There's a Triceratops Prowling Around Our House!

We had a lot of fun for Halloween this year. One week before Halloween we went to the  church Trunk-or-Treat. Jessica and I made these crow and acorn treats (from Oreos & Hershey Kisses) for it.  I have to say the crows look more like crazy birds, but they were easy to make.

 

(Story: I saw a picture of the crow cookies online, but I wasn't going to do them. I thought "those eyes are too much work, and where would I find black thin licorice?"........But then I was in Walmart buying favor bags in the cake decorating isle, and there they were in 2 neat packages: edible candy eyes and black candy whips. It was destiny, so I gave in. And bonus: the candy whips taste like fruit punch, not black licorice.)

We choose zookeeper outfits to match Jessica's dinosaur costume, which she sorta picked out. I already love sky blue, (it's the color I bought for her to wear on her first day out of the hospital.) She likes dinosaurs. She loved the tail and it fit like a glove. Lions & tigers & sharks were "too scary" she said; other cute costumes she liked didn't fit. She was more interested in the nearby toys anyway.

She was tired at the beginning, but perked up soon, and showed her disappointment when she saw cars leaving.

(We also bought a rocket costume---she knew exactly what to do when I counted down: took off running on a circle tour of the toy section. I didn't show her any princess, pumpkin, witch or cat costumes---she'll probably pick those herself someday. I think next year she'll understand she can ask me to be something specific.)

All we had to do for our costume was buy Dave a two-pocket khaki shirt and make labels. Dave quickly rigged up some bars for our trunk, and we brought the stuffed animal zoo we made for Jessica's new toy room. And I couldn't resist the giant plastic shackles from the Halloween store. My mommy-alarm went off when I saw them: I could see my future children having a blast with them!

Dave passed out candy from behind bars and told the trick-or-treaters that the little Triceratops put him in there.  They thought that was funny. Jessica loved her triceratops costume. She kept the hat on, ran around, barred her teeth, and cat-hissed at people. 

We fully understand the symbolism of parents who want to play "lock up the child" for Halloween. It could be a disturbing sign of psychologically tormented parents that fantasize about doing this to their toddler, bwa - ah- ah - aaaaaah!

A few days later, Dave helped me make some fake bones. He made the economical version using watered-down glue to adhere white paper napkins to taped newspaper; (after they dry for 2 days, you have to paint them white). I tried the more expensive version with cardboard tubes, paper & masking tape, and plaster wrap (from Michael's craft store). I just dipped strips of it in warm water, and smoothed it on, and it dried in 1 day: white & hard as a rock. Now we have some cool homemade decorations!

We carved pumpkins the night before Halloween. Jessica used the little carving kit tools to pock mark our pumpkin while Dave scooped and carved.

Then I tried to light it and get a good picture, while Jessica thought it was funnier to keep blowing out the flame. So I pretended I was very offended and she just giggled more and kept huffing and puffing.

We started Halloween with my Mom's cheddar holiday soup. We had a great time trick-or-treating with two other families from church in their neighborhood. 

Julia, Jessica, and Nolan are all the same age and brought up the slower tail of the group. It was frigid.

I loved seeing that gaggle of kids waiting on doors! Last year Jessica was just learning to say "Ween!" This year she said "Whick or Wheat!" "Fank you" and "Happy Hawoween".

We also trick-or-treated in our old neighborhood a bit. Dave wanted to leave after an hour, when it got dark. Jessica during the second hour spent more time admiring carved pumpkins and petting dogs, rather than running around for candy. Only I wanted to keep going. We imposed a heavy parent tax on her Halloween candy, but she still got a big pile.

We were supposed to have our Joy School party the day before Halloween, but Hurricane Sandy, a.k.a. Frankenstorm came through and we decided to hold it the day after.  With nine preschoolers, nine moms, and four extra kids, we were squished in our new house, but it was jam-packed fun.

Our local mother-taught Joy School is awesome: reliable fun women, smart little kids, and a pre-made curriculum. It's split into 2 groups. Our group includes Jessica & I; ladybug Julia on Kristina's lap; Melissa behind Kristina and her mom Emily top-right; Buzz Lightyear Ian and his mom Jessica (taking the picture); and Tanner the tiger and his mom Lauren in black.

The kids got some darling portraits taken, thanks to the talented Jessica Shorter; I love the bone clenched in our triceratops's hand.

The kids decorated cupcakes and foam pumpkins. We asked Jessica if her pumpkin had the measles or just extra noses--she said the latter. I think the eyes make it extra hilarious!

Our friend Zachery here is singing our 2 songs: "First You Take a Pumpkin" (to the tune of "Sing a Song of Sixpence") and "I'm a Mean Old Witch With a Hat" (for which one girl left the room for fear of witches). Jessica is not phased by scary stuff, yet. She's the one who asked for a "mean" face when we carved our pumpkin at home.

We played 3 games based on our first three lesson units: Musical *Hugging* Ghosts (Relationships), Hot Potato/Pumpkin (the Earth), and Skeleton Treasure Hunt (Bodies). I altered them to be less competitive for toddlers. But 3-year olds are clueless about basic game play, which makes them extra funny.

