Gave The Kiddos $20 A Piece To Pick Out Their Outfit...Here They Are!

First of all I cannot believe I spent $60 on Halloween costumes!! Just goes to show you how much our children have these days (am I sounding like my grandparents?).

Lily and Ben designed our pumpkin and Michael went to work carving it just like they wanted it. I thought it looked great glowing on our front porch.

So back to the costumes...what do you get for $20? According to Katie twenty bucks does not buy you THE BEST costume. I could tell where this conversation was headed so I decided to make it a challenge for her and her friend, Samantha. Wouldn't they love to make their costume? Since they both love to shop I decided to take them to Goodwill to see if they could find any ideas there.

As soon as we got there they found 2 long sleeved red shirts for $2.50....and the idea emerged...Thing 1 & Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss'. As you can see from the pictures they were "jazzed" it up a bit. I thought it was very original and they stayed within their budget.

Lily won the prize for most money saved. After much thinking she decided to be a Kentucky Lottery Winner. We found her dress for $13.00 and pinned Monopoly money all over it. Then we grabbed a lot of my old costume jewelry and printed out a "fake" KY Lottery Check with her name on it. By the way, she won $50 mil.

Ben had his costume a month before Halloween...a clone trooper named Rex from Star Wars. I had to scrub the grass stains out of it at least two times before October 31st. Alex (his buddy 4 doors down) had the exact costume so there were two Clone Troopers in intense battles in our culdesac for weeks beforehand. Ben did awesome on his budget until...he needed a gun...$5 over after that decision. Where is the gun in this picture you ask? "It's too heavy and I might lose it," Ben said. You owe me $5 buster!

Our ritual for the past 4 years is something the kids look forward to every year. Tim, our neighbor and lawn service owner, hooks up a wagon (that keeps getting bigger every year) full of hay to his tractor. He takes us trick or treating throughout our neighborhood. The kiddos love it and so do the adults. Katie and Samantha did bale on us after the first stop. "The wagon is too slow, Mom. Can we go by ourselves so we can run," Katie pleaded. We didn't care. It was exactly what we wanted to do at that age. So they took off and were home by 8:45...gotta give them some independence! Happy Halloween!