Family Halloween Party

We started our party with one of my favorite games, the Costume Game.  I get a kick out of seeing what the kids come up for their costumes.  Of course, I "assign" them a costume, but to see them embellish it is what is so fun to me.  Below is a picture of my family and I in our "costumes" at one of our Halloween Parties growing up.  I was the clown.  Too funny!

The Fam

Lydia made a fabulous clown!

Paigey was a very professional looking nurse.

Bella was a cute bunny.  I tried to get her to turn to the side so we could see her little tail, but she didn't want to. 

Maggie was a such a good witch...She cracks me up...love the profile with the nose!!

Garrett was a sherrif and I was supposed to be a "movie star", but you can't really tell.  My feather boa blends in with my shirt. 

Noah was a clown, too.

Cute clowns

The Mystery Dinner

This was our menu for the evening

Worms in moldy bread were cut up hotdogs on a roll; skeleton heads were tater tots (I didn't get a picture of everything); Witch's sauce was ketchup and the ghost slime was ranch dressing--for dipping skeleton heads.  The black beetles were olives; lizard tongues were cut up apples and my personal favorite was the rotting pumpkin covered with bugs.  It's this fabulous cream cheese/caramel dip with mini chocolate chips on top for the apples. 

Best ever!!

Frankenstein's Green Fizz--Loved the cup idea

This was a picture of the poisoned brew that I found online and the picture below is what mine looked like.  Not as good-looking, but was still pretty good.  Pretty much vanilla pudding layered with crushed oreos and orange sprinkles. 

I was trying to keep the games fairly simple this year for Bella's sake.  We had 4 games.  Our first one was a "Scavenger Hunt" of sorts.  Each person/team was assigned a Halloween word (each was 7 letters).  They had to search the house and find one item for each letter of their word.  Just so I wouldn't have to put everything back that they found, I gave them each a camera and they had to take a picture of each item.  Then as a bonus, they had to take a picture of their clue word.  So, one of the words was 'pumpkin', so they had to find a pumpkin and take a picture of it.  The picture below is me explaining the game.  I gave them each a sack and after each game they were allowed to pick two prizes.

 

Garrett and Bella--teammates for Scavenger Hunt

The next game was actually a story that I read to them.  They all sat in a circle and passed a package around.  Whenever I said the word left, they passed the package to the left.  When I said right, it was passed to the right.  When I finished the story, whoever held the package got to open it.  I thought it would be fun for Bella and I think she liked it, but the older girls seemed bored with it. 

The third game was a bean bag toss into Pumpkin buckets.  They had 4 bean bags.  If they got a bean bag into the 1st pumpkin, they got one piece of candy.  If they got it into the 2nd pumpkin, they got 2 pieces, etc...There were 5 pumpkins. 

Bella was the champion of the game.  They each had two turns and each time she hit the #5 bucket twice, so she got to pick 20 pieces of candy.  This is her jumping up and down with excitement.  Of course the picture had to be blurry. 

The last game was similar to pin the Witch on the Wart or the smile on the pumpkin.  Except that they got to add the whole face blindfolded.  I made like 5-6 different mouths, noses and eyes.  They had to pick one of each and then put it on their pumpkins.  Not sure what Maggie's doing here.  I think she was dodging the bean bags that Garrett was throwing at her. 

While Lydia was waiting her turn, Garrett wanted to get a picture of a sad clown. 

Maggie attaching her facial features.

Bella with her silly pumpkin

All the silly pumpkins

They always seem to have a good time, even though I think things don't go so well.  Hey, it's a fun party with games and prizes; what's not to like, right?  I love this tradition that my mom started and I love doing it every year!!