Are You Ready for Halloween?

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Pop-Tarts.

I can't believe Halloween is less than a week away. It's scary how time flies! But I think we're ready: house is decorated, the candy has been purchased, and most important of all, we have their costumes put together. Costumes are my favorite part of Halloween. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart; I love to dress up, and Halloween gives perfectly sane and subdued adults complete license to let go and be any character they want to be, no matter how silly, nutty or scary. At every Halloween party I've ever thrown, I ask the grownups to wear costumes, and despite some initial misgivings, they all let their hair down and end up having a great time. 

  

Now that I have a family, Halloween is five times better than it was before, because not only do I get to dress myself up in costume, I have four other people to plan costumes for! Not that I'm the Halloween police chief or anything like that. When the kids were babies I did choose their costumes, but now that they're bigger they get complete freedom to choose their costumes -- although I do admit to trying to nudge their preferences one way or another, depending on which costumes happen to be on sale or whether I can coordinate the whole family's costumes. Most years we end up with an eclectic collection of costumes, but on one or two years the stars have aligned and blessed me with 3 kids who actually want to be the same thing for Halloween. One year we were all Disney characters, and last year we were all pirates, which was great for the photos. This year the kids' interests have converged once again; they've all decided to be scary creatures for Halloween. The Pea and her best friend have decided to be vampire twins, and this year, instead of buying a costume, she wants to put one together herself. At first I was really happy at the thought of not having to spend a huge amount of money on a costume -- until she came to me with a list of all the clothes and accessories she claims she needs to look like a real vampire. Capes, necklaces, fake fangs, fake blood, makeup, tights, skirts.... vampires would need to live forever in order to amass enough money to be able to afford a getup like The Pea is planning! The boys are going to be skeletons, but not ordinary skeletons, oh no. Apparently plain old skeletons just don't cut it with the 6-year-old set anymore. Jammy is going to be a skeleton rocker; he's got an awesome mask with bones sticking up on the top of the skull, like a skeletal punk rock hairdo. 3Po is a zombie skeleton:

It looks like Alfie and I are going to be zombies this Halloween too. Because how can I resist the opportunity to pose for great Halloween family photos?

  Win a $100 Visa Gift Card One lucky Bonggamom Finds reader will win a $100 Visa Gift card courtesy of BlogHer. To enter, just leave a comment on this post and tell me what costume you'll be wearing for Halloween. You can get extra entries by tweeting and blogging about this giveaway, making sure to include a link to this giveaway in your tweet or blog post. Just leave a comment on this post and share the link to your tweet or blog post. Entries will be accepted on this post and on my Kellogg's Choc-o-Lantern Pop Tarts recipe post until October 31, 2010. For full giveaway rules, click here. You can also gain 9 other chances to win $100 by visiting the BlogHer.com Halloween Pop-Tarts exclusive offers page. Good luck!