October begins this week - yikes. I asked my kids what they wanted to be for Halloween. Vivian "A platypus or a potato bug" Ben "A lemur or a whale shark, oh or a horseshoe crab!"

Clearly, we've been watching a lot of nature specials lately. btw: did you know that horseshoe crabs have blue blood? It's true. Fascinating.

I think we'll do what we usually do and find a costume at one of the second-hand stores. Always, cheap and probably only worn once. But my hunch is that are there will be no potato bugs or lemurs in the bunch.

As long as we're talking kids costumes I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about the Childrens Halloween costume contest on StarTribune.com. You can enter your childs photo for a chance to win $1000.

See link for complete rules and Click here to enter.

(or just click there to get some costume inspiration or a cute kid fix of the day!)