I love this time of year–the whole beginning of fall through Christmas corridor–but it sure is hectic. So here’s my wrapping up Halloween before moving on to Thanksgiving and Christmas (and a bathroom makeover!) post.

First up: costumes! Two out of four kids decided on Doctor Who costumes this year. And I decided on a Doctor Who costume on Abe’s behalf because he can’t talk yet to offer his own opinion and because we already had little baby red Converse.

I was a little surprised at how tricky these were to pull together, given Doctor Who’s longevity and popularity. So I’m going to give a rundown of where and how we got everything so that you can all (well, all of you who are planning Doctor Who costumes, that is) can learn from our mistakes.

Milo and Abe were both the Tenth Doctor.

As I mentioned, we already had the shoes for Abe’s costume (I picked them up at a thrift store for $5 awhile back; they’re still too big, but he didn’t actually have to walk in them, so it didn’t really matter). I found the suit (we needed either blue or brown pinstripes) on ebay for around $23 including shipping, which seemed pretty reasonable since I figured my chances at the thrift store were pretty poor given our late start (it took the kids FORever to decide on costumes this year).

Milo’s costume was another story. We were starting from nothing, and thrifting was turning up more of nothing. I turned to ebay and got outbid on a couple of suits before I finally won one….for nearly $50 including shipping. I suspect we were not the only people out there trying assemble Doctor Who costumes for 10 year old boys. But what we could do? My hope is that I’ll be able to sell it for close to the same amount before NEXT Halloween (unless Milo wants to do a repeat of this year’s costume). I would have gone ahead and bought him real Converse if I thought he’d get enough use out of them, but shoes that don’t tie always seem to get picked first around here, so I wound up buying cheap knock-off for $20, shipping included.

This puts us out $70 for Milo’s costume, which is certainly not how I meant for things to happen. So my number one piece of advice for assembling a Tenth Doctor costume is….start early! I’ll bet I could have found the shoes at the thrift store given a couple of extra months. And maybe the suit, too, but if not….do you know how much size 12 boys navy pinstripe suits are selling for on ebay right now, post Halloween rush? I found one this morning that sold for $15. Sigh.

But the results were pretty cute, at least:

Gus decided to be the Eleventh Doctor.

This was a bit easier. I ordered a fez and bowtie set (affliliate link) from Amazon, and that was the only thing I bought new. I ended up buying him girls’ black pants at the thrift store because they were the ones I could find that had the best fit for the costume. The brown jacket was tricky, but it turned out the secret was looking in the womens section! We found a size 2 petite cropped jacket, and all we had to do was take off the (sparkly rhinestone) buttons and pin up the sleeves to the right length. I think I might have looked for YEARS in the boys’ clothes without finding a brown tweed jacket. I couldn’t even find any on ebay or brand new anywhere online for under $100.

Dave decided he wanted to be the Tenth Doctor, and even grew out his sideburns for the occasion. I’m always willing to help out when Dave wants to grow his sideburns, so I dutifully added his costume to the list of things to look for when thrifting. And I managed to find a jacket that fit pretty well! So here are all of our Doctors, together in a crazy time paradox kind of situation:

Ari didn’t decide on his costume until about an hour before we left for trick or treating. He wound up being a photographer. Or a reporter. Or both. A photojournalist, I suppose. I’m just slipping him in in the group shots, since he’s so bashful about pictures these days. Here are all four of mine:

And here are mine with some friends, part of the big group we eventually assembled with for trick or treating:

And, finally, a quick (very quick!) last minute Halloween snack idea (I mean, not for this Halloween; it’s too late for even a last minute snack this year).

On Wednesday we had a Halloween party to go to at the homeschool center where the kids take classes, so I needed to bring….something. For people to eat. I spent so much time scouring the internet for a fast, easy recipe to make that I could have just spent the same time making a more complicated recipe.

I finally settled on this Halloween-y (once you add the candy corn) trail mix recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. I liked it because the prep time was listed as five minutes and because it gave me a chance to bring one of my owl bowls out in public: