how to make a (big) boy happy: turn a cardboard box into a diy lightning mcqueen costume

Apparently I’m not supposed to call them “cartoons”. They are animated films, I am told.

Does your husband love them too?

I’m not even going to tell you how big the collection of animated DVDs was that I inherited when we got married. (Yes, this was before either of us had children of our own.)

CARS and Tarzan top the list for Ryan. (Tarzan? Really??)

Before I even knew what happened, Ryan had introduced Levi to CARS. I think it was somewhere around his second birthday.

Now I have two boys obsessed with the CARS movie. (If Judah’s infatuation with match box cars is any indicator, he will soon follow suit.)

Even after introducing him to other great family movies like Happy Feet and Ratatouille and Finding Nemo, Levi’s love affair with CARS far surpasses the rest. There is absolutely no comparison.

I cannot begin to describe the joy this brings to Ryan. Truly, it makes him so happy. Like, over-the-moon, kid-in-a-candy-store, Christmas-morning, we’re-going-to-Disneyland happy.

Ryan’s been fantasizing about making a Lightning McQueen bed for Levi since before he was born. He’s talked often about the “race car bed” he will make one day. Since the boys room is fairly small and already pretty maxed out, I persuaded him to go with the DIY toddler “loft” bed option instead. (Levi looooooves it, by the way. Incidentally, so does Judah.)

Since the race car bed is off the table for now, Ryan came up with another way to “build” a car for Levi. I thought this cardboard box creation was a wonderfully adorable alternative. (And way cheaper too!)

Materials needed for a DIY Lightning McQueen costume: large cardboard box, glue, paint, some aluminum foil, a sharpie, strips of fabric scraps (for straps to hold the box over the child’s shoulders), a willing DIYer, and a picture of Lightning to look at while you draw.

Now Levi can often be seen wearing this box and running around cones in the yard (his “wace track”) yelling vroooooom, vrooooom, vrooooooom!

And truthfully, Ryan’s usually not far behind.

See? Both boys happy. Very, very happy.

Dear friends, do your husbands go crazy over animated movies as much as mine does? And how about cardboard boxes – is your family as in love them them as we are??! (Remember the DIY reading cubby made from a dishwasher box? Another big hit with the littles.)