Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in Philadelphia, PA

My daughter is just approaching the age where she enjoys dressing up. She's taken to wearing her daddy's hats and putting a blanket over her head to pretend she's a dinosaur (don't ask me where the dinosaur thing comes from; I blame her father). So we are planning on taking advantage of the current season (um, you know, Halloween) to stock up on items to build her a dress up bin.

It's perfect timing, actually. We have a storage ottoman in our living room that contains most of her toys (we live in a smallish house; we don't have a separate play room, alas), but she's grown out of most of them now so I plan to clear one side out completely so that it can become her dress up bin.

We have a few items already; one of my blog readers made her a lovely tutu that has a tie-on strap so it will age with her, and it comes with an awesome headband "poof" that she can wear with it. Another reader (I really have the best readers in the world) made her an adorable Pirate Dress out of a fabric covered with skulls and crossbones. We have last year's Hersheys' Kiss costume which still fits and is silver, so it can become the perfect robot body. This year's costume (yes, I already bought it, I bought it last month because I didn't want to end up with lame costume choices again and have to speed ship something decent online) is an adorable Princess LadyBug thing that I cannot WAIT to put her in and photograph her in and parade her around town in. I seriously love it.

This is probably the last year I can choose her costume for her--she's a girl of strong opinions, my kid, and I suspect she'll want to choose her own next year. I'm sad about that, but it's the way of kids, isn't it?

Anyway, I'm planning on hitting those cheap Halloween super stores and probably a couple dollar stores and stocking up on other things for the bin, like cowboy hats and feather boas and anything else that strikes my fancy. We need to build up that bin!

So, what's in your dress up bin? What do your kids enjoy the most?