But your mom is in another castle....

As promised, here are some pictures from our Halloween!  If you're FB friends or follow me on Instagram you've likely already seen these, but here they are!

Princess Peach, Mario and Toady!  We had a blast putting these costumes together.  As I mentioned earlier this week, Nate sews and I don't, so he sewed up the hat for Oliver.  I found my dress, Oliver's vest and Nate's shirt at Arc's Value Village and we already had the wig and overalls.

We took Ollie trick or treating at both of his grandparents houses and then it was already getting past his bedtime so we pretty much brought him home and put him to bed.  Then we ate our dinner and watched Shaun of the Dead because apparently I wanted to watch more of a farce than horror type movie.  I adore that movie though, it's too cute.

I know he'll never remember his first Halloween and we went through a lot of effort to basically take him two places in an hour's time, but it was still important to me that we did it and I'm so glad we'll have pictures to show him when he's older.  I already have ideas for next year's Halloween!
And just like that we're into November.  It's one of my favorite months of the year - and I may be biased because it's my birthday month, but I still love it.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  I'll be doing some style challenges on Instagram as usual this month and I'm also embarking on another shopping ban for myself - mainly due to my birthday and Christmas coming so soon.  And then there's this little thing of Oliver's birthday coming up in just about a month - holy cow.  There will be some planning for that going on!  There are a few things I'd love to just forget about that happened in October, but it wasn't a horrible month overall.  I do know that I love a new month for a fresh new start, so onward and upward!
Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Thrift Style/Throwback Thursday - Ghosts of Halloween Past

I'm doing today's Thrift Style Thursday theme of Halloween costumes in Throwback fashion today.  I snagged a few pictures of Baby Bethie from back in the day and then I have a few of us in more recent years as well to share.  So let's fire up the wayback machine!
When I was young, I was lucky to have a grandmother who sewed and she helped us make my costume just about every year when I was growing up.  I remember being so excited each year to go to the fabric store and pick out a pattern for my costume!
First up here we have my first Halloween - my mom kept it simple and put bunny ears on a hat.  I decided when I was four that I wanted to revisit the bunny concept, so the below picture is me as a bunny again.  

 I think I was pretty dang cute - wonder where Oliver gets it?

Next up my second and third grade years.  In second grade I decided to be a scarecrow and in third grade I was Raggedy Ann.  What was awesome about these costumes is that we were able to recycle them later on and use pieces of them for various costumes needed for our church show each year, I remember we lengthened the Raggedy Ann dress to be a dress for me to sing the Wells Fargo Wagon from the Music Man in the show one year.

I dressed up each year through high school.  I more or less stopped trick or treating around sixth or seventh grade though.  I went out with friends at a party once in high school but that was about it.  Sadly I don't have the greatest pictures to share of my high school costumes.  One year Nate and I dressed up as a magician and his rabbit and I remember going on a wild goose chase the day before Halloween to every thrift store in town trying to find him a magician's hat!  I can't find the only good picture I have of us from that year though!

Believe it or not in college I took a break from dressing up for Halloween.  I'm not even sure why, I know my sorority had events and what not.  I do remember going with my sorority sisters to volunteer at these awesome haunted caves they used to have over in St. Paul.  We got to dress up and be part of the scare crew.  I had the best spot to hide one year and would jump out at people from behind this dark tree and scream at the top of my lungs.  It was fun seeing the reactions.  As someone who's easily startled it is oddly cathartic to startle other people!

Anyway, I didn't really do much dressing up for Halloween again until after Nate and I were married and I'm pretty proud of the costumes I've managed to pull together as an adult.  The year after we got married I decided to dress up as Rainbow Brite.  Other than buying a shirt at Target and a wig at Party City, every item I bought for this costume came from the thrift store and I was super excited by how it turned out.

The following year we kept it extremely simple and did Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Bros.  Nate was Mario and I was Luigi though I think it should have been the other way around seeing as Luigi is supposed to be taller than Mario!  This was a super simple one to put together, we borrowed overalls from my dad for Nate, I had some from past costume needs as well and then Nate sewed us some very simple hats out of felt.

Finally, the last time we truly dressed up was in 2010.  We went to our local roller derby with some friends and decided to dress up for the occasion.  It was a last minute choice, but we took a suggestion from a Facebook friend and dressed up as garden gnomes.  I thrifted a dress and apron and Nate sewed us hats and a tunic (yes Nate sews and I don't, we're weird I guess!).  I also, um, bulked up the girls if you get my drift, added some flowers and boom.  We kind of modeled ourselves after characters from a show we enjoyed as children called David the Gnome.

And then we kind of took a break from dressing up again for the last several years.  We just hadn't had a chance.  Now that we have Oliver we are going to dress up as a family.  I am going to keep you all in suspense for now though - you'll have to check back here, probably on Saturday, to see just what we do!  I will give you a hint, we will be recycling an element from one of the pictures above! What was your favorite Halloween costume?  Check out the other Thrift Style Thursday peeps at their blogs below for other Halloween fun!

Being Zhenya/Buttons and Birdcages/Lipstick and Yarn

Alligator Toe/Spoolish/Littledyknow

Pinned It and Did It - Semi Halloween Spirit

I'm linking up with Heather's Pinned and Did It today.  And actually, this is an outfit pin I totally stole from her!  I liked the orange and black together and decided it was the best I could do for some Halloween spirit today.

