Boo!

One member of our family was really, really looking forward to Halloween.  Hint: it was not Henry.  Dude didn't have a clue what was happening.  I, on the other hand, decided many moons ago that Henry was going to be a baby Viking. 

Alas, I couldn't find a baby Viking costume anywhere online -- apparently no one else thinks it's appropriate to dress an infant as a marauding savage.  My only option was to put one together myself.  Good thing I'm genetically predisposed to making awesome Halloween costumes.

The fantastic hat came from a store in Seattle (Minnesota and Washington both have a remarkable number of Norwegians).  I made the tunic from a shearling baby blanket, and the leather cloak from an old Banana Republic skirt.  The belt buckle is actually came from one of Great-Grandpa Gene's horse shows; we have several of his buckles, but I liked this one because, if you squint hard enough, the saddle emblem looks sort of like the Minnesota Vikings logo.  My only regret is that I didn't think to dress Izzy as a longship.

I picked Henry up early at Ravi's house to get him into costume.  Ravi was dressing up as a rainbow caterpillar or some such adorable, baby-appropriate character, but I think he was secretly jealous of Henry's ferocious getup.

Mom, how come Henry gets a sword?

Karl met us on his way home from work to start the festivities.  The first order of business was a stop by the neighborhood Halloween festival, which features hayrides and games and about one thousand toddlers running around and shrieking at each other.

My blue-eyed Norsemen.

A battle cry to terrify all the toddlers of Greenland.

Hand-to-hand combat with a traffic cone.

Tenth century and twentieth century collide.

Deciding which town he will pillage next.

Then we headed home to greet the neighbors and pass out candy to the fifty thousand children who came pounding on our door.  The ferocious Viking ate his broccoli and alerted us every time someone came onto our porch.

Henry helped me pass out candy until it was time for him to take a bath sail to Newfoundland.  I gave him one itty bitty piece of chocolate from a Kit-Kat bar, and his eyes got all wide and he smacked his lips and went "mmm - mmm - MMMMMMM" and then spent the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get more of that glorious substance out of the wrappers.

It was a great first Halloween for both of us, and I'm glad I got to realize my dream of carting around a baby Viking.  Next year Henry may be talking and have opinions about his costume choice.  Personally, I think this costume grants me one Mommy Get Out of Jail Free Card.  Someday Henry will be fourteen, and he will tell me that he hates me, and I will whip out this blog post to remind him that I only had one opportunity to dress him in whatever costume I wanted, and instead of suiting him up as some lame cuddly baby animal, I gave him a sword that was longer than his whole body.  Mama loves you, buddy.