I mentioned Pearl’s remarkable long and varied list of Halloween costumes she desperately wanted to wear last week (not counting my own pick, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the six I listed a few days ago had been joined by 7. Kangaroo and 8. Yoda – she got the hat from last year’s costume out of the dress-up trunk and wore it around the house for an afternoon before circling back around to 1-7). After all that, I’m happy to report that thanks to an absolutely beautiful vintage embroidered Western shirt that Holly surprised us with, we successfully went with 5. Cowgirl!

Andrew took this Polaroid earlier in the day, before we got the rest of her costume on, but I just loved it anyway. I found this 1950s bouncy horse on our street a couple of years ago with a free sign on it and lugged it home. Pearl LOVED it and she and her little buddies rode it all the time, until the day one of the springs connecting the horse to the base broke and it just wasn’t really that fixable. So now it’s been freed to live on as a lawn ornament and cowgirl photo destination!

Holly did a photo shoot with a group of mothers and children in September and October and Pearl and I were lucky enough to be included. On the last shoot day, she surprised us with an awesome gift: this gorgeous 1970s hand-embroidered Western shirt, a Sears size 4. It fits my lanky 2.5-year-old perfectly and voila, along with a $5 cowgirl hat we got at the stables in Sunriver the week before, the Halloween costume dilemma was solved! Who could possibly resist the chance to run around in a super cool shirt embellished with a ladybug, a goldfish, a star, a puppy, a turtle,

a mushroom, an enormous carousel horse, and a WHALE?!

Pearl really seemed to enjoy life dressed as a cowgirl, though she told everyone who asked her on Friday what her costume would be that she was going to be a dog, and everyone who asked on Saturday that she was going to be a kangaroo, and I had my doubts she’d cooperate so happily. But on Sunday, she was a cowgirl, and so was I actually! It was super fun. Even though I didn’t end up getting to do any actual crafting for the costume myself, and did end up carrying her little stuffed horse around all night, it was so much better than sewing three or four (or let’s be honest, eight) costumes and endlessly doing battle over which one might actually make it out for trick-or-treating.

p.s. Thanks so much for the super compliments on the Pendleton patchwork quilt, and to Rachel for posting about it on CRAFT:! I really, really, really love that project and it makes me so happy every time I see it. I wish everyone else who likes it too a big armful of beautiful wool fabric samples, a blissful afternoon sewing, and a cozy evening curled up under your new favorite quilt. Seriously, don’t miss the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store, it is a craft paradise full of unexpected treasures.