The Little Mermaid

Well, we survived Halloween... barely. My 2-year old ran around the house screaming for "candy! candy!" This was her first large dose I guess and she's hooked. I'm regretting it. Oh well, the girls looked cute in their costumes. My oldest wanted to be Ariel so we came up with this costume. I loved this fun fabric that was shiny and had the "scales" on it already. It made things pretty simple. My second was Belle, and we just embellished a costume we already had with a few more sparkly touches. Baby girl wore the nice, warm plush Ladybug costume handed down from the others. They collected so much candy just going around the block. They get to pick a piece each day (one for you, three for the trash can)... but I don't want to drag this on forever. I read this idea about the "candy fairy" (see bottom of post) this morning and thought it was genius:

"So, after they get home and look through their stash, they get to pick out a few pieces to keep (5-10ish) and then put the rest under their pillow (or at the foot of their beds since it's supa hard to get that from under a sleeping kid's head). Then, the Halloween Fairy comes and leaves them a present and takes away ALL THAT CANDY outta the house and the kiddos LOVE IT!!!"

I wonder if my girls would go for it. Unfortunately I'm afraid that they love candy more than they'd love a present. I'd have to make it something pretty special.

So, How do y'all handle it? Any more ideas from you veteran moms out there?