Today was the first run the super hero costumes…at least for the big boys. Logan had his preschool Halloween party and Aiden decided to attend the school parade in costume as well.

Before we left the house, Logan practiced his “Rocket Boy” moves (which are somewhere between karate and strong man poses)

If I were a bad guy, I would be very afraid! By the way, two of the many many words Brady has suddenly added to his repertoire are “bad guy” (seriously…that kid went from talking very little to at least identifying almost everything! pretty cool)

I had totally different visions for the boys’ capes, but this was the best I could come up with aside from sewing totally new ones. It helps get the “I made up my own super hero” message across.  Aiden in (most) of his costume. I have to go get longer blank pants for him tomorrow.    I love the flying cape effect!

Action shot!

Here comes the parade! We were standing outside of the school. I loved the teacher’s costume from the 3-year-olds class – she was an ice cream cone with sprinkles.

Here comes the pre-K class with Logan near the front waving to us

They walked around a few times

Aiden insisted I take some shots of him too (then he stole my camera!)

Me and Bear (there were more…I deleted like 20 I think)

The teacher went down the line and “introduced” all the different kids in their costumes. She did a great job with Logan who had apparently already told her QUITE a bit about Rocket Boy. Logan reported to daddy that someone in his class looked at his costume and exclaimed, “what the heck!?” One of the moms, who I have known for some time, asked me what my boys were dressed as. When I said “they made up their own super heroes” several people in line watching the parade said “oh” (as in I was also wondering) and then “that’s very imaginative!”

This is Logan and one of his best friends from school, Dylan.

I helped plan the class party so I got to attend and…take MORE pictures :) Here is Logan doing one of the crafts: pumpkin painting

Logan waves (lower left) as I take a shot of the room

One of the many games the kids played was pin the nose on the pumpkin (there was some debate amongst the moms and teachers regarding if they could see through the blindfold because most of them were right on the money!)

Snack time! These kiddos don’t get a snack every day because school is only 2 hours and 15 minutes long. The administrators have elected not to use up 20 minutes eating every day (good, in my opinion). So this was a really special treat for them.

And finally…some stories.

After school, I picked up the little guys who were hanging with grandpa and we headed over to the park where we meet once a week with our "old” playgroup friends to work out some energy and have lunch. Of the usual suspects (three families who go most weeks), we are only missing Alex from this picture. He was off for a hearing and vision screening, but his big brother Adam (top in orange) stayed to play. Aiden wacked Brady at some point during the park outing so I asked him to apologize. This led to a big group brother hug…which was super cute until Logan let go and Aiden toppled over on Brady knocking him to the ground…which was probably more painful than the original injustice Aiden was currently apologizing for. Oh well…I tried.

We just installed Windows 7 on our home computer and it’s got a blog interface. I am so excited! I can now upload more than 5 pictures at a time and I don’t have to do them in the reverse order!

This is my test. I just pulled up a random file on my computer and picked a bunch of pictures. These are from 2001…the night Brian proposed on the Odyssey (a dinner cruise boat out of Navy Pier in Chicago) and the night of our engagement party at his old apartment on Addison. I find it amusing that we got engaged on a boat named the Odyssey and now I drive a Honda Odyssey mini van…oh the circles of life :)

I also created a photo album instead of posting the pictures individually…and now I feel really old cause we look like babies in these pictures!

View Full Album

I'm not sure if I've addressed our Halloween costumes this year (not the camping ones...the ones the boys will wear to school and out trick or treating). We went through a few ideas, but Logan had sort of settled on Super Man while Aiden was still not really um...playing the game and picking anything. Finally one day, inspired by his love of lizards, he said he wanted to dress as "lizard boy". I remember distinctly that we were climbing into the van, which was parked in Anne's driveway after playgroup, when he made this pronouncement. We were on our way to get Logan from school. I was confused though because we had previously discussed how maybe he could dress up as a lizard keeper...like a zoo keeper with a lizard cage and a safari hat etc. When he said lizard boy, I asked him if that was: a) a boy who is also part lizard b) a boy who can talk to lizards or c) a super hero? He declared most defiantly: a super hero!

