RAINBOW BRITE

I debated a long time with what to be this year...and finally picked after Adam decided he was going to be Optimus Prime.

I picked Rainbow Brite for 2 reasons,

1:HELLO!!... its Rainbow Brite how awesome is that!!

2: Cause I like to do the Couples costume thing with Adam

..so this year I thought guess its "Greatest 80's cartoon characters"

So to start Adam and I make our costumes every year...but normally we can use lots of things we buy from the store and just add on to it, but Rainbow Brite was made mostly from scratch!! We bought all the material at Walmart.

Went home and started cuttin and gluing...its truly amazing what a glue gun can do!

The dress was cut and glued to fit me exactly, the pieces were made separate: the top, the skirt and the Rainbow belt in the middle.
The boots are the only thing that we already had and just adjusted..we made rolled stuffed color band and glued those around the boots.

 I was all easier to get into that way. After having the top on and the skirt I wrap the Rainbow belt around and that easily hid the separation from the top and skirt. The shoulder pieces were done by taking an old poster covering it in the fleece and gluing it to the rim of the top...that gave it the flared out look :)


The arms were made by gluing individual rolled and stuffed color bands to one long sleeve that I could pull off and on.

 My favorite was the bottom of the boots, Adam took cardboard and glued it to the rim of the boot..then took rolled up poster pieces and stuck them spaced out on the cardboard. Once all that was one he applied the yellow felt...and that gave in that bumped affect all around the boot!

JUST AWESOME!

The hair!!...my goodness did it take me forever to figure out what to do about the hair...again I wanted her to stay and "cartoon-ish" as I could so buying a wig was out of the question. Finally I bought some plastic headbands from the Dollarstore and spent nights gluing yarn to it!

..I bought on for the top and one for the bottom of my hair..just to cover everything. Then I leaned over while adam gathered it all into a pony tail tied and we were DONE!.
I LOVE THIS COSTUME!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

More than meets the eye...

From Start to finish this costume took Adam over 6 weeks to complete. Its the first major costume he has ever made...but in doing so he has been inspired to make more. Using some ideas online, he made the decision to make the Optimus Prime from the 80's Transformers show, it just had that really old school feel and he really liked that.

He began be endlessly hunting for cardboard boxes, he finally had to break down and just by some from Walmart. The total cost to build Optimus start to finish was no more the $50!

He began with the body and slowly moved to the helmet, body and then finished with the legs. Everything used to build the costume is made from cardboard, however things like the helmet are made from things he couldn't build. The helmet was made from a work mans helmet and modified with cardboard and lots of Blue Spray paint.

Starting with an old box and an idea.....

I helped make those bricks of cut up cardboard to secure the inside.

The body is made of cardboard, but he was able to make very small details that made a big difference in the end. The lining of the grill was formed using a silver reflective birthday bag cause he thought silver spray paint would have a dull look to it.... and it needed to appear chrome.

Inside the windows I used plastic lining, the kind you use in binders to protect important documents, to me it seemed the best fit for a "see through window effect".

The house was covered in shredded cardboard!!

Those are really working lights on top!!

Using a Transformers Birthday invite he was able to cut the symbol out and glue it to each shoulder piece. The shoulder piece also has the chrome work, the party bags were wrapped around paper towel and wrapping paper tubes. The smoke holes were made using price tag circles that were spray painted black!

looks like chrome!

Last was the legs and torso...

Last but not least the wheels....he broke apart an old stroller (not one James was using anymore!) and took the wheels off..simple as that!!

Keeping this costume on was tricky...he decided the best idea would be to wear long pants and a long sleeved shirt and then glue Velcro to the under clothes as well at the cardboard parts themselves

....this allowed each part to stay in place.

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Overall he loves this costume, James' Behavioral therapy was having a Halloween party and he appeared there as Optimus Prime! The kids loved it and that's all that matters in the end. :)

Here is him putting the costume on to attend the party....

 

James and Adam

...oops I mean Bumblebee and Optimus at the halloween party!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Mayhugh Visit 2011

We wait in anticipation every year for Adams parents to come visit,

 and that day had finally come!

They came in through Jacksonville Fl so we thought it would be a good idea to spend some time in Florida before heading back to GA.

