Past Halloween Costumes

With Halloween coming up, I thought I would share my boys' previous costumes. We bought the costumes they wore when they were new babies, simply because it is easier to plan a head that way. Caleb has had a costume made by my mom every year since then.

In 2009, at was just over a month old, Caleb was Yoda.

While I was still pregnant we joked about how all babies look a little like Yoda and thus this costume was chosen.

My husband is also a bit geek/nerd and that has played a bit of a role in all of Caleb's costume choices. 

Cute this one is, yes.

Then we changed him into a cute little pumpkin onesie and hat.

 How cute was that, right? I mean, do you see the writing on the itty bitty feet???

The next year, 2010, he was still too young to have too much input. He was just barely 1. 

After brainstorming Mom came up with the idea to surprise my husband with a Green Lantern costume. 

It is the hubby's favorite super hero.

Mom used a pair of PJs as a pattern and then painted on the emblem.

He hit a growth spurt right before Halloween so it's a tiny bit small but I loved it then and love it still!

How adorable are they?

In 2011, he was two and very opinionated about his costume choice.

He was very into robots that year. His birthday party was even a Robot Party.

This year we had even less cooperation from him standing still for pictures.

The costume was a silver tunic with silver leg covers that he wore over a black turtle neck and black fleece pants. 

.My Mom hand painted the gears.

I made a jet pack out of a couple of two liter soda bottles and a hat out of a plastic food container.

I used chrome colored duct tape and cut the shapes from the Robotz Cricut cartridge.

He loved it! He wore that jet pack around the house until it was broken beyond repair.

I've promised him a new one, so I may do a DIY post about it. 

Last year, 2012, was the year of the super hero.

His 3rd birthday party matched his costume  for that year once again.

He chose Captain America.

She used the same basic idea from the Green Lantern costume.

She made this one out of a spandex material and painted on the details.

He wanted to wear his adult sized mask and we had his shield but we totally forgot to snap a picture with it. 

We made the boots out of red duct tape and knee socks.

We cut them off at the end of the night.

 My sister is the bestest and made a quick Thor costume. 

She dresses up with some of the other instructors where she teaches. 

Last year they all did super heroes.

This year they are doing Ninja Turtles. She's crazy if the thinks I won't be posting pictures. :)

Liam was a lion.
He was Liam the Lion before he was born, kind of like Caleb has always been monkey. :)

While my Mother-in-law and Father-in-law were out shopping they ran upon it and bought it on the spot. They knew we would be on board with it. 

And we were. he loved be snuggled up in it. 

We also had a back up for him too, like we did when Caleb was a baby.

He wore his spooky onesie with his brother's pumpkin hat. 

This year Caleb is going a Jack Skellington and Liam is going as a Minion. I'm planning a post on how to make the Minion costume. I'll post pictures of Caleb's Jack costume. I truly wish I could share a tutorial but once again my Mom took care of it and I didn't even thing the have her snap progress shots. He wore it on the Disney cruise they went on a couple of weeks back. He loves it and it is my favorite yet! He was asking to be a orange dragon with purple wings that spit real fire and would fly. We were super happy he was on board with the Jack idea since her nor I know anything about pyrotechnics! 

Super Hero Party

  My little Monkey just turned 3!!! On his birthday, we did our usual birthday traditions. There were sprinkle pancakes with whipped cream for breakfast and dinner with ALL 8, yes 8, grandparents at the restaurant of his choice. This year we wound up at a hibachi steak house. He was totally enthralled with the chef and the fire!

  For his party, we planned a super hero theme party. I started working on it months ago, knowing that I was going to have a new baby when September rolled around. There are tons of cute ideas floating around the interswebs for Super Hero/Avengers themed parties, just look at my Pinterest board. The back drop is a shower curtain from Target. I stole the idea from The Thriftress. I found this link and made them into a banner. We had some of the serving platters but the rest were bought at The Dollar Tree, where I also bought all the candy for the goody bags. We happened upon Avengers and Justice League candy that we gave out in little cello bags tied with black ribbon. I forgot to snap a pic of them, though they were super cute. The plates and napkins were from the clearance section of Walmart and the little buckets holding the forks were Avenger's from the Dollar Spot at Target. 

