howdy, howdy

Or as Matthew would say, "habby, habby!"

We had such a great time this weekend - Matthew is officially in love with Halloween! Last year he was a zebra... an adorable zebra. This year I figured he was old enough to understand the concept of dressing up, so I went with his all time favorite duo:

Toy Story! He is an absolute fanatic about anything Toy Story related - especially if it's Buzz. At first, just to make my life easier, I looked at buying a costume. WOW - they are both expensive and cheesy! After looking at the poor excuses for Buzz and Woody costumes, I decided to make one. Buzz seemed too tricky (to make one that was believable) so I went with Woody (he carried Buzz around with him half the time, so it worked). After dressing him up the first night, he looked in the mirror and his jaw literally dropped. Best reaction ever! I think it's safe to say I did a good job - at least in his eyes!

I got lots of questions from people over the weekend, everyone wanted to know where I found a shirt and a vest like that! For the vest I just bought some cow print fabric, and then sewed it using a vest of his as a general guideline. For all you out there who are good at sewing (*ahem* my mom and sister Merry) don't look too close - I'm moderate, at best, when it comes to sewing. If this were anything but a costume I probably would have had someone help me! It came out looking pretty decent though, so I'm happy!

The shirt took the most amount of time. I found a white button up shirt that he was just barely growing out of (you can see the sleeves and bottom are just a hair short) and dyed it dark yellow using a box of Rit. When it was dry I took a red sharpie and a ruler (thats a lie, I used the straight edge of a frame waiting to be painted... but you get the idea) and just drew lines onto the shirt. Nothing too specific, I just eyeballed it. After that I put a spot of white paint on the buttons (the Rit even dyed the buttons! Strong stuff.), and that was it! Easy peasy.

The hat is made of foam, and he wouldn't really wear it anyway! The badge is 

just a wooden star I found and painted gold. I was having trouble deciding the best way to attach it to the vest, without worrying that it would fall off. In the end I drilled two tiny holes, and just sewed it on like a button. Good thing too, because he kept playing with it!

I  added a pull string on the back: just ribbon tied to a big metal ring (that I spray painted white)

Lastly: the boots. OH the boots. I was worried that we would spend the most money on these, and in the end never really get use out of them. I was so wrong. He wears these everywhere, and never wants to take them off! Fine by me, I think they are adorable. It was tricky finding them though. Fact: every store we could find that sells children's shoes, has about 5 different types of cowGIRL boots (I mean truly girly...pink, flowers, hearts, gems, you name it) and exactly ZERO cowBOY boots? What's up with that!? In the end we managed to find these... and yes, they were in the girl section. Thankfully, someone thought to make girls boots that weren't sickeningly sweet looking!

We had tons of fun trick or treating, Matthew was such a little charmer! He was shy at the first few doors but once he figured out what we were doing... he was saying thank you and blowing kisses to everyone! Although, he did have a hard time grasping the concept that people were opening their front door for us... but we were not going inside. He tried to walk into pretty much every house! He was also fiercely protective of his candy bucket... if you tried to hold that hand he would yell "no, that bucket!". And speaking of yelling... as we would be walking to the next house, he was having so much fun yelling into the night, "Bobo! Matt! Bobo! Matt!" (what he means is: Gobo & Uncle Traveling Matt... from Fraggle Rock. His other obsession.).

Another fact: Matthew ate exactly 2 pieces of candy the entire weekend (even though he went trick or treating twice, and to a Halloween party). You wouldn't have guessed it though... he was running around like a crazy person... we had someone ask us, "So I guess he's figured out that on Halloween he can have as much sugar as he wants?" The basic answer is... he never really wanted any candy! In fact after we got back from trick or treating, this is what I caught him sneaking out of the kitchen:

Yup, cereal. That's my strange little man! He had such a good time this weekend, and he was so wound up from the excitement of the weekend that Sunday night he didn't fall asleep until almost 11 PM.

In the end I'm so glad  I made his costume… the price was about the same as if I had bought one, but it looked so much better!

Here is the breakdown:
cow print fabric: $4.00
Rit yellow dye: $3.00
cowboy hat: $2.00
cowboy boots: $15.00
wooden star: $0.30
everything else: free (I had everything else sitting around the house)
Total: $24.30

Ok now for comparison... I could have bought a Woody costume for about $20-$25
but it would have pretty much been a screen printed jumpsuit without a hat or boots.

Lame!

I'm SO glad I went to the effort to make his
costume... and so glad he had so much fun with it!