{family} Halloween 2014: Caps! Caps for Sale!

If you are of the Reading Rainbow generation {like me} then you're likely to recognize my kiddos Halloween costumes right away! And if not, then my two and a half year old would be happy to explain by reciting the entire book for you, word for word {as he tried to do on each and every porch where we trick or treated}! UPDATE: Get the full tutorial for the DIY details of this costume here!

Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina, was one of my favorite book as a child, and now it has become Beckett's favorite book as well. We must read it before bed every night! If we try to skip it... Well, we can't skip it. We must read it before bed every night!

Just two days before Halloween I picked Beckett up from preschool, only to learn that he had told his teachers and his friends that he was going to be the peddler, and that his little brother, Cooper, was going to be a monkey. Well, that's not what we had planned for Halloween, but when I reminded him of the costumes we had planned, he cried and begged to be the peddler. So I spent the next two days making calls and driving around town to find the right colored caps and a monkey costume.

Let me explain...

"Once there was a peddler who sold caps. He carried them on top of his head. First he had his own checked cap, then a bunch of gray caps, brown caps, blue caps, and red caps on the very top. He walked up and down the street calling, 'Caps! Caps for Sale! Fifty cents a cap!'"

"One morning he couldn't sell any caps. ... 'I think I'll go for a walk in the country,' he said. He walked for a long time until he came to a great big tree. 'That's a nice place for a rest,' thought he. So he went to sleep."

"But when he woke up, all the caps were gone, except his own check cap! He looked to the right. He looked to the left. He looked behind the tree. No caps. Then he looked up, and what do you think he saw?"

Monkeys!

"On every branch sat a monkey. On every monkey was a gray, or a brown, or a blue, or a red cap!"

And so the story continues as the peddler tries to get his caps back from the monkeys. If you have kids and don't know this book - you really should buy it or check it out from the library, because it's a very fun story!

In the book, the monkeys tease the poor peddler, but in our version, the peddler and the monkey are actually best buds!

Our mini cap peddler and our mischievous monkey were big hits at their preschool Halloween parade!

Beckett really wanted to carry his book trick or treating with him. Instead I made each of the boys a bag for their candy with the cover of the book on one side, and a picture of their character on the other side!

Once the candy is all gone, I know they'll have fun carrying around their books and toys in these bags.

Special thanks goes to my mom, who came over at 10 pm the night before Halloween to help me figure out the best way to create the stack of caps!

Now that Halloween has come and gone, I'll be sharing a few Thanksgiving projects, and a whole lot of Christmas projects! This week is also the big finish for the One Room Challenge. The redesign of our master bedroom is nearly complete, so be sure to stop by on Thursday for the reveal!

But if you are still looking for more Halloween and fall project ideas to pin for next year, here are a few you might like: