Birds of a Feather Spook Together..

Halloween was so much fun this year. I guess I was feeling a little crafty after our kids painted some pumpkins. My creative juices kicked in and I decided to make Samuel a costume. Not just any costume... A Dream-Come-True Costume! I have made a costume for each of my kids at one time or another and most of them required little skill but the fact that I made them myself heightened the anticipation of seeing them in their outfit. This was Bella in her ladybug at 7 months old.

So, I set out to make Sam a "Blu" costume. Blu is the Blue Macaw character in the movie Rio, which is a movie about exotic birds on an adventure in Rio, Brazil. The main character is a bird who happens to not be able to fly and within the great adventures of the larger plot, he acquires the inner strength and confidence to spread his wings and fly. The symbolism was not lost on me when I watched him falling in love with this movie. He asks to hear the soudtrack over and over and over... must be the latin in his blood! He loves to dance to it and it is like he becomes Blu everytime it comes on the screen. SO.. long story short I had a mission and little time to make it happen. I found a blog where another mom made the same costume and tried to figure out how I could do it with materials I had on hand. I worked on a cool head piece on Saturday night. I never knew paper mache could be so easy! It was made over the form of a plastic fireman's hat and some paper plates and foil. That needed to dry over night and I figured I would do the wings the next day after church. Well.. the hat had not dried and all of a sudden all my children were convinced that they should be other bird characters from the film as well. I was blowdrying the head and painting it, cutting a million little felt feathers and trying to please the diva in a 5 year old who wanted her Jewel character's beauty to shine through without covering her whole head.. ahhh!

A plan took shape.. there were even sketches by Bella! 4 hours and a ton of felt later, with burned-to-the-crisp finger tips from the hot glue gun along with lots of healthy laughter with my girls..we managed to turn out a flock of exotic birds in time to attend the Fall Fest at our church. I did cheat and borrow a parrot costume for Max from a friend. (Thank you, Tiffany!)

Bella won a cake on the cake walk and as an added suprise it turned out to be one made by our neighbor. Sam saw his sister play the donut game and had to try it himself. He actually got some nibbles off without hands! We then visited with cousins and checked out their cute costumes.

Later on the actual Halloween Night, we hit the road with neighbors and came home with loads of loot and some very tired little birds.

To hear the music Sammy loves from his favorite movie...
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