Dress-up

We love dress-up time in this household, and take it very seriously. Alas, Jeremy and I weren't able to swing real costumes this year. It's like there's more important things going on in our life right now. Like . . . finding a job, or something.

But with a little bit of luck we did get the kids all costumed for parties and festivities in October. Everything was super low-key, using mostly things we already had.

Baby Rory got to wear the little "Sweet Pea" costume I made for Owen when he was a baby 8 years ago.  I went along with the theme as his "gardener" and tied tools to my belt. 

Wyatt dressed up as Super Why!  I photoshopped the book symbol and printed a t-shirt transfer to iron on his green shirt.  I cut out a quick cape and just pinned it on his shirt collar. 

I actually really love him in this costume though, because when I was pregnant with him we were considering the name Wyatt, but I couldn't decide if it was a good "little boy" name or if it was too old-sounding.  One of the older brothers was on PBS Kids and started watching this show--I'd forgotten about it.  I heard the mom talking to Wyatt and decided it was super-cute for a little boy!

Wyatt loved the costume and has now taken to calling his regular hand-me-down blue shoes his "Super Why shoes!"

Jonas is our little Doctor Who.  He's wearing his own clothes, and Jeremy's suspenders that I pinned up in back. 

 Jonas' costume had the most disasters tied to the making of.  The first involved an add-on to his sonic screwdriver that I made out of FIMO and tried to bake.  (I should learn my lesson from my grandma baking the Thanksgiving rolls--just stay there and watch them--but I don't, so they burn. . .)

Then we tried to dye a yellow bow tie he already had red. . . I won't go into the details of that disaster, I'll just say that my soup pot is once again the color of stainless steel, and thank goodness Dillard's sells little boy bow ties. 

We made his light-up sonic screwdriver from a light-up pen Jeremy got from a presentation recently--it was perfect!  Though it ended up looking more like the tenth Doctor's screwdriver than the Eleventh's.

What you don't have a frame of reference for Jonas' awesome costume? 

You're welcome.  And yeah, we tried to find him a jacket, but apparently brown jackets are not in style this year.  We could only find black and grey. 

Owen happened to be telling my mom that he wanted to be Link (from the Legend of Zelda) for Halloween, and she said--"Hey, I have a Link costume!" 

Yeah, throwback to the year 2000, my 12-year-old Brother was Link.  Sweet!  Less sewing that I needed to do.  Then we just used a tutorial for making a shield for Owen. 

The night before the party, we found out Owen's friend was dressing up like Zelda!

It couldn't have been better if we had planned it!

Amy and Rory

Jeremy was explaining our Halloween costumes to someone, classifying them under three levels of geekiness:  That the personae were from a science fiction TV show.  That they aren't the main character (title character) of the show, and that the costumes were from a specific episode.  I would also add that it's a British science fiction tv show.  Though really--the American fan-base is growing.

I've already discussed my love of Doctor Who, and I've succeeded over the last year in getting quite a few of my family members interested in the show as well.  Our characters were in the most recent season.  Amy and Rory--the doctors traveling companions.

Here we are doing the classic "Season 6 Stance" that was on almost all of the promotional materials.  I was telling a friend that our costumes were actually very "good", that every single piece of our outfits was chosen for a reason--however most people looking at us wouldn't think they were much of a costume.

It's only because they didn't know what they were looking for.

Here's what they were looking for.  Here's one of the official posters for season six.  (I know they aren't actually in the "Season 6 Stance" here but you're just going to have to trust me on this one.)

So with this reference picture you can see that Jeremy and I did a pretty good job on our costumes-eh? (I even dyed my hair red, but my hair is so dark that no one noticed.)  And yeah, I carried this picture with me so I could show the three people who asked what our costumes were. 

Here Amy is running through the desert, so you can see her capris and hiking boots.  And you can see her pen swinging around her neck. 

Yes, the Sharpies, Jeremy and I are wearing them around our necks on lanyards.  They explain the marks on our faces and arms and hands.

See the problem is Doctor Who and his companions are trying to track these aliens, who use a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion to make you forget about them when you aren't looking at them.  So Doctor Who devises this system where they mark themselves when they see the alien so that they can track their sightings, even though they don't remember seeing them and don't know what it is that they've seen--just that it's an enemy.

The fun (or scary) thing about the episode is that you are following along from the characters' perspective, so Amy is exploring this room and looking around not seeing anything, but then she looks out the window and lightning flashes and she and you see her reflection and she has these marks all over her, and they keep multiplying but you aren't actually seeing the aliens!  Ahhg!

Such a fun concept for a show. 

Agh!  There one is.  River Song pulls off her pen and marks on her skin saying, "I see you, and I see you."

Here's the one person at our church party who we knew would "get" our costumes.  It's Doctor Who!  (From a different season.)  Thanks Doctor--you made all our hard work costume-hunting worth it.