More Halloween Happenings

October was a really busy month, so we ended up having our family Halloween party the day after Halloween. It worked for us and we got to make Halloween last a little bit longer. Usually we just wear our costumes that we go Trick-or-Treating in, but I think we were kind of sick of wearing them. So we played a costume "game" that we played at our Halloween parties growing up. Each person is given a brown paper sack with one or two props inside (like a clown nose or an eye patch for example) and the person is supposed to use those props to come up with a costume. It is always fun to see what people come up with. Since it was our first time to do this, and since most of my kids are still young, I put more like 3 or 4 props in each bag and the kids just used what was in the bag for the most part. Here are our pictures:

Noah the Clown

Kitty Cat Bella

The Little Red Devil

Serious Pirate Lydia

and Goofball Cave woman Maggie

Garrett was supposed to be the clown, but I guess he went for the "Pan Man"

After we all got our costumes on, we started our dinner by having everyone put their choices in order. This was our menu:

Bat Wings=chicken strips

Witch's Bug Potion=pasta salad

Layered Body Parts=fruit kabobs

Frank's green fizz=green crush (soda)

Frightening Fingers=cheese sticks with black olives for fingernails
Wicked spiders=spider cookies
Goblin Goo=Ranch Dip

Gooey Slime=fruit dip

Of course, they didn't know what food each item was. They had to guess and put it all in order without really knowing. It's fun that way.

After dinner, we played some games. I always try to find different games each year, just so the girls don't get bored. This year I had 3 new games. Our 1st game was "pumpkin bowling". This was a lot of fun. I just used water bottles for the pins and used a small round pumpkin for the ball. Surprisingly it rolled pretty straight and the girls had a lot of fun with it. I got lots of good video, but of course can't post it on here. But, here are two pictures. Next time I do this, I'm going to copy one of my sister Megan's ideas. She did bowling, too, but she covered her pins with white material to make them into mummies or ghosts. It looked really cute.

Our next game was called "Mummy Hands". I had Maggie and Lydia compete against each other and then Paige and Bella compete. First of all, you wrap up each player's hands in toilet paper and tape it so it's secure. Then you set up a shoebox filled with 3 different types of candy on one side of the room and on the other end put a large bowl. Once you start the race, each person has to use their mummy hands to transport the candy from the box across the room to the bowl. For the older kids, I took it a step further and once they got their candy to the bowl, I made them separate the candy into their 3 different piles. If I were to do this one again, I would make sure that their hands were taped a little better. The toilet paper ripped halfway through the game, so it wasn't so hard to use their hands.

Our third game was called "Ghost Busting". I had made a ghost pinata out of a garbage sack and filled it with candy and the girls took turns trying to bust the ghost. It was fun because Garrett is such a joker with the girls and teases them while they are blindfolded, pulling the ghost away from them and making them swing at nothing, then making it smack them in the heads while they are blindfolded. We were all rolling with laughter, and the paper bag held up quite well, too.

Our last game was a Halloween Picture Hunt. This game is one we've done quite a few times. This time though, we did it in the dark with flashlights, which made it quite a bit more fun. I made copies of 10 halloween pictures for each girl and hid them all upstairs. Bella's were a bit easier to find whereas Maggie's and Lydia's were a bit more difficult. In fact, with all of us looking, we still couldn't find one of Lydia's pictures. I guess I should write them down next time.

I wish I had taken more pictures, but I tend to get too busy helping them with games and stuff and Garrett had Noah most of the night trying to get our cranky boy to sleep. We all had a good time though.