It's October! You know what that means....Halloween is almost here! Let's see those costumes, kids in costumes, heck - even those dressed up pets!

Ashley as a lion and Kayla as a tiger.



"Is that you in there, sis?"

AWWW! How cute! Now if they bring a teddy bear with them, you can chant, "Lion and tiger and bear, oh my!"

Joy,
Lynn

Or bribe my husband to dress up!

Awwww. So cute. They have the same eyes. I agree, sew a teddy bear on a t-shirt for daddy, and put yourself in a blue gingham dress (with a basket for holding goodies and faux dog) and you'll be set. Very adorable, DC. I can see why they distract you from your writing.

Thanks, Virginia. I've actually been trying to find some sort of safari/zookeeper outfit. (And, of course, my sister who used to work for the Central Park Zoo - and now SeaWorld - only had to wear kakis and a polo shirt to work, and I don't think she still has the shirts.)

You can get a bear costume on Amazon.com. I dressed up as a bear last year (because my nieces went as a lion and a tiger), and that's where I got my costume.

You can also get safari hats and vests on that site.

Yep. I got the girls' costumes on Amazon. Best prices I could find.

Oh-My-Goodness! DC, they have grown up so much! They are just absolutely adorable . And I'll say it again--you find the best/cutest outfits!

So far, I believe, we have a 'Witch' and 'Spider-man' at our house, but we will see...Ava is normally scared of witches, so I'm not sure this idea will last--and Eli had been saying he was going to be a 'puppy' for a few months prior to yesterday's choice (and yes, I did try to throw a 'What about Superman?' idea at him--total 'no go' though ).

Giving them a few more days to firm up the choices...Should be a ton of fun--5 and 3 now.

Thanks for sharing, DC
Laura

My sister is making the costumes for her daughters. The older girl, who is 5, is going to be a pink mermaid. She wanted to be Ariel, but those costumes are expensive, so her mother convinced her that pink was even better. The younger girl, who is 3, is dressing up as Rapunzel from 'Tangled' (with another homemade costume). I will be a bear again, provided the weather is cool enough to make the costume tolerable (fake fur when the temperature is in the 90's is sheer misery).

Awww! They're so cute.

Thanks, guys! I wanna see your pics too - even your pumpkins ('cause I'm weird like that).

I'll make some pics when the Daniel Tiger (son of Daniel Striped Tiger if you can recall the original Mister Roger's Neghborhood's Land of Make-Believe) when it's ready. We just got in the red sweater jacket (with zipper, buttons are common, zippers are rare it seems) a few days ago. Next step, buy the trolley patch that is on the "neighbors" (kids who go out on the tours to places like the crayon factory) in the middle segments, make the ears (or buy them we haven't decided which) and get some red canvas shoes. I suspect the budget's going to be blown (we were trying to do it for the approximate cost of a real costume...which looked horrible) but at least 2/3 of the costume will be reusable (the shoes will go into the rotation...a rotation he direly needs and the jacket will be used in this gorgeously cool weather, and one of my watches).

I'm debating whether it's kosher (as the saying goes) to reuse the bear costume I had from Warren's first Halloween.

I just spent 2+ hours at the local thrift shop shifting through Halloween costumes to find all the parts to make up a Hogwarts Girl Student costume (and buy Luke Skywalker a belt, plus a black Batman cape to add to his Darth Vader costume). My daughter doesn't know if she wants to be Hermione or Moaning Myrtle. It's always good to have options. My son is going as Luke Skywalker, since he has the hair, but he prefers Darth Vader (and already has that costume, including mask). We're still looking for a blaster type weapon. We'll be building a lightsaber from a flashlight and tissue paper (this hasn't been tried yet, so we're hoping it will work).

You mean for your new son? If so, then you might want to make sure that it's obvious in the photos which child or Halloween it is. I know this isn't as much of a problem nowadays with digital photography (which dates everything), but having looked through a box of my own baby pictures recently, I kept seeing photos going "I don't think that's me. I think that's my sister." You might think about adding something different to the costume (a different colored bow tie or vest) to make it more original and distinctive. Being a younger sibling, I can speak from experience. It's always nicer to be unique than wear a hand-me-down. For a first Halloween (and maybe even second) when they don't know it isn't unique, I think you can get away with it, though.