The first was like musical chairs, except you stood on paper ghosts. The more ghosts that were taken away, the more you had to "hug" to stand on the last ghost. Some kids got the humor of cramming together, but some were so eager to help, they assumed when the music stopped it was time to clean up all the ghosts.

We played "hot potato" with a small pumpkin. When the music stopped, whoever held it was eliminated; and the last kid would win a large white pumpkin. But they didn't understand the passing part, so the whole time every mom had to coach their kids "Ian, give the pumpkin to Jessica." "Jessica, pass it to Julia!" etc. But I didn't want kids upset, so I gave them a treat bag when they got out. This incorrectly incentivized the kids, like Haven below, to keep the pumpkin because they would rather lose and have candy than be the winner. The last round of 2 girls passing it back and forth was very confusing for them.

The last game was a Skeleton scavenger hunt, which ended in our basement and a bone-themed dance party. 

Sadly, I don't have a picture of it. My kid "skeleton songs" playlist was cute, but not loud enough. It wasn't dark enough to see the glow-in-the-dark bracelets or dance lights. But each kid got an animal balloon in the shape of a bone, which they loved using to beat each other and a plastic skeleton hanging in the middle. When they were all popped, it was the perfect segue into cupcakes.

That's pretty much how children's lessons go for church, piano, or preschool: plan several activities in the hopes that part of one of them sticks!

First Trick-or-Treating

After 10 years of childless living in apartments and condos, we missed years of real trick-or-treats. So I  knew we'd found a great family-friendly neighborhood when the people around our new rental home kept warning us: "Look out for Halloween! There are hundreds of kids and the traffic is awful."

PERFECT!

Before we moved from Florida, I figured I'd get Jessica an Elmo costume, since she loved him so much. I found a thick, warm long-sleeved one at the consignment store, and bought it, hoping we'd be moving to a colder climate by October.

I got Jessica the classic pumpkin bucket, and we practiced. We read Halloween books, and watched It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown several times. These are important childhood skills, you know. Very  American. I told her to knock on every door inside our house and rewarded her "Trick or Treat", "Happy Halloween", or "thank you" with candy corns. Because are few parenting tools better than repetition, time & love, combined with sugar.

She didn't get to use her awesome door-knocking skills at the church trunk-or-treat, or Halloween night, since most people sat in their driveways. Here's Jessica with our really nice neighbors with our house in the background.

We tagged along with a few other young families. Dave heeded our neighbors advice to get home before traffic started at 5 pm. We parked our car next to the mailbox at our landlords' request, since they'd lost mailboxes to Halloween and the annual neighborhood garage sale.

It was perfect weather. We saw several other little Elmos, and when we were done, we sat in our driveway and gave away huge bowls of candy. Last year's Halloween traffic jam resulted in cars being towed to clear the roads. This year the police put signs up at the neighborhood entrance that any non-residents would be towed, the crowd was half as big and just right.

 And we knew what to do with all that candy!

Jessica's First Halloween

Well, every year I run my Halloween costume ideas by Dave, and we liked this one that takes advantage of Jessica's bald pate:

Hahahahaha! She can be the fairy princess when she's older and can pick. I'm a big Charlie Brown fan. Dave bought me the holiday DVD set (Great Pumpkin, Thanksgiving, Christmas). 

It was a fun theme. Dave's dark Snoopy ears don't show up well in these pictures. He helped me bobby pin my hair up to look like Lucy.

We kinda wanted to dress up as Peanuts characters dressed in their Halloween costumes, but it's hard to find a red hat and that green witch mask, a green WWII flying ace helmet, and Jessica doesn't know how to say "I got a rock."

We went to our church family Halloween party & Trunk-Or-Treat, and the PAL (adoption support group) kid party. Jessica liked watching the kids, and was good to stay up past her bedtime until 8:30pm, when she crashed both nights. 

Jessica, for Halloween, has been working on her new "evil laugh": a nasally, fast, sheep-baa-ing, forced low snicker. It makes everyone else laugh, and is impossible to catch on tape. You can hear a milder "mostly evil laugh" version in this clip:

My friend Meghan (left) and Halloween party chair (Padme) Josselyn. Josselyn and her crew did the most amazing Halloween decorations, complete with giant gym-sized spider web on the ceiling, tons of contests, and fake organs floating in glowing liquids. Amazing!

For trunk or treat I made the back of my PT Cruiser into a monster mouth. I used 4 black garbage bags, covered the headrests with fake eyes, and cut jaggedy teeth from poster board. And the best part: I threaded a rope through the hole of the trunk cover (top of the mouth) so you lift the jaw up and down. I played Jaws on the stereo and used a power converter to plug in lights in the candy cauldron.

While I was sweating in the Florida heat (it was Oct 29) decorating my car, Jessica had her first sucker: a strawberry Dum Dum. It only took one lick for her to figure out what a sucker is for.

The kids under age 5 had to be persuaded to put their arm in for candy. I thought I'd have to sit in the car all evening and work the mouth, but half of the kids wanted to operate it. Drew, also one of my piano students, threw out menacing monster phrases; my favorite was "You KNOW you WAHHNT some CAHHNNDY!"

Our video clips are dark and not very long, but gives you an idea.

(And Jon: We have video evidence who benefitted from your kids' trick-or-treating . . . )