The Great Halloween Costume Debate

Written by: Caroline

Historically, our Halloween costumes have always been a really big decision but now that we have two little kids it is even more difficult. Should we be classic monsters? Should we coordinate our costumes? Or should we all do our own thing? It’s always a decision that is usually decided the week of. But this year, we decided to enter a family Halloween costume competition at Happy Hangout so we had to make these decisions earlier than we typically have to.

This year I decided to get WAY more creative with our Halloween costumes than I have in the past. For Lilly’s first Halloween in 2019, she was “Roo” to my “Kanga” and Joe was “Winnie the Pooh.” For Lilly’s second Halloween we were characters from Monsters Inc. Joe was “Sulley,” Lilly was “Boo,” and I was “Mike Wazowski” with Elliot playing the part of Mike’s large eye. I made Lilly’s headband eyes myself, but other than that everything was off the shelf.

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When thinking of what we were going to be for Halloween this year we decided to go with one of Lilly’s favorite movies: 101 Dalmatians. After deciding on a movie, we had to figure out who would be which character. Would Lilly be Cruella and Elliot be a puppy she was trying to steal? Would Lilly and Elliot be puppies and Joe and myself be Cruella and one of the “baduns”? We kicked around a lot of possibilities.

One day while my mom was out shopping, she found an adorable dalmatian puppy dress for Lilly and I found a dalmatian-themed onesie for Elliot so the kids’ costumes were settled. After some deliberation, Joe and I decided to be Perdy and Pongo, the mom and dad dogs from the film.

This meant that I had to get creative and I would have to go to a place that Joe dreads: the craft store. I picked up two white t-shirts, some black felt with a sticky backing, other colors of felt, some simple craft projects for Lilly, some new fabric scissors, and a sensory bin. For the most part, I stayed focused.

After picking up supplies, we went to 13 Below, a local craft brewery, to have a mini date night filled with crafting. While I enjoyed one of their “beer-tail”, I cut up enough spots to fill up the front of my shirt. I wanted to get the front of our shirts completed before I even started thinking about the backs, which I wasn’t sure I was going to decorate. My free time during the rest of the week was spent cutting out more spots.

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Saturday was when the magic happened. While the kids napped I cut up collars, created ears, and put the finishing touches on our costumes. It was more work than I had anticipated, but I was very happy with how everything had turned out. Before we left, we ate some snacks and we got dressed in our costumes. Lilly played the part of a puppy well. if you asked her what noise a puppy makes she would bark and pant.

Elliot wasn’t a huge fan of his ears, but somehow, we got him to keep his hat on long enough for pictures. Between the four of us and a stuffed Patch Lilly got for her birthday, we were the 101 Dalmatians, minus 96 since there were only five of us.

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Before we even left the house, we realized there was a problem. The sticky backing on the felt was sticky, but not sticky enough to hold up to two small children. We managed to keep most of our spots on while we wrangled everyone into the van, but I knew we were on borrowed time with our shirts. Remember when I said I wasn’t sure if I was going to decorate the backs of the shirts or not? I was glad I decided to only do the fronts and still had a sheet and a half of black felt left. I can slowly cut out more spots to fix our shirts for Halloween.

When we arrived at Happy Hangout we were greeted by an outdoor carnival. “Bullseye” was walking around with his handler. We checked in inside and got our family photo for the costume contest before we lost any more spots. We will find out later how exactly they’re going to judge the costume contest, but I sent along our photo and fingers crossed we’ll win!

Lilly wanted to run around their little village but we managed to redirect her to the carnival games outside. It was a little chilly outside but Elliot had a blanket to keep him warm in his stroller as he watched his big sister run around. Lilly got to meet Jessie and Woody. She was a bit shy to meet some of her favorite Pixar characters up close. Seeing her reaction was worth the price of admission and I’m glad we have a place so close where Lilly can meet characters up close.

After Lilly’s brain started working again we made the rounds with the carnival games. Lilly “fed Bullseye a carrot” and was supposed to be blindfolded, but wouldn’t put on the blindfold. She “threw” some rings on witches’ hats by placing them on the hats and the wind helped her knock down the cups she was busy stacking the bean bags on top of. She had played Plinko at Oktoberfest so she was a practiced hand and played the throw the rings on the pumpkin game the same way she did with the witch’s hat.

By the time she made it to ‘feed the ghost’ cornhole she got better at actually throwing things. Lilly’s true moment to shine was when she was supposed to go “pumpkin bowling” which she translated as “move this stack of pumpkins to a different spot” so she at least worked on her hand-eye coordination. Their carnival games were perfect for the Halloween theme. 

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I hope that next year they are able to have the event again either with the same characters since Lilly loves them so much right now, or new ones. Either way, I’ll be looking out for their other character events they have from time to time.

After getting some hot chocolate from the Java Jackets table and some chocolate-covered treats to fill our belly, we went back inside to let Lilly explore to her heart’s content. Elliot got to enjoy their infant area this time and attempted to push their big blocks around. Of course, after being a firefighter, going on a camping trip, and debating running the restaurant for the evening Lilly ran into their playset and I had to follow. Lilly enjoyed jumping in the tunnels and was able to get around more on her own than she was last time we were there. I kept an eye out for felt spots (we were shedding them, much to my dismay) and followed Lilly around while she played around the other kids.

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We didn’t stay until the end of the event because it was time to start our bedtime routine, but I’m so glad we went to our first Halloween party as a family of four. The kids have a lot of fun there and with how mobile Elliot is getting I’m sure he’s going to love Happy Hangout as much as his big sister does.

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