RRAAARRR!

🎃 Happy Halloween! 🎃 

I remember loving Halloween as a child.  My mum would create/sew all of our costumes.  I'm not talking about a simple pillowcase type of outfit.  She would create whatever our little imaginations had dreamed of being for Halloween.  I specifically remember the costume she made for me when I wanted to be Gabrielle, the sidekick to Xena: Warrior Princess.  I also vividly remember being Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie one year.  She put so much thought and care into that costume as my belly would be exposed and for 1.) my chubby, adolescent belly didn't need to be exposed and 2.) it is generally cold on Halloween in the Midwest!

There's so much of my heart that wants to be like my mum.  💜  But ya'll, I missed the boat on that this year...and by "miss the boat," I mean I purposely stayed home and searched Amazon for the perfect costume.  This is 2018.  This is the day in which we live in.  🤷  I mean, I put in my time!  It took me dayssssss to find the perfect girly dinosaur! 😂 And whatdoya know...it arrived in two days!

The funny part is:  I was asked by so many people if I made the costume!  😂  It was so well-made and I was happy that I bought the costume that I did.  Although, I didn't tell Ben how much I spent on it!  I mean, a pink and purple girly dinosaur costume is literally priceless...soooooo, YOLO!

Although we did go to a pumpkin patch for her birthday, we didn't buy any pumpkins there.  The prices at a pumpkin patch are UNREAL!  We just don't have that kind of money to spend on something that basically ends up being squirrel food anyway (although see below for how we repurposed our pumpkins!)

So, we did what any middle class Americans would do:  go to Walmart!

Walmart has all kinds of pumpkins...HUGE pumpkins for under $4! Waylin and I picked out this biggin' and two others. She enjoyed "slapping the pumpkin" around the whole store...I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of strangers giggling. I know I was! 😂

I had no idea how pumpkin carving would go. Obviously I would be a bad mom if I gave her a knife...and I figured I would be less of a bad mom if I just gave her a sharpie to play with! 😂 Folks, the sharpie was a bad idea and I meannnn, if you're thinking about doing what I did...ABORT! ABORT! This video is a little hard to tell what was going on, but trust me when I say that pen went everywhere. And, she already hates it when I have to clean her mouth and hands at dinnertime, so the whole idea was a sham!

This was our final product...

For trick or treating, we went to my work for a little bit because they do a "trunk or treat" throughout the different offices.  We didn't stay long, because GOOD LORD!  Nobody told me how much effort it takes to get a baby into a costume!  I burned off at least 30 Reese's before I even had a chance to eat them!  😂 

Afterwards, we stopped to see my mum, my in-laws, and Lindsay.  We also got to see the Crowley Pumpkin display in Mahomet!  

The best part about her costume was definitely the tail! 😍

Maybe next year I won't run from the boat of homemade costumes. 

Maybe I will always be an Amazon mom. 

If you are one of those parents too, come out of the shadows.  We can be friends! 

😂