Happy Halloween!

Well, I think we can safely say Clare ‘gets’ Halloween this year.  Jeff and I had talked about it and decided that we weren’t going to buy a costume; she wasn’t going to be trick-or-treating anywhere or going to any big Halloween parties so her Mizzou cheerleading dress would do for a costume.  This plan worked great for us, until Clare announced that she was going to be Cinderella for Halloween, we tried reminding her that she was going to be a cheerleader and say ‘Go Tigers’ but she wasn’t having it, she wanted to be Cinderella.  Being the sucker of a Mom that I am I asked Jeff to stop at Wal-Mart, I needed to get a few things to make treats for her school party, and I would just buy her the dress up dress.  When we finally found the dresses she chose Rapunzel over Cinderella.  Clare was thrilled with her new dress, so much so she wanted to hold it in the car and put it on immediately upon arriving home.  The dress is huge on her; I used 3 safety pins to keep it up so she wouldn’t trip during her party.  It was nice to see her so excited about her costume.

Clare and her friends had a Halloween party at school on Tuesday, they all wore their costumes and walked around the rec center trick-or-treating.  Having seen the different classes trick-or-treat for the past 7 years it was fun to be on the other side with my child.  I don’t know that she really knew what the point was, but she had fun.  I was a proud mama when she told each person thank you after they gave her a piece of candy, she was the only one in the class I heard say thank you. 

After trick-or-treating they went back to their room where they sang two Halloween songs, aren’t they cute!!

The best part of the party came after the trick-or-treating and songs, the treats!!  After reading the list of treats hat people were bringing I decided a healthy treat would be appreciated, so I made mandarin orange cups with pumpkin faces on them and little witch hat cookies (not so healthy).  Both seemed to be enjoyed but the Cheetos were Clare’s favorite treat. 

Watching the kids eat their treats was fun; they were so excited to have so many choices of sweets.  There were cupcakes, cookies, rice Krispy treat pumpkins, Cheetos, cups of dirt with worms (chocolate pudding with crushed Oreos and a gummy worm) and other sugary goodies.   Jeff and I watched the kids eating the cupcakes become COVERED in dark purple and dark green frosting, it was all over!  Fortunately Clare didn’t ask for a cupcake more than once, and accepted my answer that we weren’t going to eat one today (I doubt she would have eaten it anyway, she doesn’t like cake) but I was not going to let her get covered in that frosting!! 

Overall it was a fun day filled with sweet treats and fun, thankfully Clare didn’t ask about going trick-or-treating, I’m not sure what we would have done as we don’t live in a neighborhood or area where that could happen.  I suppose we’ll figure out what kids do for Halloween up here in a few years, I’m guessing the schools host a trick-or-treat event rather than having kids hike from one house to another.