Nigel's First Halloween

Every time we tell someone about something special that we're planning to do for Nigel's First "insert holiday or special occasion here," they tell us "He won't even remember it, why bother?"  Because we will!  He may not remember it, but we want to remember these special firsts.  He won't remember his saying his first word, or the day that his first tooth came in, but we will (We're kind of hoping that he'll give us his first words of "mommy" and "daddy" for Christmas this year, the way that he gave Nic the first kick that you could feel on the outside last year for Christmas), so we make a big deal out of it... How is a first tooth any different from a first Halloween or Christmas?  The answer you're looking for is:  It's not! :)  Alright, enough of that rant!  So for Nigel's first Halloween we wanted to do something special.  Nic and I hadn't done anything for Halloween (besides handing out candy to the 2 trick-or-treaters that we would get each year) since our first Halloween together in 2004, for which we dressed up using old stuff that we already had for the Fall Festival at my church.  So we were quite excited to get in to the spirit this year. 

Since we'd decorated Baby Nigel's nursery with a Mario theme we decided to dress up as Mario characters.  Nigel was going to be Baby Mario, Nic was going to be Luigi, and I was going to be Princess Daisy (since she's a brunette and is Luigi's girlfriend).  Well, Nic was already going to have to be in his wheelchair anyways, and Nigel in his stroller, so we figured that we might as well incorporate their rides into their costumes.

Nigel's costume was fairly easy to come up with.  We just got a pair of overalls and a red shirt at Kids Market, and a red hat at Wal-mart, put an "M" on it, and you've got Baby Mario...

He had to have a candy bag for all of the treats that he was going to get... Cause was 6-month old doesn't need a ton of candy?  So we went with the "Toad" look for his accessory...

Nic's was also pretty easy.  We did have to do some searching for the perfect green shirt, and he ended up with one that he had to wear backwards, but still.  We just borrowed some overalls from his dad, and got him a hat at Academy.  Put an "L" on it, and just like that you've got Luigi...

Mine was slightly more complicated.  We had to find a workable yellow dress, something for a tiara, and orange shoes... Then the yellow dress had to be customized.  Yellow dress was found and Ross' (on clearance I might add), orange flip-flops from Old Navy (also on clearance, cha-ching!), and then Hobby Lobby hooked us up for the rest.  I was very pleased to find a yellow glitter visor.  Just cut it to look like a tiara, flip it upside down, and ba-da-bing.  Add some felt for the gem, and some orange tuile to the dress, and all of a sudden, you've got Princess Daisy...

Luckily, we had saved the big boxes that Nigel's stroller and glider came in for VBS, and then hadn't used them for VBS, so we were set with boxes for their "Karts."  I forgot to take pictures of the before, during, and after of the kart making, but we got some of the after.  They were actually a lot easier than I had feared.  We just had to cut holes in the top and bottom of each box so that they could fit over the stroller and wheelchair, paint them, and we were good to go...

All in all we had a great Halloween.  We went up to the Trunk-or-treat at the church in Hoover Sunday night and then to the Monster Walk in town Monday afternoon.  We spent the evening at home watching old episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters (we were very excited to get lots of them this year, because we usually hadn't gotten many... We went through 2 1/2 bags of candy!).  For dinner we had Mummy Dogs...



Yummy Mummies!

Oh yeah!  Our pumpkins!  Since Nigel couldn't carve his pumpkin he opted to just go with the Mr. Potato Head look...

Last year Nic and I tried to carve our pumpkin to look like Darth Vader, but since Nic chose the most complicated stencil known to man, it didn't work very well so we just made it into the outline of Darth's helmet... Turns out that that just looks like a bell.  This year we decided to try something slightly less complicated, so we opted for the Autobot symbol... This would have been much easier, but we were trying to do it with a less than sharp kitchen knife, so it looked kind of ragged.  After the first night with a candle in it, it got cooked and looked more like a battle worn autobot.  Luckily I got a picture before that happened...



Freedom is the right of all sentient pumpkins!

We're prepared for next year, though.  We've already purchased our pumpkin carving kit (yet again, on clearance), so we're good to go!  I wonder what our costumes will be....