Happy Halloween!

I hate to admit it, but I think I might be more excited about Halloween than the kids are. Ok, so that's not such a shocker. They get excited, sure, but they know nothing about Halloween and they're too little to understand costumes and candy.
Mommy, on the other hand, gets to dress up kiddos and hand out candy to trick-or-treaters for the very first time ever. Yep, you read that right. I have never had a kid ring my doorbell and ask for candy. This is partly because we've lived in apartments since we were married and partly because I grew up in a neighborhood with no other kids. This year, though, we live in a house and there are LOTS of kids. So we are prepared. I think we have enough candy to last at least 35 minutes.
We have costumes, too. Well, the girls and I have costumes. Emily is a lion, Erin is an elephant, and I have a milkmaid/Dutch girl costume. I guess it'll have to be the Dutch girl, since I don't have a milk can, but it's still a pretty great costume. It meets my requirements: comfy and warm, since it's pouring here today, and it isn't one of those ridiculous little dresses that no one really feels comfortable wearing. Don't get me started on those!
The girls' costumes are a combination of luck and diligent searching. At our twins' club garage sale last spring, before the girls were even born, I found the lion costume. I figured a 3-month size would fit decently by the end of October (I was 34+ weeks at that point, so we knew the girls were going to be reasonably sized) and so I bought it. Three dollars. Around the middle of September, I realized we only had one costume. We figured we'd look for another jungle animal, since those tend to be snuggly warm suits, but everything I saw was at least ten times what I'd paid for the lion costume. I couldn't see the point in anyone spending that kind of money on something that would be worn for just a few hours at best. We still wanted both girls to have a costume, though, so we kept looking.
One day, my mom called and said she'd found the perfect costume! She asked what size we needed and brought it by our house. It was an elephant suit, with a pink shirt and pink-and-white striped tights for underneath. The shirt and tights are perfect for wearing under a little denim overall dress later on, and they make it a nice warm costume. We haven't managed to get Erin to smile while wearing the costume, but she has only cried once, so we figure she doesn't mind too much.

Emily the lion and Erin the elephant. (Mommy is waving a monkey puppet to get that enthusiastic reaction)

I decided to take advantage of their good-natured morning (they went 8 hours between feedings last night, so they slept pretty well!) and dress them up early for pictures. After all, what's the point of blogging about baby costumes with no pictures?! For some reason, the girls always frown at the sight of me taking a picture with my phone, so I have to distract them into smiling, but we got at least one good shot. After I took this picture, I decided to take Erin in and get her dressed for the day before they took their morning nap. I took the elephant suit off so it wouldn't get anything on it and left it on the blanket with Emily.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

Apparently, Emily decided that her sister's costume looked like a tasty snack. I swear I feed my kids. In fact, they'd just eaten about twenty minutes before I took these pictures! 

I took a picture immediately, though, just to use the above caption.

I don't know if that's a good sign or not.

I think Halloween is really a holiday that parents enjoy more than anyone - it's like the whole Santa and Easter bunny idea (as an accessory to the holiday itself), where you get to make something kind of magical for your kids. You get to dress them up and give them candy. You can make fun, creative holiday food. I kid you not, I've looked forward to this aspect of parenthood for well over a decade. I've said it before, but it really doesn't get any better than this.

 Happy Halloween, everybody!