I'm basically swimming in costumes right now. And for once, that's not an exaggeration. My children choose their costumes very deliberately. They take weeks to decide. And then I take even more weeks to procrastinate the necessary arrangements for said costumes. Then there is crying late at night because it's not done, and frantic shopping and safety-pinning and the occasional use of hot-glue to make everything perfect a mere seconds before the neighborhood Halloween party begins.
And then 3 minutes into the party, they realize that allllllllllllll those things I've been telling them about their costumes not being "practical" or "user-friendly" or "safe to walk in" are actually true. And I end up with an armful of cast-offs as my children run around wearing clothes that would make anyone assume they were simply going as a vagabond for Halloween.
Fast-forward to the night before Halloween when I ceremoniously announce that they will not be wearing any of those doomed costumes to school for fear that the pieces will never make it home again. And the crying....oh! THE CRYING. It's as if I've ripped their very future from them like some....some....creature of destruction that never ever had love in her heart and subsists solely on the tears of children that won't eat broccoli. I spend my entire night listing off possible last-minute replacement costume ideas that are all pretty much the worst idea that anyone has ever had in the entire history of the world and doing "internet research" with them to come up with a new idea. Except, "internet research" has to be shut down prematurely because...well... I'm sure you've seen some of those adult "costume" ideas that I reaaaaaaly don't want my 9 year old seeing. Finally, I make a joke about some lame costume idea because I've pretty much lost my mind, and -- it's a HIT! It's acceptable. We whip it out in no-time as we've now become experts on every possible Halloween costume accessory and location in our entire house. They go to school the next day absolutely loving their lives.
But of course, by the time they get home from school, something is broken. Or rubbing their elbow. Or just WRONG in some way that makes no sense to anyone else ever. So they dig through the costume box and pull out their very favorite costume that they've worn for the last 3 years and head out trick-or-treating.
And I am left to lie here in this nest of costumes while they go about their lives like the month of October is just GONE. To be perfectly honest though, it's little bit cozy. And the rain outside convinces me to wait just a little longer before putting them all away. Which is fine by me. It gives my Little P a few more hours to be a fairy-princess-butterfly-dancer-girl.
Next year though, I'm going to convince her to be the Lil' Butter Superhero. Not that it will take much convincing. She loves any costume that involves wings.
Have you seen the Lil' Butters Social Butterflies? Matt from The Cookie Cutter Company (which is also part of the Knextion group which makes these collectible toys) gave me some for my girls...and they are kind of obsessed with them. Here's the thing though... it's been super enlightening as a parent to listen to my girls play with them. The idea behind the Lil' Butters is that they all have different emotions and personalities and they are supposed to empower young girls by showing them that it's OKAY to feel what you feel. That it's OKAY to be happy sometimes and sad sometimes and to just want to be alone sometimes too. And I'm ALL for that kind of playing.
My girls just think they are fun toys. So it's interesting to hear how they integrate emotions into their pretend life and to see their misconceptions that some emotions are "bad" or "wrong". But I also love the way they play with the Superhero butterfly, because apparently, she can do ANYTHING. And I'm pretty well convinced that ALL of my children have that capability in them!
Anyway... back to cookies. Gosh!! You guys are so distracting! Superhero cookies! Want to see how I did the lettering? It's a throwback to my high school doodling years.
1. The first step is to flood your cookie is some fantastically bright color of joy and happiness. Make sure the surface is as smooth as you can get it.
2. Grab a polka dot stencil (I used THIS ONE.) and spray the stencil so that the color is saturated near one side and kind of fades off toward the other side. I then re-positioned the stencil so it was off-set from the previous spray and then sprayed it again...and again made sure that the color was saturated near the same edge and faded off toward the other side. Let the spray dry for 15 minutes.
3. Grab a #2.5 tip and some black or gray icing. Pipe the outline of the letter "B" and don't worry about how weird your letters look. I mean...let's be brutally honest here. Look at my "B's". They're *really* bad on the perfection scale. But THEY WORK because most comics are supposed to be hand drawn and not at all perfect. Anyway...start the next letter as if it's coming from behind the first letter...and continue outlining all the letters the same way. Let the outline dry for another 15 minutes.
4. Grab some medium consistency blue icing and a #2 tip. Begin filling in each letter. Make sure there is enough icing to completely fill in the outline, but not so much that it spills all over and ruins your decorating life. Use a scribe tool or toothpick to drawn through the icing on each letter to reduce the chance of cratering.
See it in action.
NEED MORE??
Grab the cutters -- BAM CUTTER, POW CUTTER, LETTER CUTTERS, STAR CUTTERS. Grab the STENCIL or the STENCIL GENIE too.
Learn more about the Lil' Butters toys HERE or grab some HERE.
