Halloween 2016

This year for Halloween my girl knew exactly what she wanted to be and my boy had no idea and changed his mind about 100 times.  She wanted to be a mermaid.  Not just any mermaid as I found out when I bought what I thought was a pretty cute costume and brought it home.  She hated it.  She had found a very specific costume on Pinterest that could not be found in any actual store.  Thankfully Ebay had one though so I was able to get her the exact costume that she wanted.  Score!  Then I had to focus on the boy and getting him to make up his mind.  I can't even remember all the options we went through but we looked on Pinterest for ideas all the time and he just didn't like any of them.  Finally one day we stumbled across a claw machine costume that he said he liked and that was it.  I ran with it and told him he wasn't allowed to change his mind.  It isn't like you can go buy a claw machine costume though so my crafty side totally came out and we made it and it was amazing!  He even won the costume contest at Student Group at church.  I think it was my favorite costume of his ever besides his Lightning McQueen costume from when he was 2.  There's just something about homemade costumes that makes them more fun.  Another thing that made Halloween more fun this year was that their cousins were in town.  They got here just in time to go trick or treat with us at my mom's house.  My girl wanted to trick or treat with her friends this year for the first time so we made her take photos with all of us and then drove her up to her friend's house where my husband hung out with the other dad.  She had a great time with her friends but said she really missed being with her family and she thinks she'll hang with us next year.  How sweet!  I'm not sure that will hold true but it was still nice to hear. :)  

We had a lot of fun with the mermaid makeup!  I think that was part of the appeal.  I even let her wear my fake eyelashes.  Why not go all out for just one night of the year?!

The Claw!  He got so many compliments on his costume.  Everyone loved it!

All the cousins, ready for candy.  My nephew's costume was a big hit as well.  They were hilarious walking around together.  My son couldn't carry his own bag very well because of how his arms were on the sides and my nephew couldn't see his own feet which made it hard to go up and down stairs and a lot of houses in that neighborhood are on stilts.  We got quite a few laughs watching them. :)

Adorable little Bat Girl.  It was her first time trick or treating and she loved it!

I love this picture.  He wanted me to take a pic of him holding Pablo the monkey's hand.  He ended up changing his costume about half way through the night because it was getting heavy lugging it around.  Luckily my nephew had an extra costume from last year with him so he was Kylo Ren.  It worked well since my niece and nephew were both Star Wars themed as well.

I decided to update the collage of costumes!  I love all these old pics.  She's grown so much and all of her costumes were adorable.  I personally like the angel, the cheerleader, Dorothy and the fox.

Love these too!  Definite favorites are Lightning McQueen and The Claw.  I also love his face in the Superman pic and I always loved that pirate costume.

I'm not sure how many more years my kids will be dressing up for Halloween, but I sure am enjoying it while they do!