Making Christmas Memories (Like It or Not) and Quick & Easy Peanuts Costumes

My kids are going to look back on their childhoods and fondly recall all the fun times we had, parades we were in and parties we went to. Hopefully, they won't remember all of the kicking and screaming they did on the way to those events. This applies especially to my oldest who is not big on getting out of her comfort zone (the corner of our sectional sofa, curled up with her iPad) and facing the world; but we do it anyway and both kids are usually glad we did. 

  Now, I'm not what you'd call a natural-born mother-type. Don't get me wrong- I love those babies something fierce- that's not the problem at all. It's the domesticy stuff that gets me: cleaning (Lord, help me), sewing (I can't even thread the needle), and basic household organization and management duties are just not my cup of tea. But, for my babies' memories of all our fun times to be as perfect as possible, I give it my best shot, because making them happy and as well-adjusted as possible IS my cup of tea- no, it's better than tea. It's a big 'ol frothy glass of root beer in one of those ice-cold frozen mugs like the ones they have at Cracker Barrel...ohhhh, man. That's good stuff. Ok, ok. Back on track- the babies. 😍😍😍

 Anyway, as I was saying, to make the babies' memories as Norman Rockwell perfect as possible, I always spend way too much at Hobby Lobby on supplies I'll probably never use and some I'll never even know HOW to use, trying be "that" mom who can craft and construct whatever the need may be. Throw in 5 minutes on Pinterest and I'm rolling into the house with a dump truck size load of felt and tee-shirts and all I can say is thank Heaven for glue guns. So, I take my Pinterested game plan, my load of Hobby Lobby miscellaneous, and that trusty glue gun and we make what my babies sweet memories are going to be made of. This time, we needed costumes for the yearly Christmas parade in town with my oldest girl's Girl Scout troop. Our theme was "Peanuts: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here's the 4-1-1 on how I made what we needed:

 We'd previously decided on Snoopy and Woodstock for the two girls' costumes and then I figured I could be Linus without much effort. All it took was using a $5 oversized red tee from Hobby Lobby and adding some black Duct Tape stripes. I threw it in over my black fleece leggings, borrowed an old blue baby blanket as my prop, and - TaDa! I'm Linus!

For the big girls' Snoopy top, I used a plain white sweatshirt under a fuzzy hoodie, both from Wal-Mart, to make sure she'd be plenty warm. I found a large piece of plain old black felt at Hobby Lobby and cut out an oval for the spot on Snoopy's back. (I later swapped favors with my mom and got her to sew this spot and Woodstock's

feather boa onto the costumes while I fixed her printer😉.) For Snoopy's head, I started with a plain white baseball cap I'd found at Hobby Lobby where I had also found some black peel and stick felt that was simple to cut small strips and a round circle circle for Snoopy's eyes and mouth. I found a pattern here -> (http://its-fitting.com/2012/11/halloween-snoopy-costume/snoopy-ears/) for the ears. I printed the pattern, used it to trace around, and then cut out the ears from a second plain piece of black felt before using my trusty glue gun to affix them to each side of the hat. 

She already had some black mittens and since white pants (even leggings!) were impossible to find in December, we just used a pair of black Nike ThermaFit pants over a pair of black leggings for warmth and there was our Snoopy! (We had meant to let her wear her red scarf but forgot it the morning of the parade, so she borrowed the necklace I'd worn to work and called it Snoopy's collar, instead. 

Finding a solid yellow top for Woodstock was harder than I'd imagined,so I wound up buying a fuzzy "minion" shirt from Wal-Mart and flipping it inside out. 

Finding a yellow hat and gloves was impossible with my limited time frame, so I made my own with a $3 bottle of RIT dye (also from Wal-Mart) and a cheap white toboggan and gloves. (Instructions are on the dye bottle and it takes about 30 minutes and some boiling water.) They didn't turn out as dark of a yellow as I'd hoped but they served their purpose. I found a foam visor, like children often use for crafts, also at Hobby Lonby, and used two strips of the adhesive black felt again to make Woodstock's eyes on the visor which would be worn over the toboggan. 

Hobby Lobby also had these inexpensive feather boas that spruced up the neck and bottom of the "Woodstock" shirt again as well as cute little feather ponytail holder in case the girl didn't want to wear the hat. 

Black leggings and a pair of black leg warmers that I also found at Hobby Lobby completed the Woodstock outfit! 

Nothing fancy, but we all had costumes and everyone was happy. Well, at least once the parade got rolling, we were happy. The hour and a half when we stood in line waiting for the parade to start was a different story and of course there was the typical, "I don't want to go anywhere!", drama with trying to get my oldest ready. However, once the parade got rolling, my babies waved and "Merry Christmas"-edl like little pros. I was one proud mama! 😍 P even saw a friend from church and went over to talk. She introduced her school friend to her church friend. All this in the middle of a crowded, noisy parade! In our world, this is big. And that's making for one happy memory for her mom.

I