Homemade Halloween Costumes

          Growing up, my mom always made our halloween costumes. I remember going to the store around Halloween and seeing a sweet costume. I would beg my mom to buy it, but she would always say, "I can make that, that's easy." I always wished that we had just bought the costume in case for some reason it wasn't as easy to make as she thought it would be. But my mom was always amazing, she would spend half the money and instead of painted-on details the details were always real. I remember one year I wanted to be Pocahontas. My mom bought some suede and some beads and instead of having a one piece nylon costume with a turquoise necklace painted on it, I wore a thick suede dress with a hand beaded turquoise necklace.

I was always nervous about going to school in my home made costumes. It's not that I didn't like them, but I was going to stand out so much against the store bought costumes and I didn't know how I felt about that. But when I showed up to school every Halloween my friends would drool over my costume and say that they wished their moms knew how to sew. I was always so proud of my mom!

It made me feel so loved to know that my mom put so much time into something to make me happy. I think her amazing craftiness and creativity is what inspires me to want to do these things too. I want my kids to have that special home-made aspects to their lives that I had growing up.

That being said, this was my first attempt at a home-made halloween costume for Luke. I have no idea how to make a cowboy hat from scratch, so- sorry, that was store bought. But altogether this costume cost about $15 to make as opposed to the 30+ dollars it costs to buy one.

I made the vest and the shirt, and added the Woody details to the hat. Of course his cuteness is what makes the costume, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I think it's pretty close...

The life of Luke

           I realized that I haven't updated about Luke in a long, long time. When babies are so little we keep track of every single bit of progress. Then when they start to grow up we get lazy! That's why everybody's baby books are so packed in the first couple pages and then totally blank for the rest. 

          But in all honesty, Luke amazes me every single day when I see all that he is learning and the person he is becoming!

Here are a few tidbits about Luke:

Favorite Things:

-Luke LOVES cars, trains, big trucks, busses, and anything else with big wheels and a loud motor. When he lays down in his bed to go to sleep I can hear him over the baby monitor saying things like, "trains going through the tunnels, chooo choooooo!"

-He also loves his family. He has a little toy cell phone that he is always 'calling' someone on. I hear him having conversations with Uncle Chad, Uncle Mac, Auntie Laurel, and always his cousins. I love that he is to the age where he pretends to do things, it makes life so much more interesting. 

-He loves to sleep. He takes 3 hour naps in the middle of the day, and sleeps for 11 hours every night. I am a lucky mommy! 

-He loves chocolate! He prefers it over absolutely any other treat. Just a chunk of chocolate. A few weeks ago Todd made hamburgers for dinner and he thought it was chocolate (because of the color). He was very surprised when he took that first bite! 

Hates:

-Luke hates sitting in a highchair in restaurants.

-He hates being interrupted when he is playing

-He hates when mommy brushes his teeth!

-He doesn't like to give hugs or snuggle. I try to force him and it makes him so mad! =)

Fun facts, quirks, and cute things about Luke:

- Luke will repeat EVERYTHING we say. If he is in the room while Todd is gaming, this is not a good thing! He picked up a habit of saying 'Oh Crap!' for a while, but I think he's over it. Todd also taught him to say, "fight the demons!"

- Luke has already visited his first foreign country! He went to Canada in August! He adds that to his long list of exotic destinations visited in his first 2 years, Chicago, Hawaii, Alaska, etc. 

-Unlike most 2 year olds he says "yes" to everything instead of no. He actually says YEAH! He also always answers a question with the last thing you say. "Who do you love more, Mommy or Daddy?" Daddy! "Who do you love more, Daddy or Mommy?" Mommy! Also, yeah, we play the who do you love more game! PARENTING FAIL!!!

I love this kid so much!!!

Faux Gumball Machine

I love when I find a really simple project that yields awesome results. This was so easy, and I think it turned out really cute.

Supply List:

photo courtesy of  A Pumpkin and a Princess

I think the supplies cost me about 2 bucks total! I didn't use spraypaint, just a cheapo bottle of black paint like this:

The cool thing is that this is a really kid friendly craft. You could just sit the pot, paint, and a paintbrush in front of your kid and let him paint away until it's all covered up with black. Then all you do is glue the vase to the upside down pot, glue the wooden ball onto the saucer, and the rest works itself out!

I got the idea from the project here at a pumpkin and a princess.

Spooky words decor

Isn't being sick the worst!?! I hate it! The worst part is that when you are healthy you don't pay any attention to how great you feel. Then you get sick and you want to be healthy so bad, you imagine all the things you could accomplish in a day if you felt better, and you tell yourself you could be doing so much more with your time. Then you feel better and you forget all that you have learned and go back to being lazy! =)

Anyway, I was sick last week, so the Perkins's haven't had many adventures lately.

But here's a project that I did a couple weeks ago:

In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a creative bone in my body! I don't come up with good ideas, but I loooove to steal other peoples! I found the cutest craft over on this site, and made one of my own!

I love it! Every time I look at it I get reminded of all the reasons why I LOVE fall! It was really cheap, that piece of wood was .50 cents! Crazy! The lady who came up with the project sells the vinyl stickers pre cut on her blog if you want to make one for yourself!