometime in September we set off to various stores to find all of the supplies needed to make us the perfect trio. After a trip to the DI, Savers, Michaels, Joann, and the St. Lawrence thrift store and hours and hours and hours of work...this is what we came up with:

Jordan's vest, my shoulder armor, arm wraps, skirt, and Perri's wings are 100% homemade. Jordan's costume was relatively simple. We found his green shirt at the DI and took off the buttons on the collar and added the leather string. We found his pants at Savers. His mom made the INCREDIBLE discovery of his viking boots at the thrift store in Heber. Seriously, how perfect are those?! We bought the fur for his vest at Joann and I cut out the pattern for a vest. And what a joke that was! (long story). Jordan's mom helped sew the shoulders together on the vest.

Perri's wings were cut out of black craft foam and glued to a stretchy headband. Voila, a dragon. :) She was super easy.

Then there was my costume. I already had the pants and boots and I bought the shirt from the DI. For my skirt we found some fake leather material at Joann. The skulls and the spikes were definitely the biggest challenge. I knew that I wouldn't find skulls that looked EXACTLY like Astrid's, so I got creative.

After searching forever, this is what I was able to come up with. A candy mold, plaster of paris, and
my acryllic painting skills made the skulls on my belt and shoulder armor.

As if making homemade skulls wasn't ambitious enough, I came to the conclusion that I'd have to do the same for the spikes. That decision was, however, only made after walking EVERY single aisle of Michael's and EVERY single aisle of Joann and asking many workers if they had ANY idea of what I could use for spikes. Turns out there is NOTHING sold in the shape of a small cone. The best option we came up with was buying a bag of assorted sizes of cork. Jordan was thrilled to learn that I was not planning on simply gluing the cork to my skirt, but that I planned to carve and sand every one into a cone shape. :)

While we were sanding the cork down I was positive that breathing the dust was going to
give us lung cancer later in life, so I made us wear ninja masks :)

Jordan will kill me for posting this picture, but I just had to show how great

he was for helping me in my psychotic goal of shaving each one into a spike :)

Our spikes before we painted them silver

My shoulder armor was probably my favorite project. I used black craft foam (the same stuff used for Perri's wings) and painted it silver. Then I cut them into strips and used hot glue to form the shape of shoulder armor. Added tiny little spikes and the skulls and they were ready!

I LOVE how they turned out!

Overall I was pretty happy with our costumes. It was a lot of fun to have a specific goal in mind. Of course I am stoked to make homemade costumes in the future...can't wait to add babies to the cast! ;)

We decided we wanted to throw a really fun Halloween party this year, and we joined forces with Cody and Shaylin and had it at their place. A lot of people came and it was an absolute blast. Jordan and I made a bunch of homemade apples. They were DELICIOUS! We dipped all of them in carmel and white chocolate, and then some in cinnamon sugar and some in pretzel crums. YUMM. I also made super cute owl treats. We made food assignments and served hot soups and lots of yummy treats. Here is a picture of our food table.

I was so impressed and thankful for all the delicious contributions that our guests made to our food table.

We had races to see who could wrap their partner up like a mummy the fastest :)

Our friends Jordan and Allie :)

The wonderful hosts of our party

Our friends Steve and Chantelle and their baby Alice were crayons :)

Probably the highlight of my whole Halloween was Karalee and Matt's costumes :) They dressed as our cat and her next victim. Hahaha anyone who knows them and knows Perri would appreciate this.