Gearing Up...

For the past 3 years or so, we've dressed up together as a family. The first year, I was a cowboy and Aaron was an indian, then (once we had kids) we were all firefighters, and last year we were pirates. My boys wanted to be astronauts for Halloween this year. We found some costumes at Costco and Target...$30 freaking dollars each. That would be $90 on Halloween costumes alone for my kids. Not happening. Instead we improvised and did a Google search (seriously, what happened before there was Google? What did parents do?), and came up with a cheap way to make our own astronaut costumes.

Pumpkin trick-or-treat buckets from WalMart, $1 each, plus Aaron's dremel tool, and a little white spray paint, and wha-la! Astronaut helmets for all three kids for $3. White sweat pants and long sleeved white tops that I got on sale at Old Navy for  a total of $30, and the snow boots and gloves we already have. Ba-da-bing ba-da-boom, three astronaut costumes at $11 bucks apiece, coming right up. That I can do. Aaron and I will be "Houston" and wear some head sets on our heads.

We had a practice run with the costumes on Monday at the Van Orman Family Annual Halloween Party. My friend Josie and her family deck their whole yard out in Halloween, and everyone brings treats to share. Josie tells "spooky" stories and hands out trick-or-treat baggies, and they also have a blow-up haunted house. It's awesome, and we had a blast. The kids looked good in their costumes, and got a lot of positive feedback on them. I do think I'm going to buy some iron on paper and make an American flag patch for the sleeves and a NASA symbol to go on their chest. I'll also have Aaron make them little backpacks out of cardboard. Just so no one confuses them with a storm trooper or Lego man. :)

What are your kids being for Halloween?