woody & jessie

toy story crept into our lives slowly, about 2.5 years ago.  i remember not liking it at first.  i wasn't so sure that i wanted my sweet little girl watching that terrible "sid" and all the mean things he did to his toys. i guess after many, many viewings, i came around. now, the characters feel like an extended part of our family. for christmas last year we bought brooke a talking "woody" doll. i was so excited for her to open that toy on christmas morning. this past spring when we heard toy story 3 was about to be released, i went out and bought toy story 2. it has been on a continuous play loop in our car ever since. brooke and gavin never tire of it. it's amazing. toy story 3 is the first movie that i took brooke to a movie theater to see. when all the toy story 3 characters hit Target, brooke had to have a "jessie" doll to go with her "woody" doll, and ever since then there's been a lot of talk about cowgirls. i think brooke might have said she wanted to be a cowgirl for halloween, and that's when we had the idea that brooke and gavin should go as "jessie" and "woody." that was many months ago, and i can't believe brooke didn't insist on being something else by the time halloween rolled around. i think there was some talk of princesses and mermaids, but i reminded her that she and gavin were going to be the best cowgirl and cowboy around :) and they were...

in early september i started searching online for costumes. all the costume shops were selling cheap one-piece jumpsuits w/ fake boot covers for the shoes, etc. i just couldn't do that. jessie and woody deserve better :) so, i started piecing the costumes together. real cowboy boots, well-made hats and adorable little belts with big cowboy buckles all came from an online country-western store. when they arrived, i knew we were on to something. i found a woody accessory kit online that included the vest, sheriff pin and red bandana. the rest was a bit harder... i bought button-down white shirts for both of them and a yard of cow print fabric. i dyed woody's shirt yellow along with an old t-shirt of mine to use on jessie's shirt. i used a red fabric paint pen and a yardstick to draw the pattern on woody's shirt. then i cut yellow t-shirt fabric out and glued it to jessie's shirt at the top and the cuffs. i used red puffy paint to create the design on jessie's shirt and red yarn for the trim. then i cut and glued the cow print fabric to an old pair of brooke's jeans. kevin helped out by taping red yarn to a band that we fit inside of jessie's cowgirl hat, then i braided it and added a yellow bow. having the woody and jessie dolls here really helped us duplicate their look! the costumes turned out even better than i had hoped.

i think i fell in love once i put the costumes on brooke and gavin.  i couldn't believe how perfect they were. brooke's eyes lit up when she saw her costume. she went right to the hat with the red braid. it was by far her favorite part of the costume. gavin cried for the first 15 minutes of having his boots on, and i thought i was going to have to resort to gym shoes. but he came around and wore them like a champ (despite the fact that they were too big). i couldn't get over how great gavin did in his costume. he never tried to take the hat off or the bandana off. he went right along with it. brooke raced door to door yelling "trick-or-treat" at the top of her lungs with her hat falling off her head and the red braid bouncing along. gavin trailed behind, trying to do his best to keep up. he carried his little pumpkin and put each piece of candy in it. he was excited to get suckers and had to eat one right away. brooke was excited by all the candy but particularly liked the skittles this year. gavin loved the halloween decorations and was not afraid of the spooky music pouring out of houses; however, there was one scary costume that sent him into hysterics until the nice boy took off his spooky mask to show gavin that he was really just a normal boy underneath :) gavin really loved seeing pictures of ghosts and wanted to give them all a kiss :) brooke and gavin both enjoyed handing out candy at our house and seeing all the other kids in their costumes. we all sat outside huddled together for about an hour and a half before we called it a night.

it was without a doubt the best halloween we will ever have. it will be the one we talk about for many years to come.