Tag Archives: Halloween

Halloween in….February!

20 Feb

Caroline was thrilled when I told her she could be the one to choose a costume from Costume Discounters to review.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a representative at Costume Discounters, asking me if I would be willing to do a product review of one of their Halloween costumes from their website. I’d be able to choose any costume I’d like within a certain price range, and they’d send it to me for review. I agreed, and here is the review. The opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own and I was not paid to provide a positive review.

If you remember, I posted way back in October that we no longer buy Halloween costumes for our kids because we’d accumulated so many from dance class and other things, but that I felt bad for Caroline because most of what we have, she’s already worn, and being the oldest, many no longer fit her.

Therefore, when Costume Discounters contacted me, I decided to let Caroline be the one to choose a costume, which she could then wear for this coming Halloween. I also knew that by doing that, the costume would be handed down so that ultimately they’d all get to wear it if they wanted to. She was thrilled.

The Costume Discounters website had tons and tons of costumes to choose from. I was amazed by the huge selection and very pleased with the selection in our price range ($35 and under). Caroline and I scrolled through probably every single category and might have even clicked on every single link. I liked the fact that you could click on the category and then click on the costume itself for a better view. Being that we live in New England, where it tends to be chilly at the end of October (last year we even had snow the weekend before Halloween) we were trying to choose a costume that she could wear and still be relatively warm when she walked the neighborhood that night. I was also keeping an eye on the styles, since she’s a 12 year old but doesn’t fit into “kid” sizes, which can be hard when we go shopping, finding something “appropriate” in an adult size.

Ultimately, Caroline chose the Renaissance category and picked out a gorgeous Lady in Waiting costume to try. The “Popular Themes Renaissance” category had a large variety of costumes to choose from with a large price range as well. We sent the company our choice and were excited for the costume to arrive.

Caroline couldn't wait to try on her new costume!

We didn’t have to wait long! The costume arrived in less than one week’s time, and Caroline was so excited! When she took it out of the package, it was exactly as we imagined, beautiful dark green velour and good quality material. I’ve done “cheap” in the past, so I know that you get what you pay for.

The only problem that we had was that when she went to put on the costume, there were gold ties that were supposed to tie and hang down the front of the costume and as she put the costume on, one of them fell right off. However, I contacted the company right away and got a response immediately. I was offered an exchange of the costume for a new one, but we opted just to keep the one we had, and cut off the other tie to match, as we liked it just the way it was. Costume Discounters does have a good exchange and return policy though, should you need it.

You can tell the quality of the fabrics used in the costume were good, just by looking at it.

All in all, I was very pleased with my experience using the Costume Discounters website to choose a costume and I’d recommend it to someone else looking to purchase a costume online. I know that Caroline is already looking forward to Halloween in the fall, and I know she’ll enjoy her new costume when she goes to the various Halloween parties and trick or treating on October 31!

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Life lessons learned from Halloween

1 Nov

I just uploaded some pictures of my kids from Halloween onto my personal Facebook page. As I looked at the pictures, I was feeling so proud of the girls, I just had to share.

Here is the one particular picture I uploaded that got me thinking…

This year's costumes: a dancer, a doctor and a Face Book

The reason this picture got me thinking is this:  it may sound terrible, but we won’t go out and buy Halloween costumes. We outright refuse. Our reason is that our kids all take dance and have for ten years, eight years and five years, respectively. That means we have A TON of costumes in our basement, very beautiful but very expensive costumes. We average about six costumes per dance year, one year I think we had eight or nine. We also have costumes from dress-up clothes (we have several of the princess costumes) and costumes that people have handed down to us (and no we don’t have a costume bin, if you read my prior post about our bins!) Basically our basement could be a costume shop itself. So a few years ago, we decided that we would no longer spend money in the fall on costumes. They had to be whatever they could be with whatever we already had down there. One year my oldest daughter, Caroline, made her jazz costume into a poodle skirt. Last year, Elizabeth was a ballerina in a gorgeous dress combined with the bright blue Airbender mask and matching blue swords, an interesting combination, but she liked it, while Alex was something different every Halloween party or event we went to. Each time, she’d just pick something off the hook down there and put it on.

Halloween 2010 an Airbender Ballerina, a witch and a blue jay

This year, Caroline decided she didn’t want to wear something we had, and in all fairness to her, a lot of what we have down there no longer fits her since it was already hers in the past. She’d already done the witch costume a couple of times, and nothing from dance this year appealed to her. But, she didn’t ask for something new. She didn’t even tell us she wasn’t wearing something we had. She went on- line, Googled “Homemade Halloween Costumes,” saw the Face Book costume on a website that came up, and she was off and running. Between her and Don, they got the materials they needed and he helped her make the costume. I loved it!

She wore the costume to the “Lock In” at dance earlier this month and she was absolutely beaming when she came home with “Most Creative” out of all the costumes there. I was nervous that she might not want to wear her costume, being that it was homemade, (and I have to admit that although we stay strong on this, I was in fact, feeling guilty) but she brought it and won. I was so proud of her!

Times are hard and we tell our kids all the time that they will be older and remember these days when people were losing their houses and their jobs, when restaurants and stores were closing and empty, and I know that some day they will be telling their kids, “My parents wouldn’t buy us costumes for Halloween,” but hopefully when they do, there will be some good memories and life lessons learned, attached to that sentence.

Trick or Treat!


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Are we *that* family?

31 Oct

Today is Halloween. Each year we struggle with the same decision many other families struggle with. No, it’s not what to wear, the kids are pretty creative on that end. The question we struggle with: what to give out for our “treats.”

We get about 100 trick or treaters in our neighborhood, so whatever we give out, we have to stock up on quite a few of it. We knew right away we were not the “full sized treats” kind of house. We have to give out too many to be able to afford a full sized anything for anyone. We’ve done mini treats before, and last year I bought Dum Dum Lollipops and three boxes of tissues and the girls and I wrapped every lollipop in tissue, tied a ribbon and drew a face, making little ghosts.

This year earlier in October, I happened to be walking through Aldi’s, one of our local discount grocery stores (I *LOVE* Aldi’s by the way,) when I came across these and I knew I’d found this year’s treats:

Mmm.... Halloween Fruit Snacks...right?

I thought this would be the perfect treat, a little bit healthy and even better if there were treats left over, I wouldn’t want them myself the way I would a bowl of peanut M&Ms but I did think they’d be a perfect lunchbox snack for school for weeks to come. I was so proud of myself, I think I even gave myself a pat on the back.

Until…we watched a recent episode of one of the girls’ favorite shows: “Good Luck Charlie” on the Disney Channel. On this particular episode the family was getting ready for Halloween and Teddy, the oldest sister, had decided that this year her family was going to give out a healthy snack: carrot sticks.

“Oh, so you’re going to be *that* family,” her friend commented to her.

And that’s when it hit me: Were we going to be *that* family too? Is our treat fun enough, “cool” enough and healthy enough without being too healthy? All week I have been wondering. I mean it’s NOT carrot sticks (and no, I never even considered that,) but it’s not a full sized Twix bar either!!

So it made me wonder…what are YOU giving out for Halloween treats this year? Are you a full sized family, a ghost lollipop family, a popcorn ball family or a carrot stick family? Comment and let me know!

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