It was great to get out of the house last week. My husband and I went window shopping for household items. The aisles were filled with racks of costumes in preparation for Halloween; some of the prices were so expensive! Why do people still buy retail?

We don’t do Halloween here, although I like to occassionally visit online discount Halloween Costume Stores. My kids just LOVE to dress up. They are beginning to make skits and funny home movies with the camcorder (some of the skits are outrageous funny) and they love costumes and love to fool around. As evidenced by the photo below.

So this is a great time to look for costumes! No witches or devils in our wardrobe– the kids prefer historical characters, soldiers and military outfits, and animal duds. I’m always looking for good costumes and props (what’s in now for the kids are wigs, lol!). I don’t know what it is about kids and dressing up- my children have always loved it, so we have a lot of props and various costume pieces laying around. My son’s favorite costume was a Batman costume. He even wore it to bed! He was so sad when he grew too big for it. It’s a good thing for fast and easy returns if necessary, if a costume you ordered is too small. And if you click on the HalloweenAdventure.com store link above, check out their free shipping on orders over $60 (good until until 10/10/08). Dressing up and getting costumes is a year-round thing! Take advantage of good deals and sales now!

My kids absolutely LOVE to dress up. They used to make dress ups clothes for each other for Christmas gifts, made out of old scraps of fabric, cardboard and duct tape. They were actually pretty ingenious outfits, but they didn’t last long. One of the kids’ favorites was Bibleman. I once shelled out the big bucks and bought my two sons real Bibleman costumes one year. They weren’t cheap.

So even though the kids are a little older, they still adore dressing up. Right now, they are “into” Daniel Boone, cowboys and Indians, and the early 17th century colonial period. I’ll have to dig out some photos of them all dressed up, and post them here. Believe me, they are HILARIOUS! They’ll definitely get a hoot out of some of the costume wigs I’ve found. Oooooh yeah!

ROFL! Kind of looks like my husband’s old photos from the early 70s. Like, WOW, man!

Well anyway, LOL, we’ve graduated from the cardboard and duct tape now, I am happy to say. What we do now is be on the lookout for inexpensive halloween costumes, and use them for dress up all year ’round. Because we are Christians, we do not celebrate Halloween, but I often take advantage of sales on Halloween costumes to get great discounts on stuff that the kids use all the time.

How about your kids, do they like to dress up? Save yourself some cash and check out this coupon code PPP05BLOG2008 to get 5% off at Halloween Costumes website– offer good until 10/10/08. They even have a blog to keep track of news in the industry here.

ROFL! Look what I found at the Fancy Dress website!

OMG that’s funny. That is one cool costume! LOVE that hair! We don’t “do” Halloween, but my kids love to dress up. They have a huge, huge box full of funny clothes and costumes. I think if I got one of the kids that costume, they’d freak, though. But I’ll bet they’d do a great impersonation, anyway! LOL! Check out the website, there are loads of funny and cute costumes.

My kids absolutely LOVE dressing up. They will dress up as anything– David and Goliath, Arabian sheiks, Pilgrims, Founding Fathers, or cowboys and Indians. I loved dressing up as a kid, too. I really liked the cowboys and Indians (I was always an Indian!) and I remember liking to dress up as Laura Ingalls Wilder, with her prairie dresses. As a teenager, I was a huge, huge fan of the Star Wars movies, so I always made my own Star Wars halloween costumes. My kids don’t celebrate halloween, but they love to dress up and I don’t mind it. Except when they use my makeup for “Indian paint.” Heh. They put on some great plays which we have incorporated into our homeschool, under the “drama” and literature subjects. :D

Our favorite kind of dress up is period costumes. We LOVE history and there is nothing more fun than making history feel “real” by acting out favorite scenes from the Bible, from American history, or ancient history! My eldest is 18 years old, and she still loves to dress up. Therefore, we’re always on the prowl for some good, inexpensive costumes and dress up props, like wigs, hats, and gloves. Halloween Adventure has a terrific promotion going on right now– 5% off an entire purchase! Costumes are for all year ’round!