"For Narnia!"

For the last year, as past posts delineate, Spencer has had quite the obsession with cowboys. He has carried his Woody doll around and randomly donned his cowboy attire, sometimes by itself. As a result, we thought the obvious choice for a Halloween costume this year would be a Toy Story Woody costume. We talked about it with him, looked at pictures of the costume online, and even convinced Madison that she should be Woody's girlfriend Little Bo Peep with EmmaLee as one of her sheep. The kids seemed excited about the costume choice, and I was glad we would be returning to a more themed Halloween since last year the kids costumes were unrelated. Long about August, however, a new obsession took hold of the children in our household. It all started with a simple family movie night...
Let me explain. Since Madison has gotten older, and begun doing some reading herself, I decided to start reading actual books with her, rather than just picture books. Whenever we finish a book, if there is a movie of the book, we celebrate with a family movie night and watch the movie. So far we have read the original Alice in Wonderland (I wouldn't recommend this for young children-by the way), Charlotte's Web, Charley and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and the book of this particular movie night, the beloved C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. While I originally debated whether or not to let the kids watch this movie, in the end, Nick and I decided we would give it a try and turn it off if the kids got too scared. On the contrary, the kids fell in love. All of a sudden, all Maddi and Spence wanted to do was watch Narnia, and it wasn't long before they re-named themselves Peter the Magnificent and Queen Lucy. They even began to call Emma Aslan, and encouraged her to roar like a lion. We knew the obsession was serious when on Labor Day weekend we went shopping for a twin size bed for Spencer and managed to lose all three of the kids in a furniture store. We searched frantically only to find an empty stroller outside of, you guessed it, a giant wardrobe. Madison and Spencer had been pushing Emma around while we talked with the store salesman. Upon seeing the wardrobe they had unstrapped her and all climbed inside. We were so amused by the stunt we couldn't even be mad. When we opened the wardrobe door, they climbed out of the wardrobe, put their hands in the air together, and shouted, "For Narnia!"
From there, it was obvious a Halloween costume reassessment was in order. So, after endless searching, and quite the international shipping fee, we somehow managed to outfit the three most adorable children in true to life Narnia costumes. Without further a due, let me present:

Queen Lucy



Peter the Magnificent



and our female version of Aslan.



Here they are on Halloween night getting ready to trick or treat.



And a shot of them at the neighbor's door as well.



The kids Narnia costumes actually cost more this year than all of the rest of the Halloween costumes we have ever bought combined, but I have to say, they loved it so much, it was worth every penny. Maddi and Spence have already begged to keep their costumes out with our dress-up clothes collection, and hopefully we can indoctrinate the kids with The Wizard of Oz next year and re-use our lion costume for our new baby boy. Who knows. In the meantime, beware when you visit our house. You're liable to be cast as The White Witch and assailed by my children. And Aslan has quite the fearsome little roar too.