Batman - The Dark Knight

When we were talking about what he wanted to be for Halloween, Nate knew he wanted to be somebody tough and cool, so when Dad suggested Batman the Dark Knight, Nate was sold. Here is a movie still shot of Christian Bale as Batman. As you can see, the suit has been made way cooler than it was in the 90's movies. In fact, one of the coolest things that they did to Batman's costume was give him this cool cape that when charged with electricity or something, it would become stiff and he could like hang-glide with it. Here's another movie still of him doing just that:
I was totally excited when I found this really cool, shiny pleather material at the fabric store. I knew that it would work perfectly. However, I had to squint over movie stills to figure out how to design the top. Here's my finished product:Here's a closer look at the bat design and the muscles I "built-in" to the costume (this is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Nate too, he's just so good lookin'!)
In order to make the top, I sewed lines in it where his muscles should be. After that, I had to stuff between the lines I sewed with batting, and the top hade to be lined so that the batting would stay in place. It was kind of time consuming, and I don't know if my pictures do it justice, but I really loved the way it turned out.
We were also able to find Batman's utility belt and his expandable wings online. The wings were really cool, cause you wore them like a backpack. When you wanted them to pop out, you just pulled the ripcord, and they would shoot out. When it was time to put them away, like to walk through doors, you pulled the rip cords at both shoulders like 4 times and they would gradually retract. Nate kept forgetting to pull his wings in though, and ended up poking a lot of people.

Funny story about Nate's costume though. I got all the supplies for it pretty early, but I put off making it until the night before our Ward Halloween carnival. Nate was getting a little stressed because he thought that he wasn't going to have anything to wear to it. But I assured him that I made him a promise and that I take my promises really seriously, so no matter what it took, I would get his costume made.
So, it was bedtime, and I was just starting to cut out the pieces for the costume. As I was ushering the kids up the stairs for bed, Nate turns to me and says, "Don't forget to drink a lot of Diet Coke so you can stay up all night and finish my costume!" I couldn't help but laugh at that, he's so funny the way he expresses himself sometimes. Of course, I did end up staying up all night to get the costume done. Nate is an early riser anyway, but he woke up at 6 am and before he even came around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and saw me, he calls out "Good job staying up and making my costume Mom. I am really proud of you." It was too funny. He was so excited about the costume that he put it on right then, and I couldn't get it off him all weekend!

The last few pictures have been of Nate and his 1st grade classmates in their Halloween costumes. It is such a fun holiday, and the school does such a good job making the day special.

During the parade at Nate's school, we were walking behind Nate and his "girlfriend" Paige, who is pictured below as Scooby Doo. Kimmy LOVES dogs, and since we were right next to Paige the whole time, she couldn't stop doing her little high pitched "bark" that she does. I put bark in quotations because she doesn't actually say "ruf," she just squeaks. It is the sweetest thing!

Giselle from "Enchanted"

Dana and I have the same favorite movie, a Disney classic, "Enchanted." If you haven't seen it, you truly missing out. It has all the sweet princess magic you would expect from a Disney film, plus wonderful music, and many clever jokes. So it was not a surprise that Dana chose to be Giselle for Halloween. However, she had to pick the most over the top costume from the whole movie for the one she wanted to wear, Giselle's larger than life wedding dress. Here is a picture of the actual dress itself, on display earlier this year in the Disney Store on 5th avenue in NYC. I tried to upload some movie stills here so you could see what the dress looked like on, but the quailty was crappy, so instead here's the link to check them out: http://www.costumersguide.com/enchanted1.shtml

Now that you have seen the real dress, here is my simplified version that I made without a pattern...

I agonized long and hard over the organza ruffles in the front, and (this is for Tiana) finally decided that they needed to be cut on the bias and then sewn vertically to hang correctly. The original dress was made from more than 40 yards of fabric (420 square feet of fabric), and had 3 layers of petticoats and two 6-hoop crinoline skirts underneath, and weighed more than 40 pounds! Dana's version only had one petticoat and a 3 hoop skirt, but they were so heavy for her, she had to wear white suspenders under her dress to hold them up. (You can see them under her dress in some pictures.)

You will notice Giselle holds her hands really delicately throughout the movie. That is what Dana is tryin to do in this picture, with her pinkies out, but it looks more like she's doing hang loose instead.