Didn't quite go for bare legs as it's a little damp and chilly today, but otherwise I think this was kind of a fun look to copy and easy for me to do being pregnant.  I love that this little sweater dress still stretches over the bump for me!

I gotta let you in on a little secret though.  You might disown me or decide we can't be internet friends anymore.  I'm not a big fan of Halloween.  There, I said it.  I do put a few decorations out each year and I have had fun dressing in costume some years too - but I'm not that crafty or creative, so putting together costumes is always a challenge.  I'm not a fan of being startled or scared, so haunted houses are out for me. And our neighborhood really has few children, so we only get a handful of trick or treaters each year if we're lucky.  This year is exceptionally hard for me - no candy with the GD diet.  No crazy parties and drinking with friends.  So yeah, call me the Halloween Scrooge I guess.  I'm really excited for next year though - I absolutely cannot wait to dress up my little guy in a costume!  I look forward to taking him trick or treating when he's old enough.  I think a lot of holidays are more fun when kids are involved.

Dress - H&M via two birds garage sale

Leggings and boots - Target

Cardigan - Zashi from cousin

Necklace and earrings - S&D 

I certainly do not hate Halloween - in fact one of my favorite Charlie Brown specials of all time is It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  But I love other holidays just a little bit more.  Thanksgiving?  Oh yeah, let's talk about that.  Mmm, turkey. 

Head on over to H&K Style Journey for more Pinned and Did It blog posts!

Happy Halloween!!

The always delightful Ally from Shybiker is hosting a virtual Halloween party.  I didn't have any plans to dress up this year, but couldn't resist the invitation from one of my favorite bloggers!  I decided to pull out an oldie but goodie from a few years ago - especially because I lost all the pictures I had taken of it anyway!  So here is my fairy costume from 2006, just as fun in 2012.

I had chosen to dress as a fairy in 2006 because I wanted to wear the pretty headband from my wedding for something.  I have to say, putting it on six years later I wonder how I lasted all day in it on my wedding day!  My mom helped me with making a skirt and shirt with wings.  Add a magic fairy wand and you're good to go!

I put this on on Sunday afternoon and left in on for awhile.  Things like doing laundry and watching The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown are so much more fun in a costume, don't you think?

A little pixie dust to all of you!  Happy Halloween!  Thanks again to Ally for hosting a fun virtual party!

Bright orange pumpkin

Happy Halloween!  We don't really do the costume thing in my office, so I instead chose Halloween type colors for today.  I could have gone all black, but instead decided to go with a harvest/pumpkin type feel, so everything was centered around my nice bright orange shirt.

I hope you all had a fun weekend celebrating Halloween and that if you are celebrating tonight, you have a fun and safe time!  We're having drinks with friends but keeping it pretty low key I think.  And then on to November already - where does the time go?

Rundown:
Shirt - Boutique in Pequot Lakes, MN
Skirt -East 5th Avenue from JcPenney (last season)
Nylons - Target
Shoes - Merona from Target (thrifted from Unique Thrift Store)
Necklace and earrings - Charming Charlie

FBFF - Halloween

Today's Fashion Beauty Friend Friday is all about Halloween and costumes - fun!  Some years I am more into Halloween than others.  At any rate, let's dive in and chat about it, shall we?

1. Do you have plans for Halloween? Yes, we are going to one of two bars that has outstanding beer selections on tap with a couple of couples that we hang out with on a regular basis, and in fact we have a "Beer Monday" tradition where we try to meet up once or twice a month or so on Mondays to have a beer and take the sting off the start of a new week.  Since Halloween falls on a Monday it felt appropriate to still meet up for a beer!  One of the couples has boxes of miscellaneous costume pieces so we might just dig through those and put a little something together!  We rarely get trick-or-treaters at our house because our neighborhood is quite elderly so I am not too disappointed for not being home that night either.

2. Where do you go for costume or makeup inspiration?  I'm pretty lame on that front, when I get an idea for a costume, I go to Google and search under images and then try to come up with something based on that!

3. What was the best costume you ever donned?  That would have to be the Rainbow Brite costume I did in 2007.  I am very proud of it because I did the entire thing myself, a pretty big deal because I usually take the cheap route or I get help with the sewing or "putting" together.  I was pretty pleased with how this one turned out.  In 2008 the Pants Monkey and I did Mario and Luigi, that one was pretty fun too and very well received, but he actually did a lot of the work on that one, including making us hats!

4. What is the most creative costume you've ever seen? Boy there have been MANY creative costumes out there.  It is tough to narrow it down.  As a fan of the Muppets I always love seeing people dressed as Muppet characters.  My sister-in-law dressed as Red Fraggle last year and she looked awesome.  Her best friend dressed as Jem (any 80's kids out there?) and she looked really cool too.  I love seeing couples come up with fun themes together, like our Mario and Luigi or even more creative than that like a hot dog and a bun.

5. No holds barred, if you could dress up as anything, what would it be? Tough choice!  I have had a lot of fun with past costumes so it's really hard for me to say what I would dress up as!  I've never done the Disney princess thing, so it might be fun to be Cinderella or Belle from Beauty and the Beast and an excuse to wear a big pretty gown.  Or I haven't done the Muppet thing before - I could do Miss Piggy or be really weird and go for like Cookie Monster or something!  Like I said though, this year will be a mismash of what we find at our friend's house!

Happy (early) Halloween!

For more on FBFF, to join the Google group, or to read other FBFF posts,visit Katy at Modly Chic.