oh yes i did

Our little gal this weekend was invited to go to a Fall festival with her best friend so we had to come up with a last minute-y costume.

All our craft stuff is packed right now, except the paint supplies - which seemed to be staring right at us as we were pondering ideas.   So this is what came out of that stare down.

I know, I know.  I've thought it, too.  It's a little bit obnoxious when the parent's dress their kid up in the costume THEY would want to wear, rather than what the kid wants to wear.  But let me explain - I have a four part argument to justify myself:

ONE - I think if I have to put together ONE more princess costume, I will cry.  Not even in a dignified, I look so sweet and fragile you feel sympathy for me kind of way - but a full on, unabashed, openly weeping - cry.
TWO - She loved this.  She really did.  In fact, we had another costume idea for Thursday night, and she liked this so much that she just said she wanted to just wear this another time.  Which means I have one less project to do during packing time, so done and DUN.
THREE -  The apron you see here was cut out of a $2.00 dish towel, and everything else we had lying around.  She WON a $5.00 gift card to Wal-Mart for a costume contest, which means we actually MADE 3.00 off this costume.  And that just makes me feel smart.

AND FINALLY -  It kind of reminds me of ye costumes of olde - you know?  The ones where kids dressed up with whatever was lying around.  Time was we had little hobos, toilet paper mummies, and sheet ghosts all slinging pillowcases to gather their candy (instead of the $15 blingy bucket from Target).   It seems there was a day when there was no buycostumes.com, and the parents half the time didn't even know what the kids were going to dress up as until the kids themselves used their imaginations and started pulling a red and white striped shirt out of the bottom of their closet and drawing mustaches on their face with marker to transform a pirate.

I do long for a charming, simpler time that those traditions were more common (Of course I would say that. I just dressed my kid up like a free spirited artist - I'm clearly a hipster.) -  but, this feels like we touched a little bit of what it might have been like to be a part of that.  I just like it.