Halloween, part 2 (the girls)

Or: how to put together 5 costumes (with a surprise 6^th 2 weeks early) on a budget

And now . . .  the girls’ costumes!

Raspberry had a very particular character outfit (one of several in said character’s movie), also cosplay level. Peach actually decided to re-wear one of her costumes from a previous year and 

Strawberry picked a character with an iconic (and set) look.

Raspberry:

This year Raspberry decided that she wanted to be Mulan. Specifically, Mulan from the rooftop fight scene 

in the 1^st movie.

 Ok, lots of layering, some pretty specific colors, 

but overall very do-able.

The bottom layer is a white, greek goddess costume dress. The blue v-neck originally had puff sleeves (I made the trim out of the same remnant fabric as the waist piece and some blue ribbon), and the pink sash is actually blanket binding (I could not find ribbon in the right color that was wide enough or the right type of fabric). I bought the shoes at a discount store and took a plastic dollar store fan 

and used yellow satin from my craft supplies to 

make it match the one she uses to disarm Shan Yu.

 White dress, blue v-neck blouse, fan: $1 each

Light blue long sleeve shirt: $2.50  

Shoes: $3  Remnant fabric: $1.50  

blanket binding: $3 after coupon

Blue ribbon: $3 after coupon  

Satin and thread from craft supplies: $0

Total: $16

Peach:

Normally, I don’t let the kids reuse costumes 

(the birthday pictures get hard to identify if the kid is dressed the same every year) but due to my parents moving (my dad had been our photographer since the girls turned 2) we missed a year of pictures. 

Peach had found that year’s costumes hanging in the closet and insisted on being Hello Kitty again on the basis that they didn’t do birthday pictures that year, so there wouldn’t be a problem with her re-wearing the costume. 

After this argument, I just decided to go with it.

Her costume dress had lost a few crystals and she needed new shoes and tights as well as a long sleeve shirt for under her dress, but the main part of the costume was done. 

I had originally used part of a set of Hello Kitty crystal decals to decorate the pink dress I found, and still had enough of the set left to replace the missing crystals and 

add some more sparkle to the dress. 

Unfortunately, Peach and Strawberry refused to hold still long enough for good pictures of their costumes. 

I’ll try to remember to switch them out for the nice ones when we do pictures this year . . . but no promises. 

 Pink shoes: $4  white tights: $3 for 3 pairs  

long sleeve shirt:$1

Dress, crystal decals, face paint 

and hat we had from before: $0

Total: $8

And last but not least . . .

Strawberry:

Strawberry has a thing for nice vampires lately. 

Last year she was Draculaura (from Monster High) 

and this year she decided to be 

Mavis from the Hotel Transylvania movies. 

 Luckily, Mavis has a fairly easy to re-create outfit 

(that stays pretty consistent). 

I never did find the sheer fingerless glove/ sleeves that she has (and I wasn’t paying $14 for a spider web pair from a costume shop), so I may need to look for a sheer top for her pictures. I also had to spray paint her high tops red (the only place I found any that would fit her only had grey) but I think it came together overall 

(I couldn’t find any kid size fangs in time, 

so I painted them on her bottom lip for the parade).

Black and red striped tights: $3  

High top shoes: $3  Black sweater dress: $1  

Spider drop earrings: $3 for 6 pair set

Red spray paint and 

face paint we already had: $0

Total: $10

So, for those keeping score . . .

Halloween 2017 kid costume total cost: $84

(for reference, that’s about the cost of 

2 ‘deluxe’ costumes at Target or Wal-Mart) 

or an average of $14 per costume!

Not too shabby (and nobody was covered in paper mache, cardboard or tinfoil *gives own mother the side eye*).

Anybody else go this in on Halloween costumes? And any ideas what I can do with 5 decent size pumpkins that 

didn’t get cut into jack-o-lanterns? 

Before they rot in my back yard?

Halloween, part 1 (the boys)

Or: how to put together 5 costumes (with a surprise 6^th 2 weeks early) on a budget

I know it’s been a few years since I posted one of these (mostly due to real life craziness, not lack of things to share) 

*drumroll*

This year’s Halloween costumes for my boys 

(The girls will be part 2)!

So, the last couple of years I have really had to step up my costume game. This year, the first since 

I started working again, was even more so.

Elroy is all about cosplay level costumes. Bam-Bam can’t make up his mind (this year he decided as he was getting dressed for the costume parade Halloween morning that he was an entirely different character

than he had dressed as.

