And The Winner Is ... !

October 30, 2012

Luke and I went to Toddler Tuesdays at Discovery Green on Tuesday and since it was the day before Halloween, along with the usual storytime, they had a couple of Halloween crafts, face painting, and  a costume contest!

I noticed right away that Luke, in his LMFAO costume, was just about the only kid who wasn't  in a cutsie kiddie costume and I wondered how that would be received, but I filled out an application for the costume contest anyway. And while I was signing him up, a woman announced that the winners would get trophies, 5x7" copies of their professional pictures with Fancy Nancy, AND Ikea gift cards - $30 for 1st place, $20 for 2nd, and $10 for 3rd. Yes, please!

Luke was contestant #20 out of 49.

After a story read by "Fancy Nancy," a woman with a microphone called each kid up one at a time, in front of the other moms and kids and the three judges. Kids were judged on appearance and presentation. I knew Luke would be too shy to put on a show, so we probably couldn't count on any presentation points. At least he wasn't alone in that. There were a lot of kids that were either too young or too shy to do anything but stand there like a deer in the headlights. Most kids were in the 0-2 category like Luke, with maybe a 3rd of the kids being in the 3-5 category.

There was some stiff competition: an adorable girl dressed as a robot, a little Chinese emperor, a ninja turtle with ninja moves, a hilarious flexing Superman, a bag of Goldfish, a Texans football player, the most adorable cowgirl I've ever seen, and more! But when Luke got up for his turn, he may have gotten the biggest reaction from the crowd. Still, I wasn't sure if a lot of laughing meant we had a better chance of placing in the competition. The judges laughed and asked if Luke knew how to shuffle. Haha nope.

When all 49 kids had had their turn, the judges counted up the scores and announced the winners. It was nice to find out our chances were increased by the fact that there would be four winners: Boys 0-2, Girls 0-2, Boys 3-5, and Girls 3-5. They announced the girls 0-2 and moved on to the boys 0-2 ... 3rd place goes to ... Bag of Goldfish boy. 2nd place goes to ... Chinese Emperor boy. I doubt they'll give 1st place to a funny, maybe slightly age-inappropriate costume. Oh well. 1st place goes to ... "Contestant #20 - Our Little Party Rocker!" Saweeeeet!

(I forgot to bring my camera, so we had to take this picture of our little champion when we got home)

The woman in charge of the competition forgot the first place trophies at home, so she gave Luke a temporary trophy: a giant bottle of bubbles. I think he liked that better anyway. The judges bribed Luke with a whole handful of Dum Dums to let them take a picture of him with his winner's crown on top of his fro (he was sick of his wig and kept trying to pull it off).

When we went to get Luke's picture taken with Fancy Nancy, the photographer called his friend over to see Luke and after they took the picture, Fancy Nancy told the photographer, "I want a copy of that one!" I think it's safe to say this boy was a hit!

And Mommy's prize: $30 to Ikea. Yes!

Luke wanted to play in the water, so I let him take off the rest of his costume. He was a pretty happy camper running around in just his diaper!

A woman came looking for us to get a picture of Luke in his costume, but she was out of luck! He was free, and he wasn't going back!

We stopped by GE to see Jeff on the way home. It turned out Luke wasn't the only one winning prizes that day! Jeff was in a Bingo competition at work and he had already won $10 to Subway and $25 to AMC Theaters! The Fishers were cleaning up!

That night, after Jeff got home from work, we grabbed a couple of pumpkins from Kroger (where I saw a man buying at least 150 giant size Hershey's bars, presumably to pass out to trick-or-treaters the following night. Crazy!) and got to carving! It was only an hour before Luke's bedtime, so Jeff decided to skip the elaborate carving patterns this year. He just let Luke pick one of the simple, cheesy ones that came with our carving kit.

Luke reluctantly agreed to help me clean out my pumpkin ...

But after just one touch, "Nooooo. Don't want to!"

In the time it took me to choose a pattern, get it to print (there were issues ..aka the printer wasn't plugged into the computer), and prep my pumpkin for carving, Jeff and Luke FINISHED theirs ...

Luke admiring his "kitty" pumpkin.

That's my Patrick Star pumpkin on the right. Luke's favorite part of pumpkin carving was blowing out and re-lighting the candles. No surprise there!