Halloween Carnival

Today was a super fun day for Dean. His preschool, the Children's Garden, had it's annual Halloween Carnival for the students. All of the students (even the ones who don't normally attend on Fridays) got to go to school for a few hours this morning wearing their Halloween costumes for lots of fun!! Dean has been very strongly opposed to the idea of wearing a costume himself - he enjoys seeing other kids dressed up, but has had absolutely no interest in dressing up himself (remember, this is the kid who refuses to wear any kind of hat or long sleeves or long pants or any shoes other than rubber slippers - and then only if the ground is too hot to be barefoot!!). When I would ask him what he wanted to be for Halloween he would say "Just Nuffing Mommy" (translation: Just Nothing Mommy). Finally, about a week ago, all on his own, he decided he wanted to be a football player, specifically a football player "with the number 14" (According to Joel, Dean knows that the most important Oklahoma football player wears the number 14, but does NOT seem to know that said important football player is no longer so important since his OU career is essentially over). Anyway, lucky for us Dean happens to own an Oklahoma football jersey WITH the number 14 on the front (I think this fact might have more to do with his preference for the number 14 than anything else, but whatever, we'll let Joel have his fantasy that his 2-yr-old son actually knows something about Oklahoma football). So, football player he is - but a pretty boring one if you ask me - no helmet, no pads, not even football pants!! We were hoping to make him a hybrid of Sam Bradford (number 14) and Landry Jones (by drawing a mustache on his face), but Dean nixed the mustache idea pretty quickly. So he's an Oklahoma football player at the Friday afternoon "walk through" practice before a game (when they wear their jersey and knit shorts).

So, back to the preschool carnival. Each class stayed together and spent a little time in various "sections" of the carnival. Dean's class, the Roly Polys (the 2-3 year old class), started out in the Jumpy Castle, which was set up just for the Halloween Party today. Dean seemed to be more interested in jumping OFF the entrance ramp onto the ground than he was bouncing inside the castle!!

The kids in Dean's class had made little "pumpkin buckets" earlier in the week at school out of recycled milk jugs - for them to put all their goodies in at the carnival. Here's Dean showing off his "pumpkin bucket":
After the jumpy castle, we headed over to the Carnival games, which was my personal favorite!! They had Monster Bowling, fishing, bobbing for apples, a bean bag cauldron toss, etc etc etc. The kids got little prizes (like a spider ring or a whistle or a pack of stickers) for each game they played. Dean played all of the games AND sat for a Halloween tattoo!

Bobbing for apples:

Getting a prize from his buddy Crash's Dad (and yes, Crash is his real name) after knocking over the tin cans with a ball:Taking a break with his friend Jovie while enjoying a delicious powdered sugar donut:
After the Roly Poly class finished with the carnival games, we headed back into their classroom for a potty break (and I'm happy to report that Dean peed in the potty AND made a teeny tiny poop in there too!! YAY!!! - we are making progress!! - it's painfully slow going, but it's progress.) After potty time, the kids took a few minutes to check out all their cool prizes from the games, then we went into the snack room and they each got to decorate a pumpkin cookie!! Dean put icing on his, then black and purple sugar, then sprinkles, then marshmallows and finally a handful of Reese's Pieces.
After cookie decorating, it was finally time for the pinata!! Each class had made their own pinata earlier in the week and the Roly Poly's had make a Jack-o-Lantern pinata!! Dean got to go first taking a swing at it with the stick and he actually did really well - giving it 3 nice hard whacks!!After all of the Roly Poly kids had taken a turn hitting the pinata and it still didn't show even the slightest crack, one of Dean's teachers, Aunty Lauren, decided she'd give it a little help opening up and then it was a free-for-all as all of the kids made a mad dash for the candy and started filling their pumpkin buckets!!! It was so cute!!The hardest part of the whole morning was preventing the kids from digging into their candy and cookies immediately - they're not allowed to have sugary sweets or candy at school, so all of the kids had to wait until they got home to have any of their treats. We're planning on going trick-or-treating in our neighborhood tomorrow evening and I don't know what we're going to do with all this candy!! Aunty Lauren had a good idea - she told me the story of the Halloween Witch - she said that the Halloween Witch eats nothing but candy and on Halloween Night she comes to visit the good boys and girls who want to share their candy with her. If they share their candy with her by leaving it in a big bowl next on the table before they go to bed, she leaves them a toy in exchange for their candy!! I think we might try that.