Spaghetti and Meatballs ...

When I was a kid my mom used to make all of my Halloween costumes. She insists that she didn't make ALL of them, but she made most. I was a bunny, winnie the Pooh, a wookie, a cool cat and many other things. I remember going and picking out the patterns at the fabric store and I remember her spending time making the outfits and thinking of all of the details. The best costume that she ever made was actually for Lucas. He was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (I can't remember which one) and she made him an entire turtle shell out of paper plates. By the end of the night he lost the shell and was really just a green ninja, but his costume was still the coolest.

When I was 10 or 11 or maybe even 12 my girlfriends and I decided we were all going to be pigs. We even got cute pig masks. My mom and I went and bought pink fabric, pink tights and a little pink tail. She made me this giant pink sac that I wore with my arms and legs hanging out the sides and the bottom, I wore my hair in pigtails and then I put on my mask. When my girlfriends showed up for pictures only one of them was wearing the pig mask and even then, the rest of her dressed as a punk rocker. They were all wearing cute little jean skirts and ripped t-shirts with funky makeup ... it was as if they had crossed the puberty line into the "cool" costumes and I was still a little kid. I was all round and pink and they were cute and punk. Still, my mom and had fun making the costume and I felt special in my homemade get-up. We laugh about it a lot now and my mom says "how adorable" I looked, but I guess after a certain age you don't want to look adorable, you want to be cool ...

It is for this reason that I decided that I wanted to take a stab at making Noah's first Halloween costume. I probably won't have that many years to make him cute outfits and go to the trouble of finding just the perfect pig tail or ninja shell, right? The problem is, I'm not very crafty. In fact, even as a grown-up, Greg has made all of my costumes. One year we were Dorothy and Toto and the best ever was when we were Princess Leia (not princess Leia in the gold bikini, but the real Princess Leia, the white robe thingy Leia) and Yoda. Greg walked around on his knees all night. He tied green gardening gloves around his knees and glued fake nails on the ends so that they were toenails.
I already two costumes for Noah. I had decided that he was going to be a shark and he looked so perfect and cute in his little shark outfit. However, it's sorta' big on him and he just cries in it. We also have the pea pod costume, but I feel like everyone will have the pea pod costume, cause really there are so many things that you can put a newborn in for halloween? So I kept thinking...

I thought about the things that I can make ... I know how to make yarn poof balls! And thus, the Spaghetti and Meatball costume was born. The only problem is that what I envisioned in my head and what was actually created are two totally different things. So, while the other kids will be wearing the perfectly crafted pea pod and bumble bee outfits, Noah will be wearing yarn balls and felt held together by safety pins. Greg told me that it's a cute costume, but I think he's just saying that to make me feel better. He also said that it builds character ...If only people could see the picture that's in my head, then I think they would understand what I was going for. At least we will have the memory and its the thought that counts right?