Hannah and Clone Troopers and Fire Fighters, Oh My!

Halloween was a bit drawn out for us this year. The pictures of the actual day with its trick or treating and other festivities are tied up in my sisters' cameras, since I have succumbed and no longer even get out my camera at family functions where I will likely just be chasing small people. But our ward offered up a trunk-or-treat which, I maintain is far preferable to actual trick or treating for the smallish types because there is less ground to cover, the whole experience can be taken care of in under an hour, ie, before the little types tire of the event and demand to be taken home. The only glitch for us this year was that Bam refused to be in the picture with his sibs and M wouldn't stay in her costume at all for more than about 5 minutes. So here we have the big three:

CE, if you can't tell, is Hannah Montana. I'm thinking we are getting into a difficult area of Halloween for her. She no longer wants to be a princess (besides, I think we already own all the princess costumes Disney makes), but still wants to dress up. CW was "Clone Trooper Commander Cody" and Z was a mere unnamed Clone Trooper. This was a compromise worked out between the two of them that I didn't understand (not following more than the regular plots of the 3 Star Wars movies), but could implement with the help of officialstarwarscostumes.com. Yes there is such a place. And I feel gratified that I talked them out of Darth Maul, since the ward and their school has a no mask policy and I'm not ready for my boys to grow into the creepy halloween costumes place.
And then Bam on his own:

Bam's journey to self-identification in the form of what he wanted to be this Halloween was a bit drawn out. For weeks, he told me he wanted to be "Super Why". I had vague notions of this character as a literacy friendly super hero on PBS. I figured I had plenty of time. How on earth could my not quite 3 yr old pick some character that would be in hot demand? And really, how hotly demanded could a literacy friendly super hero from PBS be? Boy howdy was I wrong! Super Why turned out to be the impossible costume to find of this season. I checked all kinds of websites and it was always out of stock. I finally checked ebay and found a few I could bid on, since Bam was unwavering in his desire for this costume. I set my bidding max at $40, which was $15 above list price and, I figured, pretty extravagant for a 2+ year old's costume. Imagine my surprise and utter disgust when the costume went for $102.50! That's right folks, a 2T/3T costume about a PBS character was purchased for over $100. Luckily, about this time, Bam decided that he would much rather be "Billy" for Halloween. Billy is a Rescue Hero whose character Bam carries around with him on a daily basis and who is a firefighter. Firefighter costumes are everywhere and I found one that he loved for 12.99. Halloween crisis averted.

For a Halloween picture of M, I need my sisters to extract one from their cameras and send it to me, since I didn't get one at the trunk or treat. M went as a pumpkin; the same pumpkin that all my children have been for 1-3 years of their early life when I can still choose fore them. I made the pumpkin for CE and it is still in reasonably good shape. But, M hated it, as all her siblings before her have, so it was difficult to capture the moment.
Now, on to Thanksgiving . . .