I'm so cliché

Here it is the day (afternoon) before Halloween and what am I doing? Sewing my child's costume! Well, at least I *hopefully* won't be doing it up until the wee hours of the morning. I am almost done really. The only thing that is making this worth while is that he LOVES it! Oh, and if you are wondering, after seeing everyone's prefernce for Little Red Riding Hood for my daughter, we decided my son can be...The Big (not so)Bad Wolf!

I have to admit that I am pretty impressed with myself on this one. While I enjoy sewing things geometric in nature (purses, twirly skirts, etc) I am NOT good at garment making without a pattern. I kind of proved that to myself back at Mother's Day when I attempted to make myself a dress. But somehow this is all coming together. Granted I'm not making it to last a lifetime though, just tomorrow!

We looked at all the Halloween stores, Target, K-mart, etc. but we could not find a wolf costume suitable for a child. I was thinking of buying one and cutting it up to recon it, but at that point, why would I want to spend $29.99 to do more work? If I was going to go that route, I may as well make the whole darn thing!

And off we went to JoAnn's yesterday at 3:30pm. I found a nice felt fabric that looked like wolf fur yet still seemed breathable and was only $4.99/yd (AND I had a 40% off coupon), so I bought 5 yards of it for $14.97. Why so much of it? Because if I messed up the first try I didn't want to have to run out again. But so far the first try is a success and I'll have loads of fake fur around for some other future project. Probably stuffed animals of some sort.

Right now I've got the hood done, the paws and most of the body. I just have to sew on a couple velcros to close up the back and finish the shoe covers (which are attached to the body. Then if I feel it's needed I can add toenails later tonight.

My son's favorite part is the tail. I stuffed it and he can shake his rump and make the tail move back and forth. He also likes the paws. He walked around singing "If you're happy and you know it clap your paws" this afternoon. Like I said, he makes it all worth while!

Here's a sneak peak:

He's wearing the head and the paws pretending to be a werewolf.

The last of the requested shirts

I finally finished the last shirt my son requested. A charachter from Yo Gabba Gabba, the robot Plex. I decided to use a shiny polyester silver for it. Yuck. It looks nice but what a pain! It was so sheer that trying to get the Under Wonder on it and not through it was a pain. Hopefully it won't fall apart. My son loves it and has been wearing it pretty much non-stop since I made it. Let's hope his intrest in the show sticks around until he outgrows the shirt!

So much to catch up on!

The day after the last post we went to the beach again. This time with my mom, a.k.a. Grandma. It was fun. It had sort of a deja vu feeling though. But to switch it up we ate lunch at the nearby hot dog stand.



The following day we got to see our friend Rachel and her cutie baby boy. We went to the park and had fun. She brought my son a Bob the builder playhouse which he LOVES! He got himself all "Bobed" up and went to work pretend fixing stuff. Thanks Rachel!




Then the next week was back to usual. Spring Break was over.

I did get around to making that Muno shirt for my son. Now he has 2 shirts he wants to wear all the time. At least I can wash one at a time!



And I got back to work on the nursery I've been working on (not ours). I made curtains, which get installed today.



I've also been going to the gym A LOT. I'm trying to get in shape for beach season! I've lost only 1 pound but my clothes fit better. I've spent time getting ready for a 5K race too. The last one I did was the Race for the Cure back in October 2004, so it had been a while. I decided to do the Buccaneer's Draft Day Dash. It's a fun one which I had done before back in 2001. It ends whith running through the tunnel and the finish line is on the 50-yard line. You can see yourself on the JumboTron as you cross the finish line. So even if you come in last you still feel like a winner! That race was this morning. A few weeks ago my treadmill time was 37:36, which I was okay with because my goal was to break 40 minutes. Tuesday night my treadmill time was 33:04. I was worried I wouldn't beat it today but...I DID! Not by much though. My time was 32:49 which puts my pace at 10 minutes 35 seconds per mile. Not bad for being older and having 2 kids! This is me(in the red hat, see the black arrow) after mile 1. And me in the stadium being goofy.





I'm also very excited about another couple projects I'm working on, but they are TOP SECRET for now, or at least until after Mother's Day! Then I'll post pictures. But so far I'm VERY happy with how things are turning out, that's all I can say!

Yo Gabba Gabba!

If you have a child under the age of 6 you have probably seen this show. Kids LOVE it (and I'll bet a certain percent of the college population does too- watch it and you'll see what I mean). My 1 and 4 year olds can't get enough of it! It's only on weekends on Noggin. Well, in the show some of the kids dance wearing clothes with character faces on them. You can't find these clothes ANYWHERE. Sure they sell T-shirts online, but it's not the same as what the kids on the show wear! So when my 4 year old begged me, I said I'd make him a shirt. I made him a Brobee shirt (the little green one- not sure when that song will leave my brain). I finished it last night and he wore it all day today. We went to the gym, where he palyed in the kids section. The other kids loved it. Then Target, where every little kid we passed would point and say "Look Mama, He's got a Yo Gabba Gabba shirt on". Then the mall, and then the grocery store, all getting the same comments. My son is so proud to have the shirt he kept hugging me and thanking me all day. I have to admit it came out pretty cool. DJ Lance Rock would be proud. I made his dark green fur and unibrow from fuzzy material, so it's fun to touch too. Maybe I'll make myself one as well. But first he's got me commited to making two more, Muno is next and then Plex. I think I have to, just so he can have something else to wear because right now he's saying he's going to wear this shirt every day! Oh, and I feel bad for all the other Mama's we saw today too. They will probably be searching stores and websites looking for one for their kids! Here's some pictures: