Trick or Treat on a budget

If you know me well, you know that I am...thrifty. I haven't always been this way. Way back in high school and college when my mom used to hand me her credit card and have me do the grocery shopping I wasn't doing much comparison shopping or coupon clipping. In fact, one of our first disagreements as newlyweds between my beloved and me was whether or not the generic brand of a product was as good as a name brand. I insisted that "Tylenol" had a brand investment in pain reliever that Kroger did not and therefore had more to lose if they had a faulty product. We had many heated debates and the winner was whomever happened to do the grocery shopping!

Then I had children and wanted to be a stay at home mom so the bargain hunting began in earnest. There are very few name brands that I will buy these days without a coupon or a sale (two that come to mind, Prego spaghetti sauce and Cottonelle toilet paper-both are really important to me!)

All that being said, I wanted to show you some pictures from trick or treat Thursday night. I wanted to say that while I am thrilled that not a penny was spent on costumes, all three of my children got to go as their first choice!!



Here is Doodle before we left. Even though her character (Pippi Longstocking) is a little rough around the edges due to her unusual upbringing, I'm pretty sure she didn't chew tobacco. No, that is simply chicken from her dinner that it took her 45 mintues to chew and swallow (we were actually at the second house collecting candy when she swallowed it). She was not happy when I took this shot but it does show off her freckles.
This is Mator at the 2nd house. Can you just see it in her eyes as she begins to comprehend the situation..."Wait just a second here. I put on a costume and walk around and people just GIVE ME CANDY! Does anyone else know about this? Why haven't you told me it was this easy to get candy before!" She's a bunny and you can actually see her ears in the next picture of Muffin...
This is kind of hilarious. Can you guess what Muffin is? An ice skater. Going to practice!!! Except instead of carrying ice skates like I suggested, she decided to roller blade the entire night. Guess how many times she's roller bladed before tonight...twice! Also, when she mentioned this idea I said it was fine since we were taking the stroller and I figured I'd just throw her shoes into the bottom for when she'd had enough. But she left the shoes at home so she was committed to doing it for the entire 90 minutes. And you know what, she did OK. She got significantly better and all of her complaining was good natured and self-effacing.
Here's all the loot. This should definitely last until Easter. :-)