We spent the drive to Logan's school discussing Lizard Boy - his costume, his powers, his weapons etc. When we had Logan in the car, I told him about Aiden's costume idea. Logan was excited to hear the news that they would be super heros together...he, Super Man and Aiden, Lizard Boy! When we got home, I started searching on the internet for generic capes (found: none), anything remotely related to "lizard boy" (found: none). Then we searched for and found a good Super Man costume. I explained to Logan that I would order his costume, buuuuut I would have to help Aiden make his costume and invent stuff about Lizard Boy. I was 1/2 informing and 1/2 hoping that Logan would jump on this creative opportunity and invent his OWN superhero. He looked at me and said, "well...I could make MY own super hero too, right?...like...um.....rocket boy!?" Awesome!

So...we've spent the past month discussing all the different facts about Lizard Boy and Rocket Boy. For example, Lizard Boy has an secret underwater cave (even though we have since learned that most lizards live in hot, DRY places...there are some water ones too though) and Rocket Boy was born on...um...Pluto! Lizard boy shoots slime balls and Rocket Boy has little rockets on his belt that he throws at the bad guys. The rockets open up into nets which trap the bad guys (I'm opposed to actually "killing" bad guys...I like the boys to talk about them being captured instead). We obviously needed to include Brady, but he's not really at a stage where he's passionate about anything. He does point excitedly to the sky and exclaim "plane mama!" every time one flies over AND he's quite fast...especially when I'm chasing him (to do something like save him from running into a parking lot for example!) We decided to make him Fly Boy. After much pondering, I finally came up with a costume plan. Step one was to make shirts...which I found at my super favorite new site: spreadshirt.com (check it out!) You can make anything and it's not at all expensive! I made a green shirt with a rocket, a blue shirt with a lizard and a red shirt with a fighter jet on it. These will go over long-sleeved black shirts and will be worn with black sweat pants. Step 2: capes! Logan and Aiden have capes that my good friend Lisa's mom made. Problem: they say "Super Logan" and "Super Aiden" on them. Solution: cover them with little signs that say Rocket and Lizard Boy! Problem: Brady has no cape. Solution: I sewed him one using Aiden's as a pattern. I also made them belts, cuffs and masks using AJ's Robin mask as a template.

Since the boys have taken over every available space in our house, my work area is...once again...the island in the kitchen! Here is my giant mess:
These are the same stencils I used for the "Crayola" on the crayon costumes. There are 4 letters to a square in the package so I cut out the letters I need, tape them together and trim to make one giant stencil.
Here are the masks I made using 2 pieces of sticky-backed felt (no sewing required!) and elastic for the bands (sewing required if you're lazy like me).

I used fabric paint to put the stencils on more sticky-backed felt and then used that to cover the words "Super Logan" (barely seen in orange above my little Rocket Boy sign) on the back of Logan's cape. Aiden's will be the same.

I know this might sound kind of silly, but what I really want to do is this: finish all the little costume pieces, gather everything together for each boy, put them in 3 boxes with color coordinted ribbons on them (green, blue, red) and leave them on the table for Halloween morning with a note from "the commissioner" <--isn't he always the go-to for the super heros?! haha.

So after all this brainstorming, costume making etc. I stumbled upon SUCH an adorable costume idea. I hope my boys still love scuba divers next year because I would LOVE to make these for them and I SO know that they would love to wear these! Brian even suggested making them as a Christmas gift. I am entertaining the idea of doing that OR of taking the materials for these to GG and GGpa's house for Christmas so that the boys can 1. have a craft to do that 2. they will then play with while we are there.
how cute is that?!!

So...one final thought: in the file directory on my laptop (not our home computer, but the one I use for work and the one I usually use to blog), I have folders and then random pictures. One of the random pics that I ALWAYS see when I upload for my posts is one of Logan on Halloween in 2005 (he was 7 months old). I think I was like DAYS pregnant with Aiden during this time. Here is my very first baby and his very first Halloween: (I think the outfit says "my lil pumpkin).