All Hallows' Eve: the Dehatting.

This year we went with an unintentional garden theme for the children's costumes. The bug repeated her desire to be the same bunny she went as last year, and the monkey through no will of his own went as a peapod. Here they are at the bug's school, just after the Halloween parade:

The monkey deeply disliked the hat portion of his scheduled costume...



...and was not subtle about his displeasure...



...but he mellowed right out once I took it off:

I think the hat was reminiscent of a knight-of-the-round-table floppy plume, and perhaps he just wasn't up to all that chivalry.  Or, it might have been that he has a huge noggin and the velcro chafed under his chin even though it's supposed to fit babies up to six months.  Either way, he went forth to his sister's parade hatless.  She took off the bunny ears and threw them in the stroller as soon as she was allowed, so perhaps the temperature of the parade day also played a factor (76 degrees!).

Otherwise, he helped me distribute treats (or at least didn't protest while I did so), while the bug and Matt went after neighborhood fat lootz.  They came home an hour later, muchly candied, and with an oddly large number of Chinese fortune cookies.  I then discovered that the owners of the Chinese takeout restaurant in Niwot live right down the block, and are the sweet older couple I often see out walking in the mornings.  Neat to get to know the neighbors at last, and we saw a lot of cute costumes in the parade of kids that came by the house.

If you're wondering why it's taken me this long to post the Halloween pix, the next post may explain as it will be of the bug's birthday festivities.  Baptism weekend + Halloween weekend + Bug Birthday weekend = too many clean-house days in a row for me to post anything.  More soon--and I've loved seeing your kids' costumes, fellow mamabloggers!