A Flowery Fairy or Pepto Butterfly?

Halloween is becoming more and more fun as Cora gets older. This year, I was planning on dressing her up as Little Red Riding Hood. Lee had the bright idea of asking Cora what she wanted to be. Who actually asks their kids what they want to be? Ha! He was right. So off to the fabric shop we go. I wasn't going to give Cora full reign on her decision, because I still had to be able to create the costume. We started flipping through the different pattern books and Cora latched on to all the Flower Fairy-esque costumes. I decided I would give it a whirl and we headed home.

Either my sewing skills are improving or this was a ridiculously easy pattern because it only took me a mere day to wash, cut, and sew the costume. And, bubble hems are so easy to do and SO CUTE! Why have I waited so long?

After slaving away all day, I asked Cora to try it on. NOPE. No go. She was NOT trying on the dress. Uhhh, OK. Fast forward to the next day. She still won't try it on. Two weeks later...nope. She wants nothing to do with this dress. Really?? At this point, I don't even know if it fits. Why is my child so stubborn? Oh yeah. Because she is my child. A whole new post could be devoted to that topic. Finally, Oct 31st arrives and Cora still has not tried on her costume. She had a Halloween party at school that day and was supposed to bring her costume with her. I really didn't think they would get it on her, so Lee and I devised a battle strategy. Lee would hold her down while I put the dress on her. Then we would throw her in the car and drop her off at daycare for them to deal with all the backlash. Sounded like a good plan to us. The first part goes as smooth as possible. Cora is in her dress. Not 0.32 seconds after putting the costume on, she realized it is a little girl's dream dress. Hot pink, tulle, flowers, butterflies, you name it. She loved the dress. Lee and I stood there baffled while she pranced around. Could she really not tell what it was while hanging on the hanger? Oh, for Pete's sake. Turns out at daycare, nobody could touch HER dress. She was so proud of it. How do Lee and I not have a full head of gray hair? I have to say though, it made me feel darn good about how much she ended up loving the dress. Until....

Until she wouldn't take it off. We were getting ready for her to go trick or treating and she needed warmer clothes on underneath the costume. But, she wouldn't take the dress off. No amount of negotiating would work. Back to the battle plan. Lee held her down while I took off the dress and tears streamed from her eyes. It wasn't five minutes later that she had the dress back on with warmer clothes and all was well again. Good gosh. Lee and Cora headed out for their tradition of trick or treating together while I, along with a bunch of my friends that came over, handed out candy. Lee and Cora came home with a basket full of candy to dump out, so they could reload. Eva wanted to go out for a little bit, so I joined in as well. The night was going pretty well, until Cora started saying, "stupid kids". There was one kid, not being naughty in the least, wearing a scary costume. It frightened Cora and this was how she responded. I told her stupid wasn't a nice word and to use "silly" instead. It worked well until she said, "Stupid kids!!!" instead of "Trick or Treat"! That was the end of Cora's 2011 Halloween. At least she looked ridiculously cute. ;)

I almost forgot about the pumpkin carving! Cora had a blast carving a pumpkin with Daddy. She asked that he look like Jack after Jack Pumpkinhead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Oz). Lee did a really good job. Cora was impressed as well.