The great Halloween debate

I love Halloween so much that I buy several decorations for it every year... we have quite the collection going. Just one or two little things every year... it's adding up nicely. I love to dress up and I love making the kids costumes and I love bugging Thomas about how he hates to dress up. It's all part of our Halloween ritual around here. In the past Ambrose has had some input as to what his costume will be, but mostly I have had the final say... making my job that much easier since I mostly make all his costumes. We pick something and stick with it long enough to find and buy or make whatever we need.

This year is different.

He has my zest for holidays and all the attention span of.... an excited four year old boy I guess.

For a few months I have been dilligently trying to convince him he was born to be Peter Pan for Halloween. Think of it friends!

Ambrose=Peter Pan
Asher=Michael (can't you just see him in pink footie pjs carrying around his bear!)
Me=Wendy
Thomas=JOHN! hahahaha (It would surely take some convincing to get him in a big, white night-dress, but he looks just like him! Glasses and all!)

Ambrose would entertain the idea for a bit and then change his mind... much to the relief of the would-be-John.

Here are just a few of the MANY costume suggestions he has made so far this year:
Woody, and I jumped all over this! Ash could be Buzz (his favorite) and I could be Jessie and Thomas... army guy I guess... least embarrassing Toy Story costume and let's face it, he would just wear his army shorts he's had as long as I've known him with a t-shirt.

Then he firmly settled on ANDY.

Andy from Toy Story? So..... jeans and a t-shirt and a red hat.... surely everyone would know exactly who he was. A part of me was like, "Psst, take the bait Robertson, easiest costume of all time!" and I nearly did, but the other part of me slapped my face and was like, "Get it together Robertson! This is Halloween we're talking about here!"
And then there was the whole day he insisted he was going to be a ROCKSTAR! I could live with that, but how exactly would we pull that off? There's so many different types:
The stereotypical Slash prototype?

Please no.
Let's take it more wholesome, like Ben Gibbard?

Again, kinda like Andy... not really a costume.
More iconic Kurt Cobain?

Oh yeah, Melissa and Nate were Kurt and Courtney one year and she said no one knew who they were.
He could borrow our glasses for a night and pull off a convincing Rivers Cuomo:

Nah, no matter how you slice it rockstars aren't that recognizable in costume... unless I just send him shirtless and draw some tattoos on him with sharpie


...not for my baby boy. He needs a more Upstanding look....

heh heh... ok, rockstar. No.
So, then he settled on a horse. Echo, do you think he heard us talking yesterday? How random that he would all of a sudden say that this morning.

I'll leave such costumes to way better seamstresses than I. I steered him (pun intended?) away from livestock.
Oh yeah, then he wanted to be Wall-E.

I think I could find a cardboard box and figure something out.
In the end his latest pick is Ironman.

He's been excited about it and it might stick. So.... is this my easy out? An ugly, cheap Walmart costume?

It really doesn't matter when you come right down to it as long as the boy can easily get around and have fun memories. But if I am making it I want to start soon and if I am buying his costume, I also need to start soon... Hawaii is nuts people. Shelves are bare a few weeks into October.

I kind of want to make costumes for my kids because that's a fun mom thing to do and my mom did it... but the boy, for now, has settled on something I refuse to make when Walmart already has it in every size....

What do you do for Halloween? Are you as psycho as me? Do you treat it like a Project Runway challenge or is it just Walmart or bust?