Hot Lava Girl

So what do you do when your daughter tells you she wants to be an exploding volcano for Halloween? First you give her some time to change her mind. When she doesn't, you get creative.

First, I made a newsprint pattern and then tried it on the kid, cutting and adjusting as necessary. (She's being scary in the photo, like a volcano.)


Then I cut out a huge piece of brown fleece. It's worth noting here that I don't sew. I cut, I glue, and I make liberal use of that fusing material that allows you to iron fabric together.


Then I made shiny lava floes.


Then I made a crown of flames.


When she put it on she looked a lot like the Pope -- pointy red hat and all.

She loved it, so I loved it. I don't know that she looked like a volcano, but I also don't know how else I could have done this without resorting to paper mache. I made the space between her arm holes too wide, so the fabric bunched in front. She didn't notice, and I wasn't about to try to fix it. I kept telling myself, she's FIVE. If she thinks it's an excellent costume, then it is. This holiday is all about making the kids happy.

O alternated between wanting to be a ladybug and wanting to be a fairy. Since we had both costumes already, there was no problem with her indecision. I think she really wanted to be a fairy, but early on she'd told so many people she was going to be a ladybug that she felt she had to be a ladybug. (People who have been following our family for a while may remember that the girls were ladybugs when they were two. The ladybug costume was recycled from then, but they don't remember Halloween when they were two.) This was one of her first experiences with expectations and social obligations, beyond the rule-obeying type of instances. I let her figure it out, telling her she should do what she wanted. In the end, she went to school as a fairy, but wore the ladybug costume for trick-or-treating.


O tries out her fairy costume.


Just before trick-or-treating. The night was beautiful and mild, but three days earlier we'd had 18 inches of snow. Notice how little is on the ground now -- this is typical of the front range of the Rockies. It snows, but it melts fast.


Their pumpkins. As in years past, we let them draw on the design and then we carved it best we could.