Well...kid costumes have now been officially decided upon ...

Ava--who was going to be our witch (and she is scared of witches...still figuring out where the allure was ), has decided to instead be a black kitty. Found an adorable costume complete with cat 'hat' (ears and head cover) and cat 'mittens' (cute, furry little paws that cover her fingers, but not thumbs). Also full pant and top--yay for something a bit warm!

Eli--who was going to be a puppy, then Spider-Man, then not Superman (wouldn't go for it ...)--has officially claimed Spider-Man as who he is. We found a little outfit--complete with head cover (just over his eyes and top of head), a muscled chest, pants, etc. He's REALLY excited about it, but in his own words, "I don't wanna wear it", whenever I've wanted to try it on him. In theory it should fit, though. We'll see what happens on the big night ...

I was really happy, too--costumes were 'buy one get one free'! Kid costumes, that is.

Laura

OMGosh! Those two are giving me the cuteness attacks! Loveeeee baby costumes! They're always so cute! Old Navy usually gets some super cute stuff at relatively reasonable prices (an warm too for those of us who need to layer winter jackets under our costumes!)

Hehe, thanks.

Christina - I totally just saw Daniel Tiger for the first time with the girls today. Adorable!

I took my bear costume from last year and added a cape (which is actually a long skirt). It's Superbear!

[img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd....3805207_ed4887d59b9665c1462a26df863d8fd7[/img]

Edit: Does anyone know how to get a picture to display? I used the Enter an Image feature, but it doesn't seem to work.

Maybe the link is too long. Try replacing it at tinyurl.com . (Sometimes that works, sometimes not.) I downloaded the below photo to photobucket.com and loaded it using the url they supplied.

My kids did a dress rehearsal Halloween last night as Luke Skywalker and Hermione Granger (from Harry Potter) and got TONS of compliments on their costumes. I'm so proud.

Being that money is tighter than usual this year, my hubby mocked up a lightsaber using a curtain dowel, a drain we didn't use when we replaced our bathroom faucet recently, and some old paint -- all found items in our basement. It looks terrific! Combined with his tan Levis and karate gi top, a belt he found at Goodwill, and a torn up t-shirt wrapped around his calves (Luke has some weird leg boots that I'd never noticed before), and my son's hair that he hasn't cut since last spring -- he was spot on mini-Luke. My husband even spray painted my son's old water pistol black to make a blaster.


The hilt of the saber was spray painted black and the dowel was painted Tinker Bell green (I believe). It doesn't actually glow, but it sure looks to in the photo. (Sorry about the photo being so big. I tried to make it smaller, but that's outside of my range of knowledge.) My son insisted that my hubby paint the control "knob" red. This was made in the last 24 hours.


For my daughter's costume, we scowered the Goodwill until we came up with a white button down shirt, striped tie, flats (yikes! women's size 6.5 at age 9 ), a nice skirt, and a Griffendor robe (Great find!). She had made a wand this summer by finding a good stick and painting it gold. Then we combed out her curls which gave her hair a bushy look. (She was going to go as Moaning Mertyl but she didn't want to take the extra time to do white ghost make-up and pigtails in her black witch's wig from last year.) The nice thing about this costume is that she can wear the skirt and shoes as regular clothes. (The white shirt is a boys, and slightly small, but it was the only one we could find).

We're not crafty people but I think we did a good job this year.

I tried tinyurl, but it didn't help. Maybe this site doesn't like pictures from Facebook.

Annie - I was going to guess Ewok! Superbear is better!

Great pics, Virginia! I would definitely play with that lightsaber.

Some more pics:

Ashley lion and Kayla tiger.



Kayla and her cabbage patch lookalike.



Ashley and her cabbage patch lookalike.

Awwwwww!!! So so cute, DC!

Awww! Those pictures are so adorable!

Thanks, guys! We took them trick-or-treating for the first time and think they enjoyed it - at least until it started pouring rain. (They were only 2 months old last Halloween, so they got to nap in our arms while we handed out candy.)