All the glitter detail you see on the dress are not ribbon or trim, they are actually lines of fabric glue sprinkled with glitter, with the excess shaken off. It was a nightmare to do, I will probably be finding glitter everywhere for years to come.

I didn't do the orchid flower at her waist, because the one I got seemed really too big, and it was very cream compared to how white the dress was. I also had some trouble finding a good set of butterflies for the neckline. After endless hours at various fabric and craft stores, I finally decided to make one out of sparkly foam, and glue rhinestones to it. I skipped the small one all together, and added small bridal flowers on the left instead. You can't really see them very good in these pictures.
Dana's preschool doesn't let the kids do Halloween costumes cause it's just too much trouble, so she went with Nate to his school so she could walk in his Halloween parade with him.

She had an awesome time hanging out with Nate in his 1st grade classroom.

We also got to participate in our Ward's Halloween Carnival.

Everyone had a great time, and Dana loved being able to show off her beautiful dress. The best part, everyone knew that she was supposed to be Giselle, not just a beautiful bride or queen or something.

I was really pleased with how the dress turned out, even though I found traces of glitter in my dishwasher yesterday!

Sunday Best

Since our kids always look so nice on Sundays for church, Jared decided to do a little photo shoot with them.

Dana loves to wear necklaces and perfume to church...such a girly girl!



Nate has the same problem as Chandler from Friends. He can't smile on cue. It always comes out funny!

Aren't they so cute?!?!?!

Birthday Party Fun

These are just a few pictures of the kids participating in their first water ballon fight at a friend's birthday party.

By the time that we got down to the last few ballons, the kids seemed to have either figured out how to aim, or how to pop the ballon over someone's head with their fingernails.

Completely Gratuitous Kimmy

These pictures are just because she's so stinkn' cute! And she's a member of Red Sox Nation
I don't know if you can tell, but her hair is in 1 inch long piggies in this picture.

Just because she's so stinkn' cute in this picture!

KISS Live in the living room

So, every year at Nathan's school, they have a back to school night. They do a dinner and a carnival to help raise funds for the extras at school like fieldtrips and supplies and stuff. At this year's carnival, they had a professional face painter. I know that sounds like it's not a real profession, but it's true, this lady had a whole portfolio of all different kinds of face designs she had done (Okay so maybe you would probably call her a professional makeup artist).So Nate had her paint a firebreathing dragon on his face, we thought it was going to be more dragon face, but it was fun and Nate felt like he looked tough.

Dana got a butterfly face painting. She wanted pink and purple, but the lady thought the orange would go good with her hair. I think she kind of looks like a lion or something.

Dana also purchased a blow up guitar toy at the carnival with the tickets she won. When we got home she wanted to rock out.

Holding the guitar like that with all the face paint, I thought it looked a little like a KISS rock concert in our living room. Aren't kids awesome???

What's taking you so long?

I haven't blogged for a long time and I could waste a bunch of time here telling you why, but instead of make you listen to that, I have decided to treat you to pictures of my beautiful kids!

Our family vacation in August was a whirlwind of Oregon activites, we spent time in Medford visiting Grandma and Grandpa Noble and I got to go to a Dirtclod reunion. It was so neat to hang out with some of those old friends again...Thanks again Craig, Jeanette and Darelyn for all your hard working planning it.
In Portland we got to visit the Markers, our old couple friends from BYU. It was so much fun because all our kids are almost exactly the same age and play really well together. Hoever, I suppose that Kelly's kids play well with just about everyone. We got to go to Dallin's soccer practice with him and Nate got to kick the ball around with the other kids, even though he wasn't part of the team. He had a really good time, but he got frustruated because he wanted to be great at it without any practive. He's a perfectionist in some areas for sure.

Jeff and Kelly were nice enough to take us out on their boat for some waterskiing...however, the kids tried to ride the tubes, but ended up getting dunked on the first time out, and Nate was so traumatized that he refused to try again. Too bad, maybe next time things will go better.

Then we went to Redmond to visit the Sean and Amanda Cowley family and the cousins had an awesome time camping in the tent in the back yard and making smores. Jared and Sean got treated to a round of golf by Uncle Cliff and got schooled! Then it was off to Myrtle Point for some river camping with the Hyrum and Tiana Johnson family. The trip was awesome, we love reconnecting with family and great friends, and we had a ton of fun.