Trick or treat, smell my monkey feet

Trick-or-treating last night was a success--and by "success" I mean that we (I mean, Ari) got lots of candy. We went out with some friends who also had kids, so there was a huge group of us strolling the streets. I think we had more adults than kids, actually. Two of the other kids were 3-year-olds, so they could say "trick or treat" and "thank you," while Ari just stared at the people. But we did get Ari to say "bye" a few times. And she wasn't scared of anything... except for the giant dancing skeleton pirate that someone had on their porch. It was actually really funny--it sang these goofy songs, instead of making any scary noises. I thought Ari would love it, and maybe even dance long (since she loves to dance), but she stood frozen in place, regarding it warily. When I gently tried to get her to take a step toward the house, she would not budge.

She felt really warm when we got home last night, but I figured maybe she was just overheated from her costume (it wasn't that cold a night). But when I woke her up at 6:30 this morning, she was still burning up, and it turned out she had a temperature of 101. I gave her some Tylenol, put her back to bed, called the babysitter to let her know that I was keeping Ari home with me, and then crawled back into bed myself. Later, I called my boss to let her know I wouldn't be in. Ari slept until a little after 9, and right now, she doesn't seem to have any other symptoms. Maybe it wasn't fully necessary for me to keep her home, but I figured just in case it was something contagious, I should keep her away from Mary and her kids.

Anyway, enough babbling. Here are the anxiously-awaited pics...

As I said the other day, we went to my parents' house on Sunday, where Ari modeled her costume and got her goody bag from them. So here she is, in all her monkey glory.



Dad tried to get a nice family picture of all of us, but guess who didn't want to participate?



Here she is, opening her goody bag. We were trying to get everything in the picture, so I'm holding up a Hershey's T-shirt, while she's holding 2 DVDs. She also got a book about Halloween and a little stuffed pumpkin (which she loved carrying, and then throwing, around).



And once everything was out of the bag, she had to put it all back in.



And then she pulled it all out again. Here she is, "reading" her book.



And these are the pictures from last night.



A couple shots with Daddy. Again, she wasn't too thrilled with posing.



I think she was trying to eat her costume here.



Her newest thing is that she likes to grab my purse and carry it around. She even slings it over one arm or on her shoulder, just like you're supposed to. I don't know where she picked that up from, except maybe from watching me. I didn't figure that girly phase of wanting to have a purse at all times would start this young.



She was pretty worn out by the time we finished trick-or-treating--not that she was in a bad mood, but you could just tell she was tired. We tried getting a few more pictures, since tiredness equals holding still, but she still didn't want to pose.



Look at her eyes--you can see how tired she was. And it wasn't even that far past her normal bedtime--I guess all the walking and the fresh air wore her out.



One last shot of the monkey suit...



Monkey butt! (Check out that curly tail...)



This is one of my favorite shots of the night--I love the expression on her face.



And that's all, folks. Now, I have an entire day to spend alone with my daughter, which hasn't happened in... well, I can't remember the last time. So I'm out of here...