8th Annual McKibben Halloween Party

On Wednesday night was our family Halloween Party. We used to have these parties when I was growing up and so I decided to continue the tradition with my family. I did it for a few years before we had kids and we just invited friends, but they never quite got into it like we did. Everyone has to wear a costume, so a lot of people didn't like doing that. So, I started doing them again when Maggie was 3 years old. This is my 8th year doing it. It's a lot of fun. Some years I go more out than others. Depends on what's going on in life then. The funnest part for me is planning the menu for dinner. We always start by having a "mystery dinner" where everyone is given a menu with food items and you have to put the food in order of how you want it to come. But, the names of the food are disquised with Halloween names. Here was the menu this year:

I'm not sure if everone can read that or not, but the menu choices are:






spider eggs
pumpkin slime
boo bugs
bug catching potion
eyes of newt and toe of frog
skeleton head

I tried to take a picture of all the food, but the pictures didn't turn out very well. So, bear with me. :)
The spider eggs were:
corn















The pumpkin slime was:
(orange sherbet icecream with sprite)

















The boo bugs were:

hot dogs wrapped in breadsticks with chow mein noodles for legs and ketchup eyes and spots.






bug catching potion:





Ranch dressing with ketchup swirls.






Eyes of newt and toe of frog:





Fruit kabobs









And skeleton heads were:





Cupcakes. So fun!









After the dinner, then we get to play games. This year we played some new ones, but they didn't turn out to be as fun as I thought they'd be. We first did a Halloween story like Mad libs. They had fun listing the names and objects, but when I put them in the story, they didn't think it was so funny. Except for the part that had boogers in it. Go figure.

Then we played a game called Trick-or-Treat where they'd pick a cauldron card and if it had treat written on it, they automatically got a treat. If they picked one with trick on it, then they had to do whatever the card said, like "cackle like a witch" or walk like "Frankenstein". That one was just okay, too.

The third one was Halloween pictionary--they liked that one. And then the last ones were relay races where they had to carry eyeballs on a spoon and walk across the room with out dropping it. And then they were ghost waiters and had to balance a ghost (balloon) on a paper plate and walk across the room. Cute Paige was cruisin along because she had her hand holding the balloon. She got mad when I told her not to do that and she didn't want to play anymore. The other relay was a spider walk where they'd crab walk (we called it spider walk) down the hall way and back. It didn't last very long--you can see it when you see the video at the bottom of the post.

The last one was a candy corn drop where they drop candy corns into a jar while standing on a chair. We've done that one before and they usually like that one, too.

It's hard having it on a school night because we feel like we have to hurry in order to get them in bed on time and have to rush. Other than that, we have a fun time and the girls really look forward to their party. I didn't have a lot of time to plan for it this year because I was gone for a week, but hopefully we'll have funner games next year.