Lets train

Coordinating Halloween costumes is so much fun!

Especially since our kids are still young enough that they'll cooperate with us.

This year, we decided to coordinate our family Halloween costumes with extended family for one giant Halloween group costume. After all the votes from different families were tallied, the Peter Pan theme was chosen. Between cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, all the major parts were divyed out, with my husband being Mr. Smee and me being a mermaid. Our kids were Michael, Wendy, and Tinkerbell. We drove up to Amarillo, and my brother drove down from Colorado to spend the weekend together. Halloween with extended family is a blast!

Can you name all our characters?

We dressed as the old Disney animated version of Peter Pan.

Each year, our friends also host an adults only Halloween party, so it's important that whatever costumes we decided to use as a family can also work for a couples costume. For the adult costume party, we went as a mermaid and a pirate. A mermaid and Mr. Smee just didn't have the same ring to it. . . 

Pinterest has some great ideas for mermaid makeup, like this and this. I couldn't get a good close up of my makeup, but I had green scales on my cheeks, collarbone, arms, and hands. Plus, lots of sparkly eye shadow! I loved my costume, and I felt gorgeous.

To make a mermaid tail, watch this tutorial from Martha Stewart and Christian Siriano.

I made a couple changes, like using netting tulle instead of the flowy fabric from the tutorial, and I stitched everything together. In the video tutorial they use hot glue, so this mermaid tail would be a great craft for non-sewers too! To keep the bodice simple and a bit less seductive, I wore a nude t-shirt and used extra fabric from the tail. I hung the fabric from a necklace with safety pins, and I hot glued seashells on top. Easy peasy.

Here we donned the costumes of Mr. Smee, Tinkerbell, Michael, Wendy, and the mermaid

In addition to our Peter Pan group costume, we had some royal costumes as well.

Ruby's first birthday party was Cinderella themed (after the new live action Disney Cinderella.) Our family loves the new movie! While I was searching for a princess costume for Ruby, I stumbled across a Cinderella dress for adults for super cheap - $10! It was coming from China, but I couldn't help myself from ordering one. I've never had a princess dress before! 

My kids were so happy when it came in the mail. They begged me to wear my Cinderella dress so that they could chase me around the house saying, "You forgot your shoe Cinderella!" And my sweet Simon wanted to dance with me just like the prince. So, my kids loved my Cinderella dress as much as I did.

Since I had a poofy Cinderella dress, I ordered Johnny a prince costume. (He was soooo excited. . . not. . . but he obliged me!) I figured he could wear the prince costume at our church Halloween trunk-or-treat and at Ruby's Cinderella party. With two daughters, it's inevitable we'll have more princess parties, right?

We didn't have all the characters from Peter Pan to wear for the church Halloween party, so I figured we'd go as royalty. (Really I just wanted an excuse to wear my Cinderella dress.) All of us girls were princesses, Johnny was "King Daddy," and Simon was a dragon.

 Can you tell it was way past bedtime?

We've played a lot of dress up over the last couple weeks, and I enjoyed them all!

I hope these costume ideas are helpful for your family too. Happy Halloween everyone!

If you need some fun ideas for spooky and fun Halloween desserts, check out these posts:

Head in a Jar Brains (a yummy cake)

Pumpkin Pie Poop Maker (a funny pumpkin and a delicious pie)