Our Trip to Fl started well..

It WAS a beautiful sunny day when we left...

but then its started pouring down rain! So much for our

 "Sunny Florida Trip" I thought!

The rain finally calmed down after a bit. We stopped at one of our favorite things to do on our way to Florida and that is to get a nice cup of fresh squeezed orange juice at the first rest stop in FL.

We made it safely to our hotel, and checked in...the weather had calmed but came back around again a little while later.

 I was reminded by a man in the hall that its "hurricane season" I'm used to it, living here in the south; this portion of the year, our summer, is full of crazy rain and lightning storms. But what I was thinking about was my mother in law Kathie who hates to fly to begin with let alone in a rain storm..that's pushing it!

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We hung out for a bit hit up some of the local places to shop near our hotel...the wait felt so long because we were so excited to have family visit us! We hadn't seen them in over 8mos. 

The time came when we needed to head to the airport, James was so excited he was kickin his feet in the back seat and saying "We are gonna see hamsome in two weeks!!" we had been counting down to their arrival and so trying to explain to him the time was here was very hard. LOL

Now we unlike most LOVE being at the airport.

..our experience is a little different then most.

We being a military family get to spend our time at the airport USO, they have one at every airport

 we defiantly take advantage of that when traveling!

Thats james watching Wonder Pets with a popsicle!

And thats Adam in the fridge lookin at all the free stuff they give you, fridge is full of food..cabinets are full of Cliff bars, Pop Tarts you name it!Other areas are loaded with hygiene products and anything you can think of its there for you SO AWESOME!!

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ITS HAMSOME!!! (that's what James calls Adams mom)..

The moment we'd waited for finally came!



We headed back to the hotel and spent some time together

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We left the next morning and headed to Orlando to visit Sea World! The

drive was about 2 and a half hours but it flew by, we all hadnt seen eachother in so long there was plenty to catch up on!



We arrived at Sea World

..oh and BTW our tickets were FREE, must mention that!

Being a military family has its ups and downs, but when it comes to gettin into theme parks for free thats one up I was super excited about!!

Right off the bat we ran into SHAMU!

James was able to give him a big ol' hug and after we never saw Shamu for the rest of the day, so were really happy I was able to get this shot! 

We got something to eat right off the water, "Hamsome" ordered James some yummy huge Strawberries in a cute Shamu bowl!

Oh and we wanted to get him a hat because he has a mohawk and can get sunburned on his head, he wanted nothing to do with any other hat we all tried to give him...he was all about the whale tale!

We then headed of over to see the Shamu show

and for those of you who were wondering, they are not allowing the trainers in the water anymore since the death of a trainer last November 2010. I guess its been the 3rd death in 5yrs at the Orlando location and they felt it was to risky to have them in the water. It was a little bit of a bummer because James will never see the show Ive always seen and loved. But he loved EVERY min of the show dispite that!!!

                    
                                        * HE LOVED THIS SHOW*



After the show we went and saw the penguin exibit..not my fav,

So I chose not to subject you to photos of those horrid creatures LOL

James wanted a penguin after we went to see them.

 So Adam the sweet

...and very talented dad that he is, won him one in a game.

"You didnt see anything"..lol..so cute that they were the Penguins from the Madagascar movie.

After walking around for a bit we went and fed the dolphins!! james thought that was awesome

..but it was so gross giving them slimy dead fish!

all I had to take pics was Adams phone

(which I dont know how to use well)

I got a few cute ones of the dolphins, but I had to hold james and lean him over this wall to let him feed them so I dont have any of him feeding them...Sea World offered me one they took for $25bucks..sorry guys but I wasnt about to pay that for one picture!! So your just gonna have to trust me that he fed them!!

We also went and touched the Sting Rays..that was fun but they were scary to me LOL

We had such a blast at Sea World, it was our first major park we'd ever taken James to! Cant wait to go back!

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We headed back to Jacksonville that evening. On the drive we remembered that the Holyland Exsperience was near Jacksonville so we went and found it and checked it out.

We arrived as they were closing so we were only able to get passes to view the gift shop.

Walking though was really incredible, they did a great job of making you feel like you were in another world.