 We all wore super hero themed t-shirts even little bitty baby brother. :) 

Caleb chose a Spider-man shirt, I wore Wonder Woman, Lee naturally went for his favorite Green Lantern and Liam had on Captain America.  

 I made the menu by starting with Caleb's favorite super heroes and then made matching menu cards. 

The menu included:

Captain America's Patriotic Cake

There two flavors of cake, Lemon and Strawberry both at the birthday boys request. 

Spider-man's Webbed Cupcakes

I actually followed a recipe from start to finish with this one and it they were AMAZING!

Sweetapolita's Chocolate Birthday Cupcakes with Nutella Cloud Frosting

Batman's Jello Bombs

On this one, we followed the recipe and made it in Batman colors. Lee and Caleb made them and it was a great recipe to do with kids. They mixed 2 grape jellos with 1 orange and added some black gel food coloring to get the black and added a bit of the black coloring to the cream gelatin mixture to get gray. The jello tasted like a creamy fruit punch flavor and were very yummy! 

Food Librarian's Broken Glass Jello

Iron Man's Arc Reactor

These are sooooo addictive! We went through approximately 150 of these! Luckily for me, my Mother-in-Law is clairvoyant and knew I was nuts for thinking that we need like a third of those and made three batches! 

Iowa Girls Eats' Mini Corn Dog Muffins

Green Lantern's Veggie Constructs and Power Battery Dip

The veggies are self explanatory and the dips were Hidden Valley Fiesta Ranch Dip and Baba Ganoush, which is an eggplant dip. My Mom made it and I don't have the recipe yet but I'll be making it again soon and there will most likely be a post about it. 

Thor's Mighty Mjolnir (Hammer)

These were cheese cubes with pretzel stick for the handle. One thing we learned was that you want to make these fairly close to time to serve them the pretzel gets very stale from the cheese if they sit out too long.

Wolverine's Shredded Chex Mix

 Chex Lemon Buddies

This one is going to become a regular at family get togethers from now on. It is SOOOOOO good!

Aquaman's Atlantis Cooler

Ok, you got me. It's just water, but the hubby thinks that Aquaman gets a bum wrap so I had to add him in there to show off his awesomeness! ;-)

Scarlet Witch's Brew

LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuff! There is not a real recipe because it depends on the sweetness of your watermelon. This time my Brother-in-Law made it with little to no instruction and it was super good. You need Country Time Lemonade Mix, the juice of a water melon and a 1 liter Sprite just keep adding a little of each until you get the correct amount and right flavor.  

Hulk Smash Punch

You'll need:

4 3oz Green Apple Jello (we couldn't find Jello brand and used Jolly Rancher brand gelatin)

1 cup of sugar (trust me it needs it)

12 cups of water

2 46oz cans of Dole Pineapple Juice (or you could juice 2 pineapples if available)

2 liter Sprite

Bring water to a boil and mix in jello and sugar. Chill until time to serve, add in juice, sprite and serve. 

Caleb owns most of the super hero masks and accessories that are on the market so I dumped them into a bucket for kids to play with but it turned out more adults did than the kids. I wish I had time to make a photo booth... Maybe next year. 

Anyone who owned superhero shirts wore them.

Caleb got a bouncy house again this year. Thanks to grandparents who love him and spoil him rotten! He was in it from the time he got there until we left. He probably bounced a total of 5 hours! No exaggeration there! He bounced with anyone who would get in. I'm sure there were plenty of sore knees, legs and backs the next day! I'm not sure he would have eaten anything except Lee drug him out of it and made him a plate! 

  Needless to say, he had a great time and so did everyone else. I had so much help from Lee, my Mom, my Mother-in-law, Brother-in-law, Sister-in-law and my Bob (that's a long story) there's no way I could have pulled it off with out them. Although, other than the bouncy house it was pretty easy and very doable with a small budget!