Dragon Training

Our family's new favorite movie is How to Train Your Dragon. It is so cute. We saw it in the theater and I loved it then, but I couldn't be sure if it was really that great or just the fact that Caleb fell asleep--so I got to enjoy it. Nathan picked it up for the boys when it came out last week and we've watched it nearly every day since (it has been good timing since the boys have all taken a turn or two with a 24 hour flu).

So last Sunday Nathan says, "I have a great idea for Halloween..." I thought we were just taking it easy this year. I'd planned on borrowing costumes for the annual Halloween party that Nathan and I always go to. Daniel was going to be a Star Wars trooper, which we borrowed from Grandma. Liam had picked out a dragon costume early on and we found it reasonably cheap (much cheaper than I could have made it). We already had a monkey and spider costume that fit Caleb. So it should have been a done deal...Until Nathan said, "I have a great idea for Halloween...We should all be characters from How to Train Your Dragon." It was just too good to ignore. I love Halloween and we've never done a whole family theme--although I've always thought it would be fun. The only trouble is we decided to go for it despite the fact that our Halloween party was on Friday and our ward's Trunk or Treat was yesterday (Saturday). That left me about 4 days to figure things out. Luckily, we could use Liam's dragon costume that he'd already picked out, and Caleb fit into Liam's dragon costume from a few years ago. I still had to figure out Daniel's costume--he was Hiccup, the Viking boy--that one wasn't too difficult. Nathan's Stoic the Vast, the Viking Chieftan costume was more challenging. I was Astrid the Viking girl which was tricky. I spent a long time walking around the Dollar Store, the fabric store, and the hardware store with pictures of the characters. In the end I was pretty happy with how they all turned out. Nathan and I even won the costume contest at the Halloween party! (2 Movie Tickets!) It was a fun Halloween.

Stoic the Vast
Astrid--my shoulder armor was made from bending disposable aluminum pans. I was really pleased with how they came out. Hiccup--Daniel was very proud of his dagger.

It wouldn't be complete without my dragons. The cutest dragons ever!Looks like another Viking village was raided!

Thanks Grandma for helping us find an "animal skin" for Stoic.