I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So - Where The Wild Things Are Costume

You may remember from last year, that the Literacy Parade is my FAVORITE day of the year!  It's a Halloween- alternative costume parade my school puts on.  The idea is, that you choose a character from a book, dress up as that character, bring in the book, with your book project, and parade around school.  I look forward to it all year long, and have costumes picked out years in advance.  Obsessive?  Perhaps.  But it combines everything I love most - books and costumes.

My first year, I dressed up as Amelia Bedelia, last year I dressed up as Ms. Frizzle, and this year... baby boo and I dressed up as Max and a Wild Thing from Where The Wild Things Are.

I have always loved the book, Where The Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak.  The idea of a rowdy little boy, who comes up with a whole imaginary world - and then realizes his misses his mama - is a really sweet notion to me.  Growing up with brothers, I can totally get that!
To top all, this year is the year's 50th anniversary, and Aidan's grandma and grandpa got him the book... so it just seemed very fitting.

Firstly, of course I had to find Aidan his costume.  This was much easier said than done.  You may not believe it, but white footie pajamas with a hood are hard to come by.  So, I gave in, and bought his costume at Party City.  I can tell you though, it is well made, comfortable, and REALLY soft.  Aidan seemed to like it!

Now for my costume.  I didn't take pictures of the process, because most of it was just finding the right pieces.

Here's what I got:

Patterned leggings (I found mine at Target)

Orange and brown sweater/shirt (I found mine at Goodwill)

Faux fur collar (which I pinned together to make a hat)

Horns (Toilet paper rolls I cut a slit into, and rolled to make cones)

Wild Thing Feet

For the Wild Thing feet I took a sheet of gray felt, cut it in half.  Then, I took white felt, and cut about inch long triangles.  I sewed the triangles to the piece of felt.  Then, I sewed elastic to the back and bottom of the large pieces of felt.  Tada!  Wild Thing feet!  (This would also work for dinosaur, monster, or animal feet too.)

I assembled them all, and the end result was:

We all know it's not a party unless the snacks are AMAZING, so I knew I had to come up with something fun.  I reused my acorn idea from two years ago.  I also found Alpha-bit cereal (Literacy Parade - get it?), and found a really cute idea involving clementines and celery.  You peel the clementines, and stick 3/4 inch piece of celery in it, and low and behold, it looks like a pumpkin!

My kiddos had so much fun during our Literacy Parade!  They had such cute costume ideas!  I had a Cat in The Hat, a Thing 2, two firemen, a Sister Bear (from the Berenstain Bears), two Olivia-s, David from the Bible, the pig from If You Give A Pig A Party, Woody, a Doc McStuffins, Fancy Nancy, and more!  

I gave my best rendition of Where The Wild Things Are, with my special helper, and the kids loved it!

It was a wonderful day!  I love dressing up, and if it promotes literacy, it's just that much better!  Aidan was such a great sport about it too, and stole the show!

Stay tuned for Aidan's costume for our church's Light Up The Night event next week!