Photos from Thanksgiving 2011

Click the image to the left to see a smattering of photos we took on Thanksgiving Day. Dinner was at Mum and Dad's house and everyone brought something to enjoy; there was lots of scrumptious food! After dinner we had fun playing games (Blokus, Cribbage and Mille Bornes) and later on Hisae taught us how to fold our paper napkins into origami creations.

Halloween Costume Theme: Early Explorers of the New World

Jason was the inspiration for this year's theme. He wanted to be a Viking, so we quickly thought of Early Explorers of the New World. We have Amara as a Native American, Jason as Leif Ericson, Blaine as Christopher Columbus and Felicia as an English colonist.

All told, it took Felicia about 3 weeks of constant sewing to finish up all our costumes. Columbus' outfit alone had four major parts with the white undershirt, the brocade doublet, the knee-length pants and the outer coat. Felicia's dress required lots of gathering, especially for the drapes. She made her bonnet and learned about millinery wire, iron-on webbed interfacing, more gathering, etc. For Jason's costume, I painted and detailed his helmet and created a viking shield while Felicia sewed the armor, shirt and pants and the bracing for his arms and legs. Finally on Amara's costume, I did the beading on her headband, Felicia sewed and detailed the costume and we both sewed on beads on to the fringe on the sleeves and the bottom of the dress.

We entered two local Halloween costume contests and we won first place and second place respectively in the groups and family categories.

Michael and Rosemary opted to "do their own thing" this year, so Michael dressed as "The Creep" from the Lonely Island music video, while Rosemary dressed as Princess Zelda from the Ocarina of Time.