A Garden Gnome Halloween

You may remember from last halloween that I... 

1. ...am a fan of unique, themed costumes 
2. ...enjoy making some part of the kid's outfits and 
3. ...am taking advantage of the fact that my kids are easily persuaded by my excitement when it comes to costumes (for as long as I can!). 

Well, this year was no different - I had a ton of fun putting together the kid's outfits this year and Brad and I even got in on the fun! 

Introducing, our Friendly Garden Gnomes:

Michael's costume was given to us before he was born from some friends and served as the "inspiration" for this year's theme. 

Lucy requested a pink gnome hat, so I bought 1/3 yd of pink felt (on sale for $2.99 per yd) and had fun playing with it - her's worked up much faster than mine... a few of you saw on Instagram this last week that my hat started very poorly, but I was able to redeem it! :) Lucy wasn't a huge fan of the hat when I finished it, but the addition of some braids and bows made her super excited about it - yippee! 

I was originally going to make Lucy's dress too, but as I pulled out our hand-me-down 4T winter clothes I found this gem! It worked perfectly with her hat and allowed mamma to cross one more thing off her to-do list! :) 

Mamma-Gnome all ready to go! :) 

We were sad to see the weather on Thursday morning, 100% chance of rain, every hour, all day. :( A literal "Boo" (haha)...

But then it occurred to me that carrying an umbrella wouldn't be out of character for us! Phew! :)

We headed to our friends house for dinner and gathered for pictures out front before heading out to trick-or-treat.

A special thanks to whomever invented these "teeth" - not my favorite thing, but Lucy enjoyed them! Haha - she actually looked quite frightening with them on! 

Our little Gnome Family! :) Brad was such a good sport! (I didn't get a chance to "fix" his hat before pictures, so it looks a little wonky) We had a great evening! It was definitely damp outside but it didn't rain hard, so we were able to make the trek around the neighborhood without our umbrella up the entire time. Lucy had (a lot a lot) of fun and sweetly remembered to say "thank you" after getting her candy (we had practiced). She ended up walking around with some of the high-school girls and loved the attention they gave her. Michael carried his candy bucket the entire time and was very particular about it - he didn't want help but wanted to do it all by himself. :) He and I walked together 90% of the time, his little legs and my pregnant body went about the same speed. Haha! Brad helped carry him a few times when we got too far behind the rest of the group, just to help us catch up! :) 

We bought Brad's suspenders at a thrift store, but I had felt on hand from last year's Christmas advent project for his hat. The total cost for all our costumes was.... $5.88 HURRAY! I had a floral maternity dress already and pulled out an apron that was given to me years ago (which happened to match granny-gnome's apron in the picture with the umbrella above!).

The group! So thankful for the community God has placed in our lives during this season of life! 

We hope your home is well stocked with chocolaty goodies! :)