Make the perfect Halloween costume I must

Not sure if I am motivated by the desire to be the mom who creates awesome Halloween costumes from scratch, or the refusal to shell out 39.99 for a flimsy polyester piece of junk. This year it may just be because it is impossible to find a costume that fits my child's desire and current stature. Too short to fit into the boy costumes, he has been pouring over the Halloween catalog in search of inspiration. We convinced him that he would make a great Yoda and now he happily tells everyone he sees. Last year he changed his mind daily, and when he finally decided on a ghost the day before Halloween, I did my best to create a cool costume. I forgot, as my husband likes to point out, that our son does not walk, he runs. What started out as a ghost ended up as a muddy sheet with a giant hole for his head. I vowed not to let that happen again this year. Upon investigation I learned that the only available Yoda costumes were for babies and dogs. I did find a mask and quickly went into sticker shock followed by an image of my son not being able to see while trick or treating. Again. Then I found directions online for making your own and this morning we set off on a quest for materials. We quickly located tan fleece at the local fabric store (on sale!) and purchased a yard. Advice was given on how I should construct the cloak and hopefully I will not screw it up (more on that next week). I found a $1 pair of green gloves while checking out and had already purchased brown sweatpants for $3. The last two things on the list were a brown turtleneck and a green hoodie. The directions say to cut the sleeves off the hoodie, attach them to triangular pieces of cardboard and sew them onto the hood. Easy enough. What is not easy is finding a green hoodie. We went to four different stores before finally finding the right color (it matches the gloves PERFECTLY). However, it is a really nice hoodie. And I cannot bring myself to cut the sleeves. I thought about trekking back to the fabric store to see if I could just find some matching fleece, but at that point in our day the boys were both completely fried and we were late for library hour. Thankfully I still have next week to find some fabric and get the whole thing sewn. Stay tuned, more insanity to follow.