Because my children get all grouchy when they don’t eat, I have a strict under $35 per child budget for costumes (as the most basic, won’t even survive trick or treating store bought costume starts at $35). Thrift stores are my secret weapon for costumes (I love Goodwill, and Thursdays the color of the week items are $1 each). So long as the shape and material are right, it’s not impossible to adapt pieces 

to what you need without too much trouble.

Elroy:

This year Elroy and I have been watching Attack on Titan 

(a beautiful, but incredibly dark anime) and he decided he wanted to be the main character, Eren, who becomes a Scout to fight the titans who are destroying humanity.

As per usual the last few years, 

Elroy’s costume was the most expensive. 

All the clothing was from Goodwill (the cloak was a lucky find, but was not discounted and ended up being the single most expensive piece this year). The jacket was too small, so I split the side and sleeve seams and added a 2 inch wide strip of vinyl (on sale at the craft store) to each side. It’s still fairly tight across the shoulders, but I don’t want to split the back, too. We used more of the vinyl to make, the straps, waist and belt, and put him in a pair of Hunny’s tall boots. He couldn’t have any weapons, 

so we plan to make the sword box and flight canister pieces when we do his birthday pictures this year.

And here’s the final product:

 Jacket, shirt (a hoodie with the hood removed), 

and capri pants: $1 each

Cloak, with scout symbol already on back: $15

Dark Brown Vinyl for jacket, straps & belt: 

1 yard for $8, after coupon

Belt buckle: $5, Rivets, glue & boots we already had: $0

Total: $31 (just under, but still . . .)

  

Bam-Bam:

So, for my sanity in the lead up to Halloween, I have the kids decide their costumes early (so I have time to piece items and get things on sale). Like by 4^th of July, early. 

Initially, he wanted to be the 11th Doctor 

(in the purple coat and old fashioned shoes). 

Then his teacher threw a big old wrench in my plans. 

All the 5^th graders (I know!) had to do a biography presentation, the Wax Museum, which included dressing as their subject . . . on the 18^th of October.

At this point, I had already found a grey coat for him that could be dyed purple as well as a black vest for underneath. 

Bam-Bam gets assigned Abe Lincoln. 

Ok, I can work with that.

I found plenty of portraits of him in not-black coats that are conveniently similar in style to the one I already got for him. And the black vest is tall enough to look like a waistcoat. I just need to find a passable cravat (I ended up finding a tie and tying it loosely at the fat end and tucking it in) and some dress shoes for him. But I was having a hard time finding any sort of old man boots for his actual costume . . . 

And then he changed his mind! 

He decided (after a birthday that did not include his own sonic screwdriver) that he would prefer to be a gunslinger from the old west instead (he found the plastic bullet bandoleer I had picked up for steampunk uses). 

Fine. Halloween morning, getting ready for school, Bam-Bam decides that he isn’t a gunslinger at all. 

He’s Van Helsing. At this point, I’m like . . . whatever, dude. 

Grey coat, vest, hat, belt, cowboy gun set and shoes: $1 each

Black pants: $8  Plastic bullet bandoleer of his own: $5

Jeans, shirt, brown western coat 

and bandanna we already had: $0)

Total: $19, for both costumes

Not bad, right?

Next up: the girls costumes!

I needed this today . . .

Yesterday, this whole election really, was brutal.

My candidate did not win.

The winners have made walking back protections on families like mine

part of their campaign promises,

and given the VP Elect's record in Indiana I have to believe that

they will work to accomplish those promises.

So today, I needed a reminder that those communities

(Women, LGBT+, People of Color, Muslims,

Latinos, the Disabled, the Media, etc.)

that the President Elect has spent the last 18 months

ridiculing and denigrating have pulled together before.

And we will do it again.

The movement is hurting and tired,

but our momentum to make the world kinder, more inclusive

and less fearful has not been lost.

My daughters were watching this today,

and I realized just how much I needed to see a diverse group

(even one as nonsensical as multi color anthro ponies)

support one another, lift each other up and rally together to make things better.

We are stronger together.

We will make it through this.

We will protect each other.

We will not let our momentum falter.

And until then . . .

We have singing anthro ponies.

Arguing with Myself: Won’t Someone Think of the Children?

I saw something today that made the little voice in my head

(the one that doesn’t stop until I’ve written down what it has to say)

start gnashing its teeth.

