Luke's First Halloween!

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays! When I was still pregnant with Luke last Halloween, I got the idea for the costumes we wore this year.

Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour, Audrey, and Audrey II from 'Little Shop of Horrors'

Ryan and I have many horror movie favorites (MANY), but 'Little Shop of Horrors' just seemed immediately perfect. I wanted a monster that could be cute for a baby, and a costume that would be soft and comfortable for a six month old to wear. Needless to say, that cut a lot of options out.

John Carpenter's 'The Thing', for instance....

However, Audrey II starts off as a baby. And a really cute baby at that....

The little scamp.

It would make sense for the plant-monster to be small and adorable. And since Audrey II spends most of its time on screen with a couple, our costumes were a cinch! We brought out Ryan's fake glasses--

You know the ones.

And cut the sleeves off one of my sweaters. (Actually, you know the one, it's in the picture above too). I did my hair in a half beehive and slapped some extra make up, and our costumes were done! For Luke's, I took a green sleeper and then sewed a bonnet with cloth teeth, a collar of cotton leaves colored with non toxic markers, and a soft "flower pot" for him to sit in, with his little legs poking out as roots.

Viola!

Of course, there were a few other Halloween spirited outfits during October....

Old Timey Skeleton

Adorable Pumpkin

And Captain Hook and the Croc, during Nightmarathon

However, it was the Little Shop of Horrors costume that kicked off Nightmarathon and made it out to our Mommy group outing and trick or treating at Ryan's office. Two weeks ago a friend saw our costume and suggested we enter it in George Takei's Halloween costume contest, and today it turned out we were one of the 12 finalists! Cool right? I think so! My Mom is a life long Trekkie, and I was taken to Star Trek conventions as a child (no, seriously), so it was pretty exciting to find out we were chosen!

Some screen shots of the excitement.

My Dad set a tradition of winning Halloween contests when I was a child, and it made me really happy that Luke is one Halloween in and he is already walking (okay, almost crawling) in his grandfather's footsteps.

Halloween 2013

I love these guys.

Can you believe Luke is already six months old? Where has this year gone?! He has eased into a pretty strong nap time schedule, and I have been drawing/painting more the past two months. If I'm being honest, I still feel a little rusty. Sketches take me a wee bit longer, and I'm erasing more than I have in years. However, the lines are coming back to the page, and I've been steadily finishing commissions. Thank you, folks who ordered my custom portraits last month! They were a blast to create, and if I get permission I will try and share them here in the future.

Here's to six awesome months!

UPDATE: Luke won for "Best Children's Costume!" Thank you so much, everyone who voted for us!