As we were leaving we saw the actors all performing the trial and crucifixion of Christ.

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This year it was awesome because for a couple weeks only they had a Dinosaur Exhibit!

The next morning we headed out to the Jacksonville Zoo, we have been to this Zoo many times but its our favorite thing to do there, never too busy and always lots of fun!!

I thought James would love this being he loves dinosaurs...not so much, he had to be carried away from it all. In James' defence they were really loud and very life like..guess I may have been scared if I was 4.

But thanks to "Hamsome "taking him out of the exhibit Adam and I were able to check it out on our own!

We road the Merry Go Round and the Train, fed the giraffes and overall had a great time at the ZOO!

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We decided that since we miss Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Birthdays that we would take Adams parents out for each of those events. Adam would take his parents out alone for Mothers and Fathers Day and we'd all go out for the birthday celebration!

For Kathies Birthday we went to the coolest cafe downtown called SoHo's

Resturaunt and Art gallery. It was so shabby chic meets hippie artist..pheobe from "Friends" would have loved it there!

We had a blast here so cute and fun and all the food was Organic! James was at therapy for the afternoon so it was nice to enjoy the company of Adams parents alone.

It was a very busy day there..they compt us our desert cause of the wait. I tried bread pudding for the first time,

the results...FABULOUS!

For Mothers Day she and Adam went out for Sushi!

WE then went Wine tastin in City Market, so fun that was a first for me!

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For Adams dads birthday we went to the Mighty 8 Airforce Museum.

It was also Flag Day so we had James place a flag in the ground to honor "Great Papa" WWII

Another neat area of the museum is an old church, inside are amazing stained glass windows.

James reading a 1876 Bible

We have wanted to take them to this museum for the past 3yrs so im glad we finally were able to, it was a great day!

On a seperate day we went to a famous burger place in Savannah called B&D Burgers, some of the best food ever..Jim needed to try the "Fried pickles" Kathie was not to thrilled

For Fathers Day Adam and Jim went to see:

 Thor and The new X-MEN movie.

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During there stay Adam and I were able to have a night out together, it was so much fun to go downtown! We dont go downtown when he and I do go on dates (which is like 2 times a year!) because we pay our babysitters VERY good and the drive is so long that we would pay more for a babysitter then our whole night out!

Our plan was to go to some places that we have wanted to go for a long time, but mainly we wanted to go out for desert!

Some friends of ours went to a place called

"Lulu's Chocolate Bar"

After looking it up I was hooked! I thought it would be so awesome to go out for desert because by the time we are done with our meal at a resturaunt we are always to full for desert. 

It was so cute and totally me! rockabilly waitress with leopard aprons I could totally work here!!

SO this is what we ordered!

The Rapture Sundae: Vanilla Ice Cream and Frozen Chocolate Mousse in a hand-made chocolate bowl, covered in fresh berries, and accompanied by pitchers of dark, white chocolate and caramel sauces. Served on the side are Chambord, Amarula and Meletti Cioccolato liqueur.

WOW

Adam couldnt help himself and had to take a bite out of the chocolate bowl..that bite turned into many...

After LuLu's we waled around downtown for a bit went to the Jinx a very famous punk bar formaly known as the Velvet Elvis.

We had our favorite drinks walked around in City Market for a bit then headed to our favorite local Scottish Pub near our house.

At Mollys we finished out the end of the Bruins Hockey game and relaxed, we enjoyed some Guiness glazed onion rings and each had one of our favortie beers

What a great night out together :)

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During the visit "Hamsome" and I went blackberry picking with James

I think more ended up in his mouth then in the bucket LOL

We also went to the Flea market where James got a new Spiderman hat from "Hamsome"

We the adults spent our evenings talking, watching movies and Jim introduced us to "Phineas and Ferb"

 and we introduced them to "Invader Zim"

And what visit to the south would be complete without some warm peach cobbler and vanilla bean ice cream from our local Shell House

We wait so long for these days to come and then they are gone in a flash, I hope we are able to move closer so we can spend time with our family more offten. James loves them so much and it broke my heart when they left, I had a very sad boy on my hands.

We did many things and had alot of fun, but im happy to say that my favorite time was watching precious moments like this

Till next time......