My son and I usually attempt at least one costume contest locally for his age group at the mall. Normally I don't compete. I do mine for fun, but this year I was up at the local costuming studio (the place that rents and sells costume pieces) looking for a utility belt for Matt's (my son) Ghostbuster's suit that I could work with to fix up for him, and a lady who worked there stopped me. She said, 'Oh, you are that Pirate and Transformer girl who does the stuff with her son, right?' I'm standing there stunned, nodding. 'Yeah..that's us..I think.' :lol Never did I figure that in the next town down from here that some random person would know my costumes. It's a small town and we usually travel to Cons, and don't do too much locally unless it's fun event or charity thing. She hands me a flyer and tells me to come to this big costume bash thing and the prize would be $1,000. O.O Whoa. Okay, you have my attention! :love That's a lot of money for a single mom! So I signed up for the contest, and vowed to have my suit done in time.
In the meantime, my son did his Ghostbuster at school, and for an event at the Zoo.
Here's his Bustin' suit and his ecto-pack.
Yes, I made the whole thing.
Normally Matt just does the contests. But this year he's 12, which means, for some reason around here he's bumped up to the adult categories. So we had to step up our game from last year's Frenzy costume, (which he won first place for) and go for something just about anyone would know, and unless you've lived under a rock for the past 20 years, who've seen one or two versions of the character he did in costume...and boy did I underestimate just how true that last statement was! Here's his costume, and you'll see why.:
My son walks in the first costume contest in a local mall, and instantly I hear it... screams and yells from all directions...
BUMBLEBEE!!!! BUMBLEBEE!!!!
Oh wow, look at that Bumblebee!
Mommy mommy! Look! It's Bumblebee!
I think you couldn't have found a happier child there than the one in the suit, or a bigger smile on a mom than the one on my face.
He was thrilled.
He got into true character and was having a blast. Little kids that were 3, 4 and 5 swarmed him, wanting to see Bumblebee. He played with them, took pictures with them, and one little 'Woody' caught us while we were sitting waiting for the costume contest to get to his age group and I kept seeing him behind us. He was grinning and looking at my son. His mom asked me, ' He just wants to hug Bumblebee.' Matt was more than happy to bend down to the little boy and he said 'You my faverit Bumbabee'. It was an 'Awwww!' moment.
Contest comes up, and Matt goes on last, and turns on his sound system built into the suit, that makes Bee 'talk' and played an edited version of 'Black and Yellow' for them and bee-bopped off the stage to the Transformers Animated theme.
He sat down, in character, and watched the rest of the show.
A totally TFA Bee 'chillin' moment:
And was called back up as the winner of the adult category.
He got a $25 gift card, a free dinner, a free dessert cookie and some other small things in an envelope. More importantly, though, he managed to wow some older teenagers as we were leaving, and had them singing 'Black and Yellow' as he walked out of the mall amid high fives. :cool
We went home that night, happy and determined to win the thousand. I finished my costume, for the most part, and got him ready to go with full sound system and music set and ready.
Here's mine:
We didn't get so lucky though. I stayed up for the MIDNIGHT contest, and some terrible pre-made costumes won the contest. It was awful. It damaged our costumes too, and I spent the next day working on them to fix the damage to get them ready for our town's mall, where my son won first place last year and wanted to go back and try to uphold his title, and bring home another blue ribbon medal.
We went early and just walked around as mom and son in full costume as a duo of Decepticons, in Soundwave and Frenzy. Tape deck and tape went through the mall blasting music, 'talking' to kids, getting random high fives from people, and 'dude! awesome costume'. I never revealed I was actually female under the mask until I took the mask off for my niece, who was a little scared of the 'robots', and surprised quite a few people who never figured I was a female under the Transformer. XD
I went out and took Frenzy off Matt, got him back in Bee for the contest, and got myself out of Soundwave so I could go in and support my Kiddo.
Here he is, hamming it up in character:
Once again, a terrible contest. A premade costume won. A man in a plastic mask, fake muscle suit and tennis shoes won. The judges even had to ask who he was! They didn't know! Meanwhile, my son's got people above him on the balcony above him looking down at him, cheering and yelling 'Bumblebee!!!!' and he's waving and looking up at them.
See him looking up in the picture? The overlook was right above him:
:confused And the plastic mask won?! Am I missing something here? :behave
Anyway, here's Matt in Bee, still playing it up in character and bee-boppin' to his sound system.
