It rained all day yesterday. I think I checked the weather at least eighteen times during the day, trying to figure out just how wet our Trick or Treating was going to get, in between doing last minute prep work on MM’s cardboard Tardis and making final preparations and plans for the novel I’m writing this month.

After an early dinner we watched The Smurfs: Legend of Smurfy Hollow and read There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! by Lucille Colandro while we waited for daddy to get home from work. I took the kids outside to take pictures of their costumes before the sun went down (and a few indoor pictures, too). They were very excited about Trick or Treating so it was hard to get them to stay still and focus. Add this to the rainy weather and it was not my favorite photography session, but I think I got some cute shots.

BB dressed up as a Little Mermaid – not necessarily Ariel as it’s actually a Melissa and Doug dress up outfit that a friend gave us. But if you asked BB she might tell you she was Ariel or a mermaid, depending on her mood. Either way it was sparkly and fabulous and came with a matching headband so she was thrilled. It was just chilly enough that she wanted to wear a jacket so actual trick or treating didn’t have quite the same effect, but of course everyone thought she was adorable, because – well – she is.

This is BB’s third Halloween costume of the season. She dressed up as Cinderella at a costume party at the beginning of the month but it was very small on her and it ripped by the end of the party. No sense stitching a costume that was already too small – and we had two other “dress up” costumes in our arsenal so I decided no harm, no foul.

And last week she dressed up as Rapunzel for our Karate school’s Halloween party. This dress is so pretty on her and she was just absolutely in love with it, so I wasn’t sure if she might want to be Rapunzel again on Halloween but she saw an opportunity to wear all three costumes and went for it. Clearly she’s already picked up on that rule that you shouldn’t wear the same dress to different parties! MM on the other hand…

MM probably decided to be the 10th Doctor shortly after retiring his costume for the 11th Doctor last year. He upped the ante though when he asked if we could build him a Tardis to fly around in while trick or treating. Once the idea as planted, we had to go for it. We really lucked out having a cardboard box that was just a tiny bit taller than him when stood up on one side.

A bit of blue paint, some signs printed online and the amazing good fortune of finding an outdoor solar light on clearance at Home Depot that looked JUST RIGHT and some blue LED replacement lights in the Christmas aisle of Menards… It all just came together with amazing ease. Dan even put in a shoulder harness inside to make it easier to walk in and some door handles to open from inside just using things we already had on hand. I think hanging the sign on the front door was probably the hardest part!

The costume itself is largely thanks to Goodwill where I found the suit jacket, pants, white dress shirt and clip on tie and probably spent less than $15 on the entire outfit which we can reuse for several years at any formal events we may attend as the suit is actually two or three sizes too big – thank god for belts! The shoes were from H&M, the sonic screwdriver was one of several that we already owned (did I mention we are nerds?).

It was an umbrella and light jacket kind of night as we left to go trick or treating, but not too bad overall. MM discovered that walking inside of a Tardis is harder than it looks (or maybe exactly as hard as it looks) so we only brought it to a couple of our closer neighbor’s houses that we knew would want to see it. I have to say, we were so thrilled with how it came out and seeing it “walking” down the street was exciting for all of us! Afterwards daddy took the Tardis back home and handed out candy and the kids and I continued our walk through the neighborhood until we felt we’d gotten wet enough for one evening.

The kids made out like bandits and since we didn’t get a whole lot of trick or treaters, we had a lot of leftovers of our own candy, too. Even with the giant bag of candy that I sent my husband to work with to share we’ll still have a chocolate fix or twelve for awhile, I’m sure. In the past we had each kid pick like 5-10 pieces of candy to keep each and donated the rest, but I decided to just throw everything into a “community bowl” this time and say “You have to ask before you can have any, but otherwise it’s first come first serve.” We’ll see how that works out.

How do you tend to handle the barrage of Halloween candy?

What did your little ones / or yourself dress up as this year?