The Engineer

I love when I see pictures of families who used a specific theme to dress up together for Halloween. Dave's sister Amy's family has done this several times - once with Baby Lydia as a pea pod and her dad as a farmer, once with the whole family as characters from the story The Little Red Riding Hood, once with the kids as Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and once with Lydia as Snow White and Luke as his favorite dwarf, Dopey. My in-laws even have a few pictures of Dave and Amy dressed up together as Smurfs. My all time favorite family to see decked out together is my friend Pamela Fahs with her husband and their four kids. They've done a great job pulling off The Wizard of Oz, Scooby Doo, and Dr. Seuss. 

Last year Caleb was Yogi for Halloween, and since Dave has talked on multiple occasions about how he would like to be a park ranger, I tried to convince him to get dressed up too as Ranger Jones. He wasn't excited about the idea and we didn't really have good things laying around to throw a park ranger costume together, so that idea flopped. This year though I was stoked because someone had given me a giraffe costume for Caleb and I found a peacock suit on a Facebook yardsale site for Hadley so I thought they could go as zoo animals! I had this idea in my head for a few months, thinking I didn't have to go buy any Halloween costumes this year. Finally I took Caleb down one night to try on the costume so he could get used to it a little before Halloween. Guess what? The child was way too tall despite that the tag said for ages two to four. I then tried a monkey costume that looked similar in size but didn't have sewn on feet thinking it would might work. Nope! Ugg. My plan was sunk once again. 

Since Caleb is into the Thomas brand trains right now, I searched online to google ideas for a train costume as plan C and came across this website where a lady made Thomas and Percy costumes for her kids out of cardboard boxes. I thought: We could do that! (Okay, my exact thought was that I needed to get Dave to help me find a good box and shape it up for me.) 

As it grew closer to Halloween, we considered just going with a different costume because we had so much else to do it was hard to find a chunk of time to do it. I thought about just getting a store bought Thomas costume but Caleb repeatedly told us that he wanted to be James, who is another one of the major characters from the series but not one who is well enough liked that there are mainstream costumes mass produced. So, Dave bit the bullet one Sunday afternoon when the rest of us were resting and started the project. 

I was beyond impressed with this man's engineering skills. This is why his parents paid to send him to collage at Rolla for four years and he sought out his Masters at VA Tech, right? Rather than just a square box with a few cut outs, Dave worked for hours making "James" look as realistic as possible. He shaped the cardboard around a bucket to make the rounded body of the train and created a solid base with wheels. Duct tape was sufficient for most of the project's needs, but I even saw him using some washers and a few large bolts. This man was serious about making an awesome costume for his toddler! 

Caleb was more than willing to try it on to make sure Dave was right on track. He was so excited about wanting to be involved in the creation process that Dave didn't get to work on it too much longer once Caleb woke up from his nap and got in the mix.

While I don't have the design and building skills my husband does, I did have a few ideas for decorating James. I remembered that Target sells solid color wrapping paper which I thought would work better than piecing together construction paper. We decided to get a roll of red for the body and black for the wheels and face. While in Target, I found a black can hugger, or "Kuzzie" type thing, in the dollar section and thought it would be perfect for the funnel. Dave suggested some gold ribbon for the side stripes too and printed out a face he'd found online and edited, which completed the look. He cut the bottom out of an old tote bag we had and attached it inside the costume so that the straps would help Caleb hold it up.

Since James' engine number is on his coal car instead of on the engine itself like some of the other trains, Dave also thought it would be a good to make a "coal car" trick-or-treat bucket for Caleb to collect his candy. The weekend before Halloween, Dave was up until about 2:30 a.m. finishing the project after the kids went to bed. I must have told him a hundred times how impressed I was!

You can just imagine how beside himself with excitement Caleb was when Dave showed him the finished product. He practiced trick-or-treating at our pantry where he received his first treat from his daddy. Sadly, we had to hide the costume after this trial run to make sure that it was in tact come Halloween. 

While all this train building was happening, I saw a small diaper box nearby and told Dave it would be cute if he could make a small Mavis costume for Hadley too. Mavis is the young fiesty diesel engine who is "full of her own ideas," and since Hadley is a young'un and getting into more and more things these days, I thought it was a good fit. Being a boxy black diesel engine, this train was much easier to construct. She was pretty smiley about her costume as well and slid right into it. (Who needs a Bumbo when your daddy can make you a diesel train seat?)

What started out as zoo animals turned into a steamie and diesel Sodor pair. I don't think I could have been any happier. (Except if maybe Dave and I had had more time to get together our Sir Topham Hatt and Mrs. Hatt costumes and join in on the fun!) Thanks, Dave, for pulling it off!