Halloween

The Costumes





Ashley's ladybug costume turned out pretty cute. I had put her in a red shirt and black pants. Then I cut a circle out of red felt, cut it in half, and stuck little black dots onto the wings. The antennae were just pipe cleaners wrapped around a cute ribbon. What an easy costume! Everyone was taking pictures of her. She is so cute!



Austin's pharaoh also turned out well. The mask was a bit big for his body but that was the best we could do. He seemed happy with it and got a lot of comments that night. He was very proud to explain, " It's an Egyptian pharaoh".



Olivia was Tinkerbell. She was still changing costumes as the guests were arriving- not surprising. Luckily, Chelsea snapped this shot during the party or I may not have even gotten a photo of her. She ended up in a dress by then end of the party. She is hilarious.



Anyway, the party was on Tuesday from 4-6 pm. I got things organized on Monday- last minute shopping, etc. Here is a photo of my food stacked up, ready to be prepared. On Tuesday I started from the minute I woke up at 6 am. I can't even remember what I was doing, but I was going and going all morning. Ashley was really fussy for some reason (how do they know?) so I had to keep stopping what I was doing and try to soothe her. I left about 10:30 to get helium balloons from a place about 20 minutes away. It took a while to get those and stop for ice and to pick up the water cooler that I was using. Longer than I planned to run those errands, but I had time so it was okay.



I got home and put the girls down for a nap then got down to business decorating, preparing food, etc. At the last minute I decided to do party favors. Mom had sent some really cute bags but I couldn't think of what to put in them that wouldn't be extremely expensive to do for 20 kids. In the end, I used the Halloween pencils Mom sent, along with gummy dracula teeth, and a spider ring. It wasn't much but I was glad to have something to give out. The kids seemed pleased and it gave me an excuse to use more of the cute ribbon.



I picked up Austin from school at 2:30 and hurried back home. Olivia was entertained by Courtney, who was being watched by cousin Elise, who is now our next door neighbor. Confusing, I know. It was helpful to have her distracting Olivia. I got the food out and people started arriving right at 4 pm. Once all of the kids started filling the house, along with parents, I thought to myself, “What am I doing?” I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed- just pressure to give a good party, I guess. Also my OCD and control freak tendencies come out with that many children around. I didn’t let it get to me though- I was proud of myself. The kids ran wild.




It was a bit hard to do the “Pin the nose on the Pumpkin” game, musical pumpkins, and Wrap the Mummy (in toilet paper) b/c of so many kids, but it seemed to go alright. The only bad part was when a couple of kids decided to reach up and get the jar I had containing candy prizes and fighting ensued. Of course, the jar ended up broken in shards all over my feet and the kids’. Thank goodness no one got glass in their feet. Other than that things were pretty smooth.



That night we went to a Trunk or Treat that the baseball club puts on and our trunk WON the prize! It was so funny. I went with our cousin, Mike’s wife, Debbie. We got there and about 2 minutes later they were handing us a box of wine. We were laughing hysterically about it. We also got a $20 gift certificate to Fajitas restaurant. The kids were exhausted by this time and almost fell asleep in the car. I took them home and plopped them happily into bed. How was your Halloween?