The quest for the perfect Halloween costume

Ella has been excited for Halloween for the past few months. She loves dressing up, Halloween decorations, and everything else Halloween-related. For her first two Halloweens, I didn't ask her opinion, just picked out what I wanted her to wear and put her in it - so easy. Last year, I wanted her to be a ladybug so I asked her if she'd like to be a ladybug and she was thrilled with it - simple again! Those were the good old days :)

This year, I could not get the same answer out of her more than twice in a row. She initially said she wanted to dress up as a banana, pumpkin seeds, spider, the list went on and on. The crazier the idea, the funnier she thought it was. One day I got a costume catalog in the mail and she picked out costumes like the grim reaper and 'zombie doctor'. Anything sweet or cute that I tried to suggest, she was just not interested.

As Halloween got closer, she became more and more into skeletons, and started saying she'd like to be a skeleton. I was still holding out hope for a cutesy costume so I suggested pirate, thinking it's a good compromise and she could have some skeleton accessories. We looked at costumes in several stores, and she would pick out scary masks with crazy hair attached to them, laughing hysterically while she tried them on, and shoot down all of my ideas (sigh...)

A few weeks ago the three of us were shopping and saw an adorable cupcake costume, and Ella said she wanted it right away. We were all happy with the choice and I thought we were all set - phew! In the meantime, Mom had offered to send some of the costumes she had made for Erin when she was little that could be a good fit for Ella; and between those and the cupcake, I was sure we'd be all set.

Here she is dressed up in the space lady and pirate costume that Mom made, so cute!






Pirate sidekick




Even with all of these costume choices, when someone would ask Ella what she was going to be for Halloween, she'd say she wanted to be a skeleton. Steve took her to the Halloween store and she picked out all kinds of spooky decorations, they decorated her bookshelf with orange lights, Mom gave her little toy skeletons that she carries all over the place, on and on - she is really, really Halloween-crazed.We got her a cute skeleton hoodie hoping that would settle her skeleton clothing needs, but no such luck.

This past Friday, I decided to take her to see if we could find a skeleton costume since I knew that's really what she wanted and her desire for it wasn't going anywhere. She wanted to try one scary costumes like zombies, bloody creatures, the more horrifying the better - oddly enough they don't make gruesome costumes in a 3T, who knew?

Just when I thought we were out of luck, I spotted one called "funny bones" in the corner that was hidden by a wig, that did come in a 3T. She tried it on at the store and it was love at first sight - she didn't want to take it off and once we got home, put it right back on.

So - in her pre-Halloween debut in her costume, here is my scary little skeleton!!



Video of her showing off her spooky moves

So far she's had two occasions to dress up and picked her skeleton costume for both, but I am still holding out hope that she'll trick-or-treat in the cupcake costume!