How to make a Han Solo Costume

Eldon wanted to be Han Solo for Halloween this year. Great! Easy costume. A few searches on Google, and away we go. First cut out a vest-like pattern out of newspaper. We went through several renditions of this before we got a good fit.

Second, find some black fabric in the remnant pile at JoAnn's. Like $2. Sweet. Cut out the pattern. Sew together.

Buy turtleneck at a consignment store. $2. Sweet.

Cut open the neck to give it a fly 70's collar. Sweet. Although -- funny story here. Eldon put it on, and I laughed for joy and how cool it looked because of the butterfly collar. Eldon through a tantrum and threatened to tear up the costume if I didn't cut off the collar. I found out later that he thought I was laughing at him because he looked goofy. I did end up sewing up the sides so it wasn't quite so fly.

Dye the shirt a dirty brown using tea (thanks, Tracy!). This picture so looks like marinating chicken breasts.

Take fuzzy picture of kid wearing awesome costume. We even parted his hair in the middle and feathered it back. Sweet!

Columbus Day Weekend

We had an interesting and fun weekend. We bottled 25 jars of applesauce on Saturday. I meant to take a picture of it, but I forgot. Oh well. I'm sure you know what applesauce looks like!

On Monday, we went to Kidcity. The kids had a lot of fun there. We went out to eat afterwards, then I went home with Zach and Jess for a much needed nap, and James took Eldon and Erica to Toys R Us to get something with the allowance I finally gave them. (I hadn't given them any since April. It's been a long summer...)

Anyway, some highlights (taken with our cruddy camera - sorry!):

Eldon and Jessica played in a pink UFO. When you talked into the microphone, the monitor lit up like lightning.

Zach enjoyed playing with some wooden apples. They were set at just the right height for him.

All the kids enjoyed the slide. It was steep, so they went down fast. There were two ladies sitting at the bottom taking pictures of their family, and my kids started posing and doing silly things on the way down to make them laugh. Zachary, however, was not fond of the slide, so he only went down once with Eldon.