Halloween 2009, Part One

We enjoyed carrying on our Halloween tradition of dressing up as a family in a similar theme (Having done The Incredibles and Peter Pan in the past) and chose characters from Pixar's WALL-E. Andrea outdid herself by creating all the costumes from scratch (with a little help from me and Kinko's) and, as always, we had a great time with both the preparation and trick-or-treating.

First is Jayden as the title character, WALL-E. We found a site online that had a printable papercraft WALL-E figure you could create, and blew them up to fit the size of a packing box. We added some iron-ons attached to gloves, and a cutout posterboard glued to some lab goggles. Lastly, we put a flexible and imaginative kid inside:

Next came Noah as one of the steward robots aboard the luxury liner in the movie. I figured this might be a hard sell for Noah, since they don't have a starring role in the film, but he was very excited about it and, to be honest, I think the costume turned out exceptionally well (I was particularly proud of the swappable "screens" in front). Noah expecially liked having the light bar on his head.

Owen's costume was that of M-O, the small cleaning robot who befriends the main robot characters and provides a lot of comic relief and cuteness in the movie. We loved this costume, though it was the most difficult to get on and off of Owen (which we did a LOT, since he couldn't wear it in his car seat). The helmet was fashioned from an insulated box used for transporting medical specimens, and the brush was actually a replacement brush for a Roomba vacuum cleaner robot.

Next came Sofie, who was a shoo-in as the sleek, cute, and incredibly destructive EVE. This one was simpler, using a sweatshirt with velcro-attached "tails" and a bicycle helmet that fit underneath the hood. The best part was Sofie's pitch-perfect imitation of EVE's plaintive cry for her trouble-prone friend: "Waawee! Waawee!"

Lastly, Andrea and I dressed up as the primary human characters of the film, the grossly overweight John and Mary. Andrea wore the wig I used when I dressed up as Syndrome three years prior, and we both donned huge sweatsuits with most of our furniture's throw pillows stuffed underneath.

It was, of course, an absolute blast, well worth the time and effort it took. And here it is nearing August and we haven't decided for sure what we're doing this year... we have some ideas. Regardless of what we decide, you can count on it remaining a well-guarded secret until October 31st!