Clara went to school all in black with a witches hat with silver stars. Before leaving our apartment she was singing the Halloween version of "Baby Shark," which includes Princess Shark, Cowboy Shark, Mummy Shark, etc. It does not actually include Witches Shark, but she added those lyrics, I guess because she was a witch. Jane wore an orange frilly top with three little ghosts on it.
Most of the day went as usual. The only exceptions were that Beth made us some adorable Halloween crafts using the girls' hand prints and she also sent a great pic of Jane wearing one of the many $1 witches hats I'd bought for all the kids.
We had originally planned to take the girls trick-or-treating with Hunter at the end of the day before heading home, but halfway through the day Beth learned from a neighbor that trick-or-treating doesn't really start until like 6:45 pm, far too late since we pick the girls up at 5 pm. Jack tried to look up other trick-or-treat options, like maybe going store to store at the mall, but he couldn't find much. I know Clara wouldn't have known the difference but I was a little disappointed because this is the first year she has seemed aware of Halloween (vaguely - she understands pumpkins, witches, pirates, and now Jack-o-lanterns) and I thought she'd be pretty excited to see what her kids' videos mean when they talk about trick-or-treating.
But then Jack saved the day. Or rather Generations Church did. He found an ad for Trunk or Treat at this church all the way from 6 to 9 pm. Most Trunk or Treat events had already happened on Sunday, but this was on actual Halloween night.
So I put on my witches outfit and we picked up the girls and headed over there. We arrived a bit early and they were still setting up the trunks, but it was kind of fun waiting in the parking lot as more and more families arrived and everyone anticipated the moment when they would let us all in. Clara spent most of that time "flying" on her broom back and forth along the sidewalk and even cackling to herself, which was great. Jane also toddled all over happily. I don't think they even realized we were waiting for anything.
Once they did open up we decided to go to the very opposite end of the parking lot rather than along with the crowd. We wanted to check out this massive pirate ship but it wasn't actually done being set up yet, so instead we went first to the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown trunk, and that was Clara's first experience (with prompting) of saying "Trick or treat" and then being given candy. She was confused but excited.
Next we went to the Nightmare Before Christmas trunk. Most of the trunks included games to play before getting candy, and in this case "Sally" showed us a bean bag toss into jack-o-lantern buckets. Clara missed the first time but once she stood directly over a bucket she got 2-3 more bean bags in it on her first tries. :-P Then she got another piece of candy. She was literally jumping all over the place with excitement.
(Meanwhile Jane watched stoically from Jack's shoulders. Not unhappy but not super impressed either. Or perhaps she was just confused and taking it all in.)
The Robin Hood trunk included some kiddo archery. The Toy Story trunk had no game I can recall, just nice decor. Clara tried to take one of the stuffed animals in it and had to be redirected to the candy.
Then we came across a guy with a helium tank blowing up the tye-dye style balloons that had very tiny lights inside them. It was still dusk at this point so we couldn't tell yet but it wasn't long at all before you could see them glowing in the dark. That balloon was by far Jane's favorite part of the night.
We went on to an Alice and Wonderland trunk (with pin the tail on the Cheshire cat), Little Mermaid trunk (can't recall the game as we skipped it and just got the candy), and Wizard of Oz trunk (bean bag toss again). Every trunk was pretty beautifully decorated (Alice and Wonderland had an entire table with tea set) and everyone was very friendly and easy going.
The Little Mermaid
Alice and Wonderland
Wizard of Oz
The last trunk we went to was the most elaborate: Candyland. There were colored squares on the ground like the game. There were big stand up lollipops and a gingerbread house and a table covered in glass bowls all with different candies in them. The game was a ring toss onto some cones painted like candy corn. Clara basically placed all of her rings at once on the first cone. Then she got a bunch of candy--they were giving out like 6-10 pieces per kid.
So we were basically done with the trunks and hadn't been there super long yet, so we headed over to the play area where there was a giant bouncy slide and a giant bouncy platform, separately. The platform had a column in the center with two harnesses tied to one another, and the bigger kids (all boys) would harness up and each try to get a ball into a basketball hoop while the other tugged in the other direction. It was actually pretty hilarious. Clara was very curious about it and eventually climbed onto the platform and sat at the very edge watching for quite a while. There were a few times when I thought she'd get scared and want to get down, including when bigger kids basically climbed right over her to get on or off the platform, but I'd offer to help her down and she wanted to stay.
Meanwhile Jane was carrying the glowing balloon everywhere and toddling around the glass with Jack by her side, quite content.
After a while we headed back to the pirate ship, which was almost but still not quite done. We revisited and retried the Nightmare Before Christmas trunk. Then Jack and I decided it had been enough and it was time to go. When Clara realized we were leaving she did start to fuss a lot, but once we got her buckled in and offered her some candy she was content. (We had brought gluten free candy with us to use just in case we weren't sure about the kind she'd gotten. I gave her a full sized Reese's.)
Jane held the glowing balloon nearly the entire way home. Jack and I talked about how much easier, safer, and more fun Trunk or Treat is for little kids compared to neighborhood trick or treating. I need to send that church a thank you note for putting it all on.
After we got home we gave the girls dinner and then let the girls have a bit more candy. While we were all sitting at the table I lit our Jack-o-lantern. Clara kept asking me to blow it out because she likes watching the smoke swirl from the candle. Instead I just kept relighting the used matches and blowing them out, and she was pretty happy about that. Jane still played with the balloon all evening until it was time for bed.
Even though this is technically Clara's 4th Halloween, it felt to me like her first because we actually celebrated and she seemed aware of what was going on. I really love reliving the holidays vicariously through her. That's something I've looked forward to since before even having kids and certainly since Clara was a newborn, and now that season is starting!
I love that you can insert videos into these blogs. :)
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