Last Monday I shared a progress post of our Halloween costumes. At that point Little A’s disco ball costume was all ready to go, but his strong man still needed some work. Today I’m back to share the final strongman costume and some family photos from our fun weekend.

Here we are, ready for the disco, and I have to mention that Alex’s costume really worked like a disco ball! On Saturday we went to a party at our friend’s house, which had plenty of large windows and sliding doors facing the setting sun. Anytime Alex would walk past a window or in/out the doors, his shirt would reflect sunlight all over the room, just like a disco ball! Needless to say, everyone, especially the adults in the room, loved it!

Finishing the Strongman

When we left off, I had the onesie and leggings for Alex’s costume, but was still working on his tattooed arms. I made the original set shown in the previous costume post out of a pair of women’s stockings, but they were pretty large, so the tattoos were super wrinkly unless I decided to stuff the arms and give him BIG muscles. I thought about stuffing them, but knew that our finicky guy might refuse that look, so I decided to go back to the store and pick up a pair of girl’s stockings.

After buying them, I immediately realized a second benefit – if I turned the stockings upside down, and cut a hole in the crotch area, I could slide the one piece over Alex’s head rather than cut off the stocking legs to create two sleeves (that I would then have to attach to the onesie in order to keep them up)! win. win. In addition to cutting the hole for his head, I cut off the tighter elastic material around the stocking’s waist area as well as cutting off the toe seams.

I then drew the tattoos (a heart, cloud with lightening, kite, mermaid, whale, sailboat, anchor, spiderweb, rose, stars, and a shell). I only drew the tattoos from his shoulder area down to about his wrist, this still left a bit of stocking length, and rather than cut it off, I folded it under the sleeves to create a double layer for added warmth. They were still a touch wide for his arms, but his cuteness totally distracted anyone from noticing ;-).

And speaking of cuteness, here we are on Friday night, just before going trick-or-treating at the most amazing/bizarre house (we only went to two houses, because that was more than enough for the little guy).

Funny thing, I had just finished Alex’s barbell (two styrofoam balls and a wooden dowel spray painted black), so this is his first time holding it. As we were about to take the picture, we told him to hold his barbell in the air, and he surprised everyone by doing it!  So that’s us, surprise smiling/laughing as he performs on cue.

After these photos, he was more than happy to walk down the street holding his barbell and lifting it up whenever prompted. What a little guy! And what a great Halloween.