As I left the parking lot where I was waiting for my wife to text me back, a pick-up truck with a confederate flag license plate pulled in.

Now, let’s be clear . . . I’m white.

Not quite blind you with reflected sunlight,

but my heritage just doesn’t get called into question.

My parents were staunch Republicans

(my dad is now an Independent and my mom is a Libertarian, *headdesk*).

In fact one of my dad’s favorite denigrating phrases, for years, was to call anyone who was at all socially progressive a

“Jane Fonda Pinko Commy Faggot.”

It was his favorite insult up until about a decade and a half ago.

My mom (who now denies this conversation ever took place) told me point blank that gay couples shouldn’t be able to get married because the law to legalize same sex marriage (this was probably around 2000, not sure which specific bill) included wording allowing same sex parents to touch the genitals of their children (for things like diaper changes, and medical need) and she didn’t agree with letting pedophiles have that kind of legal loophole.

They are both lifetime members of the NRA,

and vocal Blue Lives/ All Lives Matter proponents.

Now don’t get me wrong, my parents are loving, caring people who have evolved on their views on a number of civil issues

(same sex marriage, interracial marriage,

religious discrimination, and some women’s issues).

And I don’t want to paint them as bigoted or hateful or less than the loving parents and decent human beings they are.

But this is where I came from.

And where I am desperately trying to keep from going back to.

The reason that flag got to me this morning

has to do with the world my kids are growing up in.

Another unarmed black man was shot and killed

on video, with his hands in the air on Friday.

My sister and her husband just had a beautiful little boy, and

I don’t want him growing up in a world where he needs to be afraid of the police

because his skin has more melanin than my kids’.

I don’t want Alani’s beautiful children portrayed as thugs, criminals or sluts

because of the color of their skin.

I don’t want my cousin’s children

demonized for the religion they were raised with, that their mother chose.

For their brown complexions and dark hair and manner of dress.

All of those children deserve to be as unafraid of the police

as my white children are.

Full stop.

My children should not have to worry that their parents’ marriage

is not seen as valid, that someone’s political agenda could see our

legal marriage unmade and

Hunny forced back into a role that would have killed her.

That there are people who would use their lack of understanding, lack of compassion to destroy our family because they aren’t ok with rainbow flags.  

Our children are watching. What message are we teaching them?

What kind of a world are we leaving them? 

#I don't really do hashtags #but this is important #bigotry kills #our kids deserve better

Unicorn

The woman I love is sleeping. I should be, too.

But this post has been rattling around inside my head 
for such a long time. I have to let it out.

It has been two and a half years since Hunny came out to me and we started on the journey of her transition. It has been beautiful, isolating, freeing, difficult, transformative, terrifying, joyful, bleak, nerve wracking.

And it has been so very worth it.

Some friends have been left behind, not because we didn’t want or need them, but because the changes were too dramatic for their comfort. We have made new friends within the community, helping us to rebuild what others had ripped away. Hunny has found a new community, others who have gone through what she has; those who have shared her struggle.

I have not found the same welcome. 

And I do not ask or presume membership, 

the dues are far too costly and the jacket wouldn’t fit anyway.

I understand many of the reasons why I am held at a distance.

 I am, at once, a representation of the spouse who stayed, and a reminder of the ones who didn’t. By staying with Hunny, by supporting and encouraging her transition, by loving her through everything . . .

I am salt poured into the wounds of those whose 

partners didn’t, or couldn’t.

Conversely, I have had members of the community look at me with such heartbreakingly forlorn hope in their eyes. Eyes that want the kind of love, the kind of life that Hunny and I have together but have already given up hope of ever finding it for themselves.

Eyes that have become resigned to loss and loneliness as the exchange they must make to live authentic lives.

At those times I often feel like an exotic animal on display, 

to be admired from a safe distance. 

To be seen and appreciated but too dangerous to get close to.

The world is often unkind to those who break the mold, and I don’t blame those who have been hurt, who have had to give up everything, for the sadness and anger that they feel when I am around.

Like I said, I do understand.

I still stand with you.

I promise not to bite any fingers that reach into the enclosure.

I Thee Wed . . . Part 2

 

The guests were seated, waiting for the show to begin. As we waited for our cue, Hunny and I turned to each other, both of us realizing that the kids had never practiced their entrances. Elroy led the way, standing where the two aisles converged, waiting to walk both his mothers to the altar. 

