Strawberries, Puppies, and Jedis...Oh My!

The conversation went something like, "I want to be a STRAWBERRY for the harvest party this year cuz Amy's going to be a farmer with a watering can, and she'll water ME."

Okay, that sounded fine.  Strawberry, pumpkin, we should be able to find something in the fruit/veggie group by halloween.

And then there was a dramatic turn for the urgent.

"Oh, and school's fall ice cream social is where everyone wears their costume.  And it's TOMORROW."

HUH????

So the big kids and I dashed off to a number of stores last night after dinner in desperate search of costumes.  We scored big on a Star Wars costume for Ben...it was exactly what he wanted, it was cheaper than all the other "themed" costumes, and there was ONE left in his size.  Thank you, Lord!

Clara was a different story.  We scoured the stores for something...anything that might work.  By the way, there are some seriously inappropriate and disturbing costumes out there for little girls.  Yikes.  I don't know, call me a prude!

So instead, we hatched a plan to make her a strawberry costume.  We had all the materials we needed except some black and green felt.  I was tickled to find THIS POST when I googled "homemade strawberry costume".  Less than 24 hours later we had this:

Throw some black leggings on underneath, and what you get is one very happy (and adorable) strawberry:

Sammy wore the "puppy dog" costume I made for Clara a couple of years ago, and she played the part perfectly:

Woof Woof!  Just don't ask for a kiss...

Oh my...look at my beautiful girls!  I'm so incredibly thankful that all of my kids have both a brother and a sister.  It was one of my prayers when we started our family...God is so good to me.

And here's our Jedi master.  I'll tell ya...I need to get a video of this kid doing his light saber moves - he's seriously GOOD!

We talked about making him a costume too, and while he described what he wanted, the only thing he was really adamant about was that he wanted to be able to do this with his hands:

This picture cracks me up.  Thomas isn't crying here, he's making his "shooting" sound with his little wooden gun.  Everything "shoots" with this kid...spoons, cars, planes, books...if he can hold it in his hand, it gets a shooting noise.

Thomas and Daddy didn't go to the ice cream social tonight.  It's just not the kind of thing that's very fun with a 2 year old.  (Besides, Thomas has developed quite the cough and runny nose...please pray for him.  AND Luke's grandma is in the hospital tonight with heart problems.  Please REALLY pray for her!)

As we were getting ready to go, Thomas ran up to me carrying the Elmo costume.  So we put it on and took his picture like the big kids.

Is it me or is that costume made for him? :-)

So happy fall, y'all!  I hope you're enjoying the cool weather and the joy that comes with a change in season as much as we are.