Goblins, Ghosts, and Pretty Kitties?!

What happened to the good old days when costumes were simple?  We took the kids shopping for Halloween costumes yesterday and oh boy is all I have to say...   We stopped by walmart, which of course did not have anything they were remotely interested in. Toad has decided she wants to be Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and that stayed as firm as cement, Monkey on the other hand wanted to be a cheerleader, then changed her mind while we were at walmart.  I thought I had her convinced to be something scary and gross, but that changed too.  We left walmart, grabbed Crankybear and headed to Party City.  Toad found the items she needed to pull off the hermione costume very quickly(robe, wand, tie, scarf) I have to find her a white button down shirt, but I have time.  Monkey found a Zombie Doctor costume that would have been AWESOME except it only came in 2 sizes med and large.  She is too tiny to pull off a medium so we kept looking. She tried on almost every mask in there and scared herself a few times, and then asked if we could go look at the wall of costume pictures again.  So we wondered through the maze of parents with children running crazy back to the wall. First monkey points to a cute sailor outfit, NO. She has a sailor costume she could wear from her last dance recital. They had a tap routine for "The Good Ship Lollipop" so I told her if she wanted to be a sailor she could wear her old costume. She promptly said no she didn't want to be a sailor and pointed to a Pretty Kitty costume.  Something went very wrong. Somehow we went from guts and gore to cheap black velvet and pink feather boa.  I am confused.  We found a person working and asked if she could bring us out a small(4-6) for Monkey to try on.  We wait and get in the dressing room, put the top and bottoms on her and she runs off to show Crankbear and Toad. She comes running back a few minutes later saying something about the headband and sure enough there on the floor of the dressing room is a small plastic bag with a headband and choker.  She is absolutely adorable. I think I am going to have to head to party city alone and pick up a costume for me.  The kids are getting big enough that I can dress up and in something hideous.  This should be awesome, I saw a great werewolf costume.  We will see how funds are when we get a little closer to Halloween.  The kid's cotumes tapped me out.....almost 2 hours and $60 later they are happy and ready for the holiday and I can't wait to get pictures.