Yeah, but even when I know how to do a costume (I’m pretty sure I could do Thomas, for example), they don’t want the Thomas that looks different. They want the one from the store. 
Maybe they’ll be into it again in a few years.
My 2 year old is going to be a jester. My 6 year old is going to be a mermaid. They love the costumes I made for them. I also made a vampiress costume for a 7 year old and a green dragon costume for a 2 year old.
My two-year-old is going as an artist, complete with black beret, smock and cravat, and smudged-on beard (google Monet self-portrait and you’ll get the idea, but his smock is red).
Seven-year-old is going as Ginny Weasley. I sprayed her hair red (and brushed it through to look more like red hair and not painted hair), emphasized her freckles with a brown eyeliner pen, and put her in a Gryffindor robe purchased two years ago for her sister.
Nine-year-old is going as a bag of gumballs–clear trash bag with holes, balloons. She thinks this is original–nobody tell her it’s an old last-minute fave, please!
Halloween was easy this year!
The Boy (age 4) is going to be a policeman; The Girl ( age 2) is Tinkerbell, complete with pompom shoes.
My oldest (girl, 10) is torn between Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas and a dead pirate (pirate/zombie combo.)
My youngest (girl, 7) is going to be a princess pirate. A normal pirate outfit, but pink and frilly.
My 9 year old daughter is Little Red Riding Hood this year.
My son did this one last year and it would have been one of the all-time greats if we had gotten his hair right. Note: dark brown hair plus yellow hairspray equals green hair.
This year has been a surprisingly easy. Usually the kids start hammering at me for some catalog costume they want, and after years of doing halloween I insist they can put something together out of all the costume scraps we have left over. This leads to half baked ideas and then a mad dash to come up with something ordinary.
The 13yo wanted to be the Mad Hatter and was banking on having a top hat (“In this style 10/6” )to really define her outfit. It had to be a top hat, a bowler, stetson or porkpie hat wasn’t cutting it.
She had a costume party to attend last week and was panicking about her costume.
Duct tape to the rescue! She made her top hat completely out of duct tape and it looks awesome. Then the 11yo wanted to be a black cat so she made ears, paws, tail and collar out of duct tape as well. Then she lost her paws, parents, can you appreciate this? how does that happen, we turned the house upside down, no paws. The class party is today, so guess who got up at 6am this morning to make duct tape fabric and new kitty paws. She did, and i helped.
Total invested: $25 bucks for 6 rolls of colored duct tape.
I love the fact that y’all are raising up the next generation of Dopers here. A lot of wonderful, creative ideas!
My younger son is going as “Tomodachi” in the suspense movie series “Nijuseiki shonen” (which I hate, it’s really creepy!) and his older brother is going as a samurai footsoldier, wearing his great-great uncle’s kimono.
They don’t really do Halloween in Japan but I have brought it to my neighbourhood, and now I have eight neighbours and regular businesses who will hand out treats to my English students. Problem is that I have to provide the treats. And there are 93 of them taking part this year. Times eight. Ouch. The bank is breaking…
This is our first Halloween living in this area, and I have no idea whether I have: enough candy; too much candy; the wrong kind of candy? I dunno.
Fortunately, mudgirl is going trick or treating with a friend, and hubby will be here. So I’ll be handing out candy, and if an emergency “candy run” becomes necessary, he’ll be here to do it!
Unfortunately, the local supermarkets Halloween costume contest was last night, which included a prize for the ‘most original’ costume, which she could have won hands down (all 8 of them!
) but she’s in the midst of a sinus infection, and wasn’t feeling up to going.
Her fever’s lower today than it has been all week, though, so I have hopes that even if she doesn’t feel well enough to go to bowling league tomorrow morning, she’ll be well enough to go trick or treating tomorrow night. ::knocks wood, then crosses fingers::
The costumes all sound so great! Everyone please post pictures of the big night so we can see all the adorableness!
My daughter is ‘Mother Earth’.
My son is ‘Beetlejuice’.
Here’s Whatsit the Youngest, Whatsit Jr. (the washing machine), and MrWhatsit. The photos are hosted on Facebook but I changed the settings temporarily so that everyone can view them, so hopefully that works.
Nope, not for me…
Is Bwah good or bad? Is it Bwah = great idea or Bwah = that’s horrible.
I think “Bwah!” usually means “Hilarious!”
Sorry about the photo link being bad. I’m having trouble uploading to my personal site right now. Will try again later.
8yo boy–a scary mummy
6yo boy–a vampire
2yo boy–Lightning McQueen (his dad wanted him to be Stewie from Family Guy, and I wanted him to be a zombie to round out our classic monster theme. However, his complete and total obsession with Cars won out when a family friend gave us the hand-me-down Lightning costume and he fell in love.)
13YO daughter - Was going to be Sherlock Holmes, but we couldn’t a decent costume, so she’s going to be a ninja.
9YO daughter - Coraline, complete with blue hair, yellow raincoat, and yellow boots. She kind of looks like Coraline anyway, so it’s the perfect costume.
MsWhatsit nailed it. I thought it was hilarious!