Why you should never work with animals and children...

Especially on Halloween.  Because there is no way you will get a single adorable image of both at the same time.  

You will, however, have a great time trying (and laugh A LOT).

The evening started out with neighbor Becky bringing Banner a special Halloween surprise:

Boo!

Banner ripped open (with assistance) his "treat" to discover a jack-o-lantern beanie baby and a singing, dancing skeleton.  The latter of which he stared at blankly for several minutes trying to figure out what to make of it.  To his credit, though, he didn't cry:

Then, it was costume time!  I mentioned earlier that there was a surprise addition to the dragon.  It was Haskell the cowardly knight, who, despite his expression below, actually LOVES to play dress up. 

Haskell, however, has always been a little scared of Banner (hey, he is also afraid of leaves, butterflies and cardboard cutouts of Sarah Palin).  And, well, it didn't help that the dragon stole the knight's plush sword and kept trying to hit the cowardly dog-knight over the head with it.

It was especially difficult to keep the dragon focused for longer than, say, two seconds.  Even Haskell has a longer attention span (albeit barely):

When we finally had Banner's attention (sort of), Haskell was attacked by his costume:

But it was okay, because at this point the dragon got bored and took off for the kitchen...

...before giving up and collapsing on the floor (hey, crawling is difficult in a fuzzy costume on slick, wood floors!):

So we cut our losses and tried to get one good first Halloween family picture...

(at least we are all looking at the camera)

...before hitting the neighborhood for some good ole fashion trick-or-treating with six month old Gabriel (who was also a dragon) and his parents:

First house!

All in all, Banner made it about forty five minutes before passing out on his daddy's shoulder.

About this same time, Haskell, who was being walked around the neighborhood on a leash, had something go horribly wrong with his knight pants, and I nearly had to carry him home.  He was hopping in the middle of the street with one back leg stuck up in the air like he was peeing.  This strange behavior continued long after I removed the pants (which, apparently, were not the problem after all).  Haskell eventually recovered, though, so I am not worried.

He is such a weird dog.

(A special thanks to Melissa for helping to wrangle our babies.  Both two and four legged.  We couldn't have done it without you.)

~ The End ~