Family Halloween Party 2014

This is going to be a really long post!!

On Saturday October 25th, we had our annual family Halloween Party.  I didn't make any kind of invitation this year.  

The bags for the Costume Bag Game

This year Noah's costume was Bob the Builder.  Or just a construction worker.  He loved it!

Bella was a clown.  I think she had been in her pj's all day anyway, so just switched shirts.  Ha!

Paige was Alice in Wonderland.  I thought it was perfect for her!

Lydia was a nerd and she played her part well.  Isn't she the cutest nerd ever?

And Maggie was a pirate.  I thought she looked pretty good, too.

I thought this was such a cute selfie that the girls took together.  I love Lydia's expression!

Garrett was the long lost brother from Duck Dynasty

and I was Pippi Longstocking

All of us together

Jim and Georgia came to our party, too!  They just wore masks this year.  

A few pictures of our Halloween table

Everybody figuring out their menu order

Loving the dry ice

 This is the menu I made.  I was going for a witch's potion theme for the dinner.  Which is why I had the cauldron in the middle of the table.  And the spell/potion book. I thought it turned out cute. 

The food choices were all ingredients for a good witch's potion, too.

I always forget to take pictures of the food because it's pretty chaotic during dinner time.  I remembered to take some pictures when I ate, but I didn't get everything.  

Dragon's milk=ranch dip (for tater tots)

Slimy slugs=green beans

Toad venom=fruit dip

Frog's blood=ketchup (for hot dogs)

Squishy worms=hot dogs cut lengthwise

Crusty booger balls=tater tots

swamp mud=mint oreo dessert

cockroach belly=olives

winged bat=apples cut with bat cookie cutter.  (I can't get this picture to flip right side up--don't know why it's upside down)

                                               Poison mushroom extract=grape drink

After we got dinner somewhat cleaned up, it was time for the games.  I planned WAY TOO MANY games this year.  I cut one of the games out and we were still trying to finish up at 10 o'clock at night.  They were all so fun though!

I started with 4 Minute to Win it Games.  

#1: Spider ring toss.  

They split into pairs and one member of the team got a cup filled with spider rings and the other member got an empty cup.  In a minute, they had to see how many spiders they could catch in their cups.  

That was pretty fun.

#2: Stacking Cups Pyramid. 

They each got 36 cups.  (The smaller kids got like 24 or so).  You had a minute to build your pyramid using all of your cups and then also take it down!  A minute is not very long!!

They all really liked this one and played multiple times.  In fact, Noah and Bella played the game for days and days after.  Those cups were always out--who knew you could have so much fun with a plastic cup?

#3: Witch's Ka-Broom!  

Boy, this was a fun one that had everyone laughing!

Once again, you worked with a partner.  One person holds the cup and is the catcher.  The other person sets a paper plate slightly over the edge of the table and puts a marshmallow on the opposite end of the plate.  Then you take a broom stick handle and let it fall so that it hits the plate and catapults the marshmallow in the air.  Hopefully toward your teammate, who then tries to catch it in their cup.  

So fun to watch!!

Of course, when we were done with that game, Garrett started a marshmallow war that distracted everyone for awhile.  It seems like every time we have a party, there's always some kind of war--the kids love it!

Noah collecting marshmallows to throw at people--and eat.  He looks like he's got one stuffed in his mouth!

#4: "Eyeball Slime Plop"

I had two pie plates of green slime--AKA green pudding--Each person had one minute to see how many eyeballs they could plop into the slime.  

When it was time for the older kids, they threw a bit harder and some of the pudding was splashing out of the pie tins.  Which is why I put down the black table cloth!

Our second set of games was an Obstacle course.  There were 3 parts to that. I really have no room in my house, so I set it up in the garage.

The first part was crossing the spider pit.  

The second part was fighting off scary ghosts with a nerf gun.

And the third part was a bean bag toss with candy as a prize. (This was in the garage also--I just took a picture of it in the house before I set it up in the garage).

Paige was the first to try it out.  Garrett helped me set this up and added the big dangling spider that they had to avoid. (Our good friends the Jensens let us borrow their balance beam--so nice to not have to try and make one!)

Shooting the ghosts--this girl can aim!

Noah's turn

Tossing his bean bags into the candy bowls.  The front bowls had the cheaper candies and the bowls in the back had better candy.  The last one had full sized candy bars.  I think that was what he was going for!

Bella got through the spiders...

and is taking on the ghosts!

Lydia barely escaping the giant spider

shooting the ghosts

and winning some candy...on one foot!

And last is Maggie.  I love how Garrett gets the spider swinging before they start

barely making it past the spider...

and then killing the ghosts. Cute pirate!

Then we came inside and did a Relay Race.  The point of the relay race was to gather ingredients to use in our next activity, which was "Stirring the Witch's Brew".

I had lots of ingredients--bones, lizards, eyeballs, rats, bugs, spiders, stars, bats, centipedes and snakes.  I got most of them as glow in the dark, because they were supposed to glow in the dark.  More on that later...

So, they each took turns with this one.  They had to run through the cones (I couldn't find my tombstones, so we used cones) to where the ingredients were.  Then put as many as they could on the spoon and go back through the cones to put their stuff in a bowl.  When they got all their ingredients, then it was the next person's turn.  

Noah

Bella

This is such a fun picture of Paige--looks like she's hopping over them.

And Lydia was very serious about going through those cones!

Stirring the Witch's Brew

While the kids were doing the relay part, Garrett and Maggie were trying their best to get things to work with the cauldrons.  Two years ago, my sister Megan did the same thing with the witch's potion--except hers was awesome--she did it in the bathroom and had a black light and put neon highlighters in her water and all of her things glowed!!

These are her kids when she did it--sorry for borrowing your picture Megs, but I wanted to show how awesome it was!  Anyways, I didn't think I could do it in a bathroom, because there are so many of us, so I tried to do it in the kitchen. I changed most of my light bulbs to black light bulbs, but I don't think it was enough.  I first of all tried glow in the dark paint, but that wasn't working, then I bought some highlighters before hand, just to have them if the paint didn't work.  Anyways, that didn't work either and I really think it was because my black light bulbs weren't enough in such a big room.  So, we sadly gave up on the glow in the dark and used dry ice instead.  The kids didn't know about the glow in the dark--so what they don't know won't hurt them.  They had a blast with just the dry ice and some fun Halloween music.  

Noah adding the centipede

Lydia, too.

All of them mixing their potions

Noah blowing on the smoke

Their faces are so fun!  I'm glad they enjoyed it!

Love this picture!

They played with this for a good 20 minutes or so.  But by this time, it was getting pretty late and I still had one more game I wanted them to do before they went to bed.  

The Spider Web Game

This was another game we used to do at our Halloween Parties growing up.  We each had a color of yarn to follow and we had to wind up the yarn and follow it because it let to our Halloween prizes.

Ready to start

winding their yarn

"a little knot here..."

Ignore the piles of laundry everywhere...I did for awhile!  :)

Almost there!

I think Lyd was the first one done.  Finding her prizes.

going through their prizes!

I think they liked the eyeball glasses!

I found these cute little bobble heads at Wal-mart for their goody bags.  Maggie doesn't want any of the silly little prizes, so I gave her $5 and she was good with that.  Lydia's about at that point to, so I gave her like $2 and some of the prizes.  I think I had mostly candy, some Halloween mad libs books, the glasses, stickers.  I think that was it.  

These were the goody bags attached to their yarn.

It was a fun night and I'm so glad I go through all the effort to put these on, because they are so fun!