Mach Madness

One the way to school one day, five year old Owen asked me, "If you're still alive when I'm a grown up..." and I wondered if he wanted me to live with him, maybe take care of his children, but he finished with "will you bring me sandwiches when I work on my race car?" He thinks his life will play like the Speed Racer movie.

So it came as no surprise when Owen wanted to be his favorite racecar driver for Halloween. I ordered his costume from halloweenexpress.com months ago. And then I stopped thinking about it. As Halloween approached, I began to rack my brain for a good complementary costume for younger brother, Corbin. I worried that other characters from the series would be too obscure for most to recognize, and decided to just dress them both as Speed. And then I stopped thinking about it.

With Halloween just a week or two away, I decided to paint an old yard sale Little Tikes car like the Mach 5. I used Krylon Fusion spray paint, and was a bit disappointed at how many coats it took and how easily it dinged. In Krylon's defense, many of the dings occured before the seven day curing period.

Here's the car before (photo courtesy of Craigslist- I forgot, as usual, to take a picture of our car).

And here it is debuting as the Mach 5.

From Ready for the After

I bought white shirts at Old Navy for each boy and appliqued the Speed Racer M on the front. I use the term applique loosely, because although I've done it the "right" way, zig zagging around the edges, and I have the fancy schmancy machine that will do it for you, I still prefer to iron on and just straight stitch around the edges. I only use Heat-n-Bond ultra, and never have a problem. Sometimes I will iron on, wear, wash, wear, etc. and then finally stitch down weeks later (sometimes longer). Fraying is minimal, but I do like the finished look of the straight stitch. I also made them little red ascot scarfs, which made my heart melt.

Now can someone please tell me how it is that I can make two Speed Race shirts and ascots, paint a junky plastic car to look like the famous Mach 5 race car, but I can't, for the life of me, make my firstborn smile on command?