 

As the first sets of bridesmaids started walking, the younger kids (Bam-Bam walked with Peach.  Raspberry carried a second ring pillow and walked with Strawberry) forgot their last minute instructions. Alani and Adoree quickly stepped in and each walked with one set. We didn’t want to budget extra for real rose petals (all our flowers were artificial. The venue wouldn’t allow any fake flowers where they might get blown onto the green) so Peach and Strawberry carried baskets with arrangements instead of scattering petals.

 

Finally, it was our turn. Hunny and I walked down the short set of stairs to the grass before separating to each walk down our own aisle. We chose to walk alone (Hunny’s dad is not in her life, my dad wasn’t able to attend, and we’re both adults who choose to give ourselves to each other), meeting together to walk arm in arm with our oldest child for those last few steps.

 

I looked in her eyes as our friend told the story of how our love came to exemplify what is most important. Elroy bound our hands in a handfasting ceremony, tying the cord decorated with pictures of our children,

tokens of the family we had created together.

 

 

Hunny had tears in her eyes while I spoke the vows I had written.

 

And the summer sun was not the only reason my eyeliner ran down

my cheek while she spoke hers. 



 

We exchanged rings, smiling as we repeated our ‘with this ring’s. 

 

And then came the kiss.

 

I dipped her (like in the movies) . . .  Away from the audience.

(In fairness, that was the direction I usually dip her, and I got too swept up in the moment to make sure our friends and family could see us).

 

We walked back triumphantly through the crowd (many of whom forgot to use the bubbles we had provided), and burst into tears in each other’s arms once we got past the last row of chairs.

 

 

 The guests headed inside to enjoy the appetizers and ambiance while we took pictures. Our photographer even managed to get the

picture for our Christmas card this year.

 

 

All photos were taken by our fantastic Photographer Jaymee Lynn.

Here is her website or you can contact her on Facebook.



I thee wed (part one)

So we had our big day.

 

 A year of planning, thousands of dollars invested, headaches and heartaches along the way, drama from family and vendors . . .

 

And when it looked like it would be a disaster,

everything came together into the most amazingly perfect day.

 

 We won’t get the official photos back for about a month (because our photographer is a professional, and my eye liner ran down one cheek so she’ll have to fix every picture) but I couldn’t leave everybody waiting that long.

 

I promise I will share my favorites once I get them.

For now we only have the pictures our friends and family have shared with us.

 

 The big day started with mani – pedis at a crazy busy local nail art salon.

I chose sparkly French tips with crystals for the occasion . . . and not a single picture of them turned out. You’ll just have to wait for the official ones to see them, I guess.

Hunny went a bit bigger with 3D roses and dark purple crystals

to accent her French tips . . .

One of Hunny’s bridesmaids, Dashie, (who we had worried wouldn’t be able to make it) was able to get off work early, met us for lunch (because it was 11:30 by the time our toes were done). She totally came through for us at the last minute.

 After lunch she helped us get our stuff to the hotel, hung out (and kept the mood light) while we got our hair done in our room, followed our taxi

with the stuff we had to bring to the venue.

Dashie was a superstar and totally helped keep things going more smoothly

(and she rocked her purple dress).

 

My sister’s medical procedure ended up being too difficult and painful for her to join us. While we missed her greatly there was no way she could have participated

(in fact, pain killers and sleep were really all she could manage afterward).

 

Once we got to the venue, we had a chance to enjoy all the sweet, thoughtful touches the staff had for us. Hunny’s niece, CareBear, did our makeup (and did great, we were the ones who forgot the waterproof eyeliner). The A/C unit had gone out for the building (including the reception hall), so the staff had ordered

portable industrial units to keep everybody from melting.

 

Adoree and Alani arrived with our children in tow (and got them ready for us while CareBear did our makeup).  Both of our dresses had corset backs, plus we both had amazing corsets on underneath. There was much lacing
(with Dashie the only one who knew how to tighten the corsets),

and neither dress ended up tight enough (we kept pulling the backs up all night).

 

But when it was time to walk  . . . everything was perfect.

Because I was walking to meet Her.

 

 

 

 

(Update on my missing brother: It has been over 3 weeks since he disappeared. Search and Rescue did an exhausting and very thorough, search and other than a few early leads has come up with nothing substantial. It appears that he made his way out of the forest, but that just means he could be anywhere. Here's the post that has all the links for the search.)