Halloween

I usually sign up to help with one holiday party in each of my kid’s classes every year.  I let them pick which one they want me to help with.  This year both the boys and Liv wanted me to help with Halloween.  I thought I had a BINGO game at home, so I volunteered to play BINGO with the boys’ class.  Turned out that I didn’t have Halloween BINGO only Valentine’s and Christmas, but I found free printable BINGO cards online and was able to print those without too much hassle.  BINGO is always a hit with the preschoolers.  I have watched parents try to play all sorts of games with kids that age and most go completely over their heads and become chaotic, but BINGO is prefect for them.  I walked into the boys classroom without them noticing and their teacher asked them if they had anyone they wanted to introduce to the class.  They both turned to the kid sitting next to them and introduced them to everyone.  Then, their teacher pointed to me.  They both ran to me shouting Mom realizing that I was there and gave me a hug then one of them says, “This is Chelsea.”  One of the Mom's brought pumpkins for them to paint.  All the kids loved that.

At Liv’s class I was late getting to the group text where everyone claimed what station they wanted and I got left with craft.  One person did a treat, one a game, one a story, and I had to come up with and purchase all the supplies for a craft!  We ended up making pumpkins, and black cats, and bats, and frankensteins out of colored paper plates and construction paper and googly eyes.  They were simple and I think the kids enjoyed them.  I brought the boys with me to Liv’s class party.  Before we went in I gave them a lecture…

Me: Boys how old are you?

Them: 4

Me:  How old are the kids in Liv’s class?

Them: 7

Me:  Ok, so if you want to come to the class party and participate you need to act like you are 7 years old.  Can you do that?

Them: Yes!

Me:  So that means so fighting, no wrestling, no running around the room, and you need to be good listeners.  Can you do that?

Them:  Yes, we promise.

And to my surprise, they were on their best behavior.  They walked right in and found a seat on the keva amongst all the 1^st graders and they rotated around the room with Liv’s group.  Most of the other parents assumed they were kids in the class.  It was one of those times when I felt like WE HAVE ARRIVED!

Monday before Halloween, we carved pumpkins.  Derek was sick so it was mostly left to me this year which unfortunately meant that our pumpkins were not a good as usual.  Liv wanted Moana- her’s looked more like just some girl everyone assumed it was a self portrait.  Carter wanted a shark- looked nothing like that.  Camden wanted a skeleton- that was the only one that looked recognizable. 

The kids all dressed up as Moana characters this year.  Liv was Moana (of course--she maybe saw too many zombies at Thriller?), Carter was Maui, and Camden was Maui shark (? Or just a shark). 
Carter’s costume was super difficult to find.  I finally found some inexpensive Maui pajamas that had to ship from China.  They were estimated to arrive sometime between a few days before Halloween all the way until a couple weeks after.  Daily we were track the package to see if it was going to make it and low and behold it did!  It showed up a whole 5 days before Halloween and just in time for him to wear to his Halloween Humanitarian Haunt at his preschool! 

Due to Derek’s sickness, I got to hit the neighborhood with the kids this year.  We visited Carolyn.  She was so excited to see her kids and demanded a picture and a long visit before she finally handed them too much candy and let them head to the next house.  Then, we went to see teacher Nancy and the Taylors (who gave us coupons for a free frosty at Wendy’s which the kids thought was awesome).  Then, we stopped by this super spooky house the kids always made Derek and I drive by.  They had legit scary adult zombie like people roaming the yard that you had to walk past up to the door.  They were all terrified.  Then, we roamed the neighborhood knocking on all the doors of people they knew and or course came home with way too much candy.  They had visits from both Grandma and Grandpa and Tanner and Karlee.  So, I guess you could say Halloween was a success (minus maybe the pumpkin carving).

-->