Black sweatpants and black sweatshirt: $10.00
White acrylic paint and paint brush: $3.00
Face paint: $3.00
Pair of skeleton gloves: $1.00
Time spent looking at picture of the costume he wanted, and trying to sketch ribcage and spine onto sweatshirt: 10 minutes
Time spent following sketch on spine and left half of ribcage, then realizing sketch wasn’t perfectly symmetrical after getting to right side and resorting to painting freehand, then throwing out sketch idea altogether and painting the rest of the costume freehand: 15 hours
Time spent trying to paint Riley’s face while he was squirming, squinting, scrunching his eyes and mouth, trying to play with the dog, and complaining about itching and tickling: 20 minutes
Seeing Riley looking adorable and loving his costume: Priceless
So, yeah… I decided this year that I would make Riley’s Halloween costume myself. “It’ll be fun”, I said. “How hard can it be?”, I said. He wanted to buy this one when we went shopping, but “It’s $25… I can do it for much cheaper”, I said.
Next year I’m spending whatever it takes to get what he wants. I have a new appreciation for the value of Halloween costumes.
He did look pretty flippin’ adorable, though, right?
That, and the incredible loot of candy he pulled in made it all worth it. The biggest cost to me will be the 5 pounds I gain from helping him finish off his candy. You, know… just so we don’t have to have it around the house for months, being a temptation.







