hallead family trick or treat '17

You guyyyyyyys! I officially have not blogged for a year. There are so many reasons for that. Our family is at a completely different place than we were 365 days ago. But I'm getting the itch again, and I'm ready to pick it back up.

For this year's family costume it was time to, "Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!"

Jaina was Ms. Frizzle, complete with crazy hair, Fiona was Liz the lizard, and Zach and I were.... the bus. ;)

"Bus, do your stuff!"

  Image via Scholastic

Jaina watched Magic School Bus all summer, and I was not mad about it. It really holds up, as far as kid shows go. Lily Tomlin as Ms. Frizzle is the best.

Image via Netflix

Image via Netflix

The reboot, The Magic School Bus Rides Again, is pretty cute too. Fun fact, the new Ms. Frizzle (former Ms., now Prof. Frizzle's little sister) is voiced by Kate McKinnon, and her name is Fiona Felicity Frizzle. Love it!

Here are a few outfit details. I always wanna go all out, but I did my best to keep it simple. And cheap! All I bought were Jaina's star dress, which she will definitely wear again, and four adult tshirts to make the bus shirts, Fiona's lizard top, and her tail. I had enough felt scraps, notions, and fiber-fill to put everything else together. All in, I only spent $20 for four outfits. Pretty good, especially since Jaina got a new dress out of it. 

Saturn belt

Liz horn barrettes

Liz tail using pattern from Andrea's Notebook

I put these bus tshirts together a couple episodes of Frasier. ;)

It got the job done for just some felt and a Sharpie.

Jaina was so excited to wear her star "earrings" and shoe clips.

I French braided her hair the night before after a bath, and it was perfect by the next evening. Just like the "The Friz". And check out Fiona's tail!

We love trick or treating with our friends, the Kipes. Our neighborhood is a bit creepy for little kids. Thankfully the weather stayed mild!

The whole gang!

Having a nice mug of hot chocolate while the toddlers roll around in sugar spasms.

That tail!

No matter how "grown up" I am, dressing up is still one of my favorite things. Thank goodness, my girls are still up for my ideas. One more Hallead Family Costume for the books!

halloween '16

The Hallead Squad dressed up as sushi this year, and my mouth was watering all night.

Jaina was a little salmon avocado roll, Fiona and I were a piece of shrimp nigiri, and Zach was... a bottle of soy sauce.

I love coming up with family outfits where we can have fun, but still be comfortable and wear jeans. Zach already had the Kikkoman shirt, and the only hard part was convincing Jaina to be a sushi roll. ;) She quickly got into it. What kid doesn't want to dress up as food?

I used 1" foam for the circles on Jaina's front and back and glued pieces of thin kid's craft foam on for the salmon, avocado, and cucumbers. I cut strips of black trash bag to be the seaweed and crumpled it up before gluing it around the sides to give it more texture. Then I glued big orange beads to the top for masago (caviar). Finally, I cut strips of black felt and sewed two on for shoulder straps and a pair on each side to tie together near her waist.

 Little Stinker kept ripping the wasabi out of her hair, but later I tricked her.

For Fiona's outfit I completely covered her baby carrier (a Beco Gemini) with white felt tacked on with a million safety pins. Then I cut out a quick shrimp shape from pink felt, glued orange stripes to it, and pinned the shrimp onto the baby carrier as well.

I wore a white shirt to be the little blob of rice, and once she was settled in her carrier I wrapped a piece of "seaweed" (garbage bag) around us. Ta-daa! Cozy and snug. 

Jaina, Fiona, and I all had little hair pieces that were supposed to be wasabi and pickled ginger. I used spools of tulle for both. For the wasabi, I used my large pom-pom maker and just wound the tulle around like yarn. And for the ginger I made loose bunches of the pink tulle and tied them to a barrette.

Jaina with her good buddies, Waldo, and the cutest little lion!

