Brookelynne goes Trick or Treating!

Today was Brookelynne's first 'real' halloween (since last year she was only 3 weeks old), and of course we went trick or treating! :) Mitch and I talked about it, because this year it fell on a Sunday and our church had a 'block party' that we could attend, or we could go trick or treating. While neither of us were really worried about her even remembering trick or treating, we did want her to have the tradition of dressing up and since they didn't want costumes at church, we decided to do halloween the old fashioned way!

So I got it in my head that she had to be a bumble bee, and so we did go ahead and look around at several costume shops to see what they had and how much they cost and I couldn't find anything that I liked. They were either 'baby costumes' (which were like sweatsuits, definitely not girly or even something she would be able to walk in) or they were really plain and flat (obviously not acceptable for my frilly little lady!). So after like 8 stores, I decided to make her a costume. This is how it turned out!

 We went to Hobby Lobby, and I got all my supplies. (A black onesie, black pipe cleaners (regular sized), 1 roll of yellow tulle (the 6 in wide rolls), 1 roll of black tulle, one black 6 ft pipe large pipe cleaner, one yellow 6 ft large pipe cleaner.)

So for the tutu, I just used a headband (the stretchy ones that you use to keep the hair back with your ponytail), and tied 12 inch pieces of the tulle in the pattern of yellow, yellow, black, black. For each yellow, I tied 3 individual pieces of tulle right on top of each other so that it's good and full! Then just make sure that you aren't stretching the headband out as you add them, or it gets too big.

For the wings, I used the large black pipe cleaner to form the wings the way that I wanted them to look, and then cut inch long pieces of the large yellow pipe cleaner and wrapped them around the black to give them the striped look. Then I took the regular sized black pipe cleaners, and used them to make straps for the wings to stay on.

Then, for the antennas, I used the small black pipe cleaner, wrapped it around a pencil to make it spiral, and hot glued it to a clip. I then cut two small pieces off of the remaining large yellow pipe cleaner, and made them into balls, and hot glued them to the top. I clipped it to one of her black headbands that she's already used to wearing, and we were all set!

 This year we just used the happy meal bucket that I got from McDonalds, since we weren't planning on going to many houses anyway. :) Here she is, all ready to head out with Mama and Daddy!

 We went to the neighbor's house and then looked around and noticed that there was only 3 more houses on our street with candy...so, knowing we wanted to go to more than 4 houses, we headed off around the block, and ended up walking almost the whole neighborhood, just because by the time we hit 10 or 12 houses, it was equal distance to go back the way we came or finish the loop! :)  Everyone kept saying that she was the cutest bumble bee they had ever seen! :) Just the way I like it! :) And I must say she did really good. She was very confused as to what we were doing for the first few houses, but by house 4 or 5, she was holding out her bucket when they opened the door! :) At each house we would tell her to say "Buzz Buss, Trick or Treat!" and then "Thank you, Happy Halloween". Want to guess how many times she did it? Oh yeah, none. lol

 When we made it home, our little bee was quite happy, and very curious as to what other new and interesting thing we were going to do tonight, so I did what every responsible parent does....I dumped all her candy and (after sorting through it to make sure it was all safe, not that she was going to eat it anyway), I let her play with it! Or should I say 'in it'? :) She really liked that part! haha, so much so that I couldn't get a picture of her looking at the camera!

All in all, I have to say that this halloween was a success (even if Mama's feet and back are hurting!) and I'm glad that we've been able to start this American tradition with our daughter! (It is definitely one of the perks of being an American too, they don't do this stuff in other countries! lol)