Haloween, of course, is an important, exciting time of the year in the Shan household. Dante went to a lot of effort this year to make an incredible robot costume (with the help, it must be said, of his assistants Mimi and Bapcia -- his mother and maternal granny). He started gathering the materials for it months in advance, and a lot of hours went into the production. It was worth it though -- he won two prizes at fancy dress competitions in the run up to the big night! Gaia, on the other hand, went fairly minimalistic, but hey, as she said when I pointed this out, "I'm not even one year old, you dummy -- what the hell else did you expect?!?"

In the second photo, Dante can be seen helping his Mum get some pumpkins ready to be placed outside our front door to indicate to Trick-or-Treaters that we were open for business.

The third and fourth photos were taken in Bunratty Folk Park on their terrific Halloween Celebration day. (I took Dante there by myself and... um... well, there's no easy way of saying this... I lost him and had to collect him from the "lost child department" No joke!!!!) Face painting was complimentary, and Dante went for the scariest visage imaginable -- I think he looks uncannily like the Joker from the recent movie, especially in the first one -- there's a scene in the film where the Joker throws that exact look at a TV chat show host. I hope he's not still brooding about that harmless little "Daddy lost me in a park full of thousands of strangers" episode... *gulp*