This was the first year Zach actually got to trick-or-treat with us the whole time, and we had a lot of fun. I love dressing up as a family, and I hope I can keep convincing everyone to do it for a long time!

fiona's camping birthday!

Fiona turned ONE this summer, and we celebrated with a camping birthday!

It was a vintagy Moonrise Kingdom/Camp Wandawega inspired party, and we had planned to have it outside at my aunt and uncle's house. We were going to do a campfire, a nature walk, and have their beautiful old yellow canvas tent set up and decorated.

But all the rain from the WHOLE SUMMER decided to fall that morning, afternoon, and night, and we had to move it into the garage. The kiddos had a ball, but it hurt my heart a bit.

Cute little bear from Target's Pillowfort collection, and play fire by me. ;)

I had more than one person tell me the unexpected rain was somewhat of a metaphor for the year Fiona and I had. They're not lying. ;)

So I guess it's only right that I had to scrap everything and rethink the day. This little girl keeps me on my toes!

All the s'mores we never got to eat. :( We still have marshmallows and chocolate. 

If anyone wants to do a campfire call us up.

These fruit skewers turned out great! Just sliced some melon and pushed cookie cutters through. Bada-bing.

There are tiny washers glued to the back of each pennant on this banner. 

I actually remembered to weight my banners this year, and we weren't even out in the wind!

There was a lot of family memorabilia on the table. We had my mom's moccasins, my grandparents' lantern, compass, bobber, roasting sticks, and kiddie lawn chair. We also had Zach's grandpa's fish knives, and this sweet old thermos I found at my aunt and uncle's house the day of.

The party favors for the grown ups were "s'mores-to-go" with mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and Teddy Grahams.

Instead of cakeballs, I put energy bites on a stick! If you do this, keep them in the freezer till right before cause they did start to fall off.

I really love life-like animal figurines. You know, the little rubber plastic ones like these. It's so hard for me to not buy all of them at the craft store, but I got a couple for the cake and the kiddo favors. ;)

My mom made three ah-mazing cheesecakes! S'more, Hawaiian, and Root Beer Float. I got my s'mores somehow!

We always have the party guests sign a book for the birthday girl. This year's was Curious George Goes Camping.

Favors for the two baby guests were little birdies. ;)

And the big kiddos got packets with animal figurines (heart eyes), little woodland critter tattoos, coloring pages, and a cute little chart of how to make shadow puppets. (Which we would've done in the tent, but you won't hear me complaining about it!)

 Our nature walk checklists!

I got most of my Instagrams from the past year printed and hung them on this fabulous frame Zach made. It's supposed to be for our bathroom mirror, but I'm stealing it.

I had a little play area for the kiddos with books, "sleeping bags", and toy food to cook over their pretend fire. The kids loved it, and I'm so glad since we were all kinda squished inside!

We also made binoculars for our nature walk. So easy to prepare, and the kids really seemed to like doing it.

Fiona was hamming it up. She had such a great evening. She loves people, and likes to be silly.

Her "Happy Camper" shirt is from LilMongo's Boutique on Etsy, and the moccasins are from Trendy Ends - also Etsy. And she actually left her kerchief on the whole evening!

Those eyes!

Cake time was hilarious. She really has not had sugary stuff, so she was VERY into it.

Proud big sissy!

She got immediately CAH-RAZY, then powered down just as fast. Oh, sugar. What a wild ride.

We love you so much, Fiona! From your time in my belly, to your birth, to this intense year we've had, you've come through so much. You have the best smile, and make us laugh every day. ONE! We made it!

Thank you so much to everyone who came out on that rainy night with us! We loved celebrating with you!


Party Credits
Party Styling: Kara Hallead
Photography: Faith Zimmerman
Cheesecakes: Carol Scheuerman
Tablecloth: Hobby Lobby
Log Cake Stand: TJ Maxx
Instagram Prints: Shutterfly
Favors: A.C.Moore
Wood Font: Wood Sticks from Dafont
Decor: Vintage
Plush Fire and Logs: Kara Hallead