Viking Kellan!
mommy and the winner
Just received a call from the South Carolina Aquarium. Our viking won 3rd prize in the under 3 Halloween costume competition! Who’s the proud mommy?
As if my inclination to decorate the boys for public appearances needed any encouragement…
I mean Rooooaaaar…
the dragon unicorn in action
and arrrgh!
our viking on the move
Hope everyone had a super fun Halloween. You know we did. Liam was the boss of Halloween this year. We made lots and lots of “Halloween Projects”, such as:
ghosts
spiders
pumpkins
and
mr. scarecrow
Liam also picked our costumes. He, obviously, was to be a dragon unicorn. Originally just a plain old dragon, but then he saw our neighbor in her unicorn costume and became obsessed with unicorns. No way mommy was making two costumes, so a dragon unicorn was conceived. The costume is a modified version of McCall’s 6185. My review is on PatternReview.com. It was a solid 11 or 12 hours of sewing, but well worth it i think. The boy really loves it.
check out my tail
grrrr
Kellan was originally slated to be a butterfly, but I made a last minute executive management decision. So, with only minutes of effort on my part, namely sewing a little fur vest, our viking was good to go.
my candy!
seriously! my candy!
You’ll note that mommy and daddy seem a bit random alongside our dragon/viking combo…
had to catch more than just butterflies
It was decreed that mommy would be the butterfly catcher to Kellan’s overruled butterfly.
who doesn't love butterflies?
And daddy would be a giant chipmunk, natch.
what a glam chippie
It was a big time. And we’ll be eating candy for months.
Daddy has been rocking the duct tape. How awesome is duct tape these days? The colors that are available make it so much fun to work with.
viking liam
The shield is based on Hiccup’s shield from HTTYD. B whipped it up from cardboard and duct tape and a little bit of white glue.
the supplies
He stacked and glued some graduated cardboard circles to make the bump on the front, then covered the whole thing in duct tape.
the bump
add the red
and the shiny trim
clip to mold to the curve
press into place
B then used half-width strips of shiny silver to make the lightning bolts on the front and added a handle to the back.
don't forget a handle
It is totally awesome!
i love it!
Daddy also made a viking hat, but mommy got distracted and didn’t take construction pics. Oops. Anyway, the crown was shaped on my hat block, starting with the duct tape sticky side up and then covered with a second layer of tape sticky side down. He shaped the horns using a funky cardboard spine that was then wrapped in tape and filled with expanding foam filler. The bumps are little balls of tape covered with shiny tape.
forming the duct tape on mommy's hat block
The boys love it.
the boys
Not much new here. Unless you count the fact that Kellan is 11 months old and standing unassisted and signing “more” and clapping and working on his 8th tooth and stuff. Otherwise, same old, same old. I mean, the fat boy is dropping most of his daytime feeds and, sure, mommy hasn’t pumped in weeks, but that’s not news.
Well, there are the dragon raids… I guess that’s something.
my boys
collaboration
adoration
confusion
joy
intent
exuberence
play
and the ever-present dragons, naturally.
dragons!
The dragon tail (Liam’s “pikey tail”) is made loosely following Running with Scissors’ instructions. I used old tee shirts, didn’t measure anything and stuffed the spikes. The wings are from the same red tee that made the spikes and some girls knee-high socks, minus the feet, with some elastic across the back. Quick and dirty, but better than nothing. The poor kid had been running around with a towel over his head and a rubber snake down the back of his diaper whenever he played dragons. Bad mommy.
Funny thing about WordPress, you have to hit “Publish” for the post to show up…
Kellan is still doing his thing. He’s growing and growing. His sleep is occasionally great and often not, but overall the trend is positive. The snuggle bug is big on smiles and babbles on and on. He’s still an eating machine during the day, but has dropped a lot of the nighttime snacks. Some nights, like last night, he only eats once between 8PM and 7AM.
It was touch and go at the homestead recently. A stomach bug made its way through the family. Literally through the family. Liam had the worst of it. It lasted a full week for him. B and I were only out of commission for 2 days and Kellan just had a bit of a cough. He’s big on the spit up anyway, so we didn’t notice anything different. Big brother is back in business now and the laundry is back to the normal 7 loads/week.
In unrelated news, daddy played some rugby… It was a fun family outing. The only thing keeping the big boy from joining the game was his new backpack/leash. Super cute with a retractable tether. And best of all, no smushed Liam.
this looks familiar...
but it's tougher than i remember...
the only thing keeping me off the field is this tiger.
Can you believe that Liam will be two next month? I can’t. He’s pretty great. His vocabulary has gone through the roof in the past few weeks. Chatty Cathy is stringing words together and using new words daily. He still likes signing and it’s helpful when he’s trying to pronounce new words. The boy is still very much into the mindset of what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine, but he does try to share. It’s seems so difficult for him, that it’s kind of funny to watch. He’ll give a toy to Kellan and say, “share” and then just stare at the toy and fidget for a few seconds before taking it back.
just like daddy
Halloween was more low key than I’d have liked, but with all the puking it was the best we could manage. Fortunately, we’re having a do over Halloween for G’ma and G’pa this weekend. I’ll try for some better pics and post costume details next week.
trick or treat
PS. I’m starting work again. Sweet relief.
Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. We sure did.
Barney, Betty, and Bamm-Bamm Rubble
my cavemen
so, this is candy...
yeah, chocolate!
digging for treats with regan
So, in typical fashion, I sewed the costumes on Friday and Saturday morning. Nothing like a deadline to get the blood pumping. Fortunately all the costumes were fairly lightweight. It was 84 degrees on Saturday. Ugh. The boy was still a bit warm, but not too bad.
Bamm-Bamm was a simple skirt cut to the approximate size of a pair of good fitting shorts and a sash that was draped to fit. The costume may have taken an hour start to finish, perhaps even less time. Both pieces were faux fur. The tiger print was soft on the back, so wasn’t lined. The sash was a bit scratchy so I lined it with leftover fabric from Barney’s costume. We found a squeaky club at a Hokus Pokus costume store and picked up a dog bone at Wal-Mart to complete the look.
Barney was cut following a modification of the tunic from McCalls 5683. The fabric was stach stretch faux suede. I cut a single front piece and single back piece and clipped all the edges. Here’s the full review.
Betty was cut as a simplified McCall’s 5654 using some stash blue mystery fabric. I omitted the pockets and simplified the straps. I love the box pleats, but the dress is a tent. If your a tall, very, very thin girl (which I am admittedly not), it may be wearable as a real dress. On me however, yikes! The funniest part of my costume is invisible. I had to sew an old bra together in the middle to draw the straps in at the front. Unbelievably unattractive and fairly uncomfortable, but it kept the girls in check. Hoo-rah. Here’s the full review.
Supergirl by night!
And what is Supergirl without her Superman?
Talk about some super kids!
The patterns are all McCall’s - M4951 (Boy’s Good Guys), M2849 (Girl’s Cheerleader), and M5459 (Girl’s skirts) and the boots are from LLBean. Hubby made the “S” logos. The patterns are reviewed on patternreview.com. Supergirl’s skirt is here and her top is here. This is Superman’s.
