please, let me explain...

Halloween was fun this year.

My Kai wanted to be - for reals - a box.

"Of what, Kai?"

"Oh, like weapons or, you know, stuff."

"They don't allow weapons at school. Ever. Even for Halloween, Kai."

(Then repeat the exact same conversation every couple of days when the pack rat is asked again what he would like to be for Halloween).

Jo wanted to be - for reals - Lego Pac-Man.

Now we have a LOT of Legos. Really we have a ridiculous amount of Legos.

I know this because I step on them regularly.

They hurt.

I have desperately tried to find a good storage system for them. It works, if the kids are willing to color code them and keep them in the nifty, painstakingly compartmentalized IKEA underbed storage things I manipulated to be perfect for color-coded Legos.

If they're not willing, it doesn't work.

Or if you're not willing to spend the money (HA!) (HAHA!!) (WHATEVER!!!) to indulge your personal OCD and concurrently torture your children.

Anyway...even we don't have enough yellow Legos to make a kid-sized Pac-Man.

But I do have an artist husband.

And while most of you have heard me unkindly whine about that, it sure comes in handy when you're crazy enough to let your kids pick their own Halloween costume.

So he was able to compromise away the box of WMDs and come up with a really clever idea for Kai - a vending machine!

And with an exercise ball, a whole bunch of paper mache and some brain-cell-killing noxious yellow spray paint (and not much of a ventilation system), he came up with a way cooler Pac-Man than some Lego conglomeration that wouldn't have been yellow or worked.

For the baby, who couldn't care less what he was, because he was busy noticing all the free-flowing candy, we gave him his brother's Jedi cloak from eight years ago and a light-up light sabre and he was perfectly content.

before the school parade (it's a power pellet)

with the cousins (in much more comfortable costumes. and pretty much the cutest little girls ever.)