MUAHAHAHAHAHA...

Well, not really.

I don't know how Mate and I do it--but it's been a Halloween tradition for 24 years now, that we be frickin' out of money when Halloween roles around. I'm sure there's a confluence of analyzable data to explain this phenomenon, but all I know is that going into Party City, telling our kids, "Hey, the sky is the limit!" and pulling out the credit card like a BOSS has never been an option.

But our kids do okay.

We always add one more thing to the outside decorations.

The kids always have a costume they helped create.

And we always have a pumpkin.

This year, we were in the Halloween Store (Spirit) and asking Squish, "Okay, ZoomBoy is going to be Papyrus from UnderTale, but what are you going to be?"

She looked around for a moment, and said, "Wait. I have the perfect thing. And we don't need that much."

One pair of tights. One pair of gloves. One set of suspenders. And a makeup kit.

Oh.

And a Sharpie.

She made such a good broken doll that one of the neighbors gave her extra handfuls of candy.

ZB's sister did his face--and I wasted a can of white paint on his non-tintable hair (his father has the same hair-- it won't register grays until Mate is completely gray) but the rest of it?  Well we bought makeup and gloves.

And Chicken's outfit was made for her by her grandmother, for her birthday.

Once more, with Twitter... 

Oh! And for our outdoor decorations?

We got two rat skeletons and a scorpion skeleton to go in our dead-pet cemetery.

Dudes.

It's like a weird, non-transferrable skill--although it does relate directly to my ability to make yarn projects without going yarn shopping, and have the stuff I throw together with odds and ends turn out better than anything I've planned.

I can't explain it.

But I like it.

They had the best time :-)