Happy (almost) Halloween, the most wonderful time of the year… if you ask me! Can you believe this is our SIXTH annual family Halloween costume? As soon as Leo was born I was inspired to dress up in family Halloween-themed costumes and we have done it every year since. For our first family Halloween costume we all dressed up as the Wizard of Oz characters and to date, I think this was the most epic costume all because of Nacho’s Dorothy costume!
Now, don’t let ANY of these photos fool you … it might look like capturing these photos is a fun walk in the park but I can assure you it is FAR from that! LOL! Honestly, it takes one dedicated Team Jilly member per kid and PER DOG to help capture these photos. We have to make sure everyone is dressed and ready to go, looking at the camera and not running away from our photo (kids and dogs, that is). We make sure to have lots of treats on hand for Nacho and Peaches and a little bit of candy for the kiddos to keep everyone focused, happy and engaged! To put it simply, it’s an absolute shit show, but the photos are cute! LOL!
So, if the title of the blog didn’t give it away or the sneak peeks of our costume on my stories, this year we dressed up as characters from… SUPER MARIO! Now, this is quite different from our Disney-themed Halloween costumes from past years, but it’s been something Justin has wanted to dress up as for YEARS and this was the perfect year to do it. Not only does Justin have an amazing ongoing partnership with Nintendo (this is not sponsored, but our costumes were gifted!), but Leo is in love with his Nintendo Switch and Annie loves all of the Nintendo characters (especially Princess Peach … if you can’t tell!).
You’re probably wondering how we plan out who is going to be who when it comes to our family-themed costumes and the truth is, it always starts out with the dogs! If we were going with the theme of previous years, it would have been perfect if Nacho was Princess Peach, but there was no way that Annie was going to let that happen! 😂 The most important part is figuring out what costumes will actually fit the dogs, so this year, Nacho dressed up as Yoshi and Peaches went as Bowser! The dog’s costumes are the most difficult part of the puzzle piece, and every year we outsource their costumes to a professional seamstress.
This year, the seamstress that we typically use was out of town, so I had to find someone new! Thankfully, I did a callout on Instagram and connected with Jordan. She was absolutely incredible, it wasn’t something that she did professionally, but she had so much fun with this project, that she may be taking on a few projects next year! The heads of the dog’s costumes we purchased from HalloweenCostumes.Com, and then Jordan created the bodies from scratch. Not only did Jordan save the day with the dog’s costumes, but she also created Annie’s Princess Peach costume from scratch because the first one was a little itchy for her and the second one I ordered from Etsy didn’t arrive on time!
This year’s costume seemed a little more hectic than most, but Leo’s Raccoon Mario costume, Justin’s Donkey Kong costume, and my Luigi costume from HalloweenCostumes.Com turned out perfectly!
And the pièce de résistance of the entire shoot has to be Rachelle’s photoshop skills and for almost every photoshop project she does, she usually shares a timelapse on her Instagram account and it is so cool to watch the entire process, so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Trick or treating
Now, when it comes to trick or treating the kids like to dress up in separate costumes to our family ones. So, this year, Annie is going as Rainbow Bight Leo is going as one of the Ghost Busters, I’ll be dressing up as a purple witch and Justin will be Donkey Kong again!
At this point, after all of our family Halloween costumes, we have at least 2 costumes per family member per year, which is about 48 costumes in total…I have been contimplating opening my Halloween costume shop! LOL!
Until next Halloween!
xo
Jilly
I feel like I’m going to see a lot of people dressed up as Jillian Harris characters!
Lovely moments of family, looks awesome!