Buckets of Sweet Halloween Party

The pictures arrived!  Yay!  A huge thank you to Jessie Warner Photography for taking pictures of our Sweet Halloween Party.  I have to say the lighting was not good for photography (actually, it was horrible,) and Jessie did a great job.  It was a horribly windy rainy day and the party was in the garage - so no natural light and a horribly lit space.

This party seemed to be more work than any of the kids' birthday parties.  I had a ton of help from all the guests who brought a dish to pass.  I'll showcase a few of their talents.  Even though the party made me exhausted by the end, the smiles on the kids' faces made it all worth it.  I'll save up my energy and get ready for next year.  I'm already planning - next year a candy corn theme!  Very exciting!

But before I get too far ahead of myself, here are Jessie's fabulous pictures (with a few of my amateur ones mixed in).

FREE Custom Halloween Banner - Trillustrations

(Notice the rain soaked sign - sign from the Dollar Store)

Candy Table

  

Candy Corn Printables - Skip to My Lou

Halloween Cookies - Happy Cookies

I've used Christine and her Happy Cookies for numerous events.  If you are locally located, you have to check her out - especially for Christmastime.  Not only are the cookies delicious, but Christine is one of the nicest people I know, donating her talented services to so many things.

Here's a few pictures of the food my talented friends and family made - the delicious caramel apples from my good friend Jean of Ribbon and Glue on Etsy and the monster mouth apples and peanut butter and witch's fingers from my sister (can you tell she's a teacher?).

Yummy Treats and Eats

Glitter chandeliers - Target dollar aisle

Carmel apple sign - Upper Case Living

"3" and "1" canisters - Target

 

Halloween Picture Background

 

Drinks are Served...

"Spooktacular" Banner Printable - Paper Dolls Shoppe

Pumpkin lanterns - Pottery Barn Kids (sold out)

Candelabra - Target Dollar aisle

Black pumpkin - Michael's

"Bling" - Joanne

Favors

 

 More Halloween Decor...

Pinwheels - Crossroads Cottage

Polka dot balloons - Polka Dot Market

It is very late and I may have missed a note about a product so if you are wondering where I got something, let me know.  I know my kids' pre-Halloween sugar high will be worn off before 7:00a.m. so I best be getting some sleep!  Have a great weekend and Happy Halloween!

Buckets of Halloween Fun Activities

If you've read my posts about Ethan's party, you know I have no patience waiting...  So here I am again, having no patience waiting for Jessie Warner's beautiful pics of the Halloween party.  So I decided to do a post about the fun activities from the party.  There aren't any fabulous pictures of those - just my humble, amateur ones.

For me, I love to have the beautiful candy tables and great decorations, but let's be real - the kids could care less about that.  They want to have fun!  Kim at Party Frosting calls parties that look good but offer nothing fun 2x2 parties.  I completely agree.  So, I try to have some fun activities for the kids, knowing I can only hold their attention for so long.

When I was planning for the party, I thought about doing bobbing for apples.  But my week long stint with the Swine Flu last year at this time made me think twice about that.  (I literally missed all of Halloween last year due to the nasty Swine Flu.)  Being the germ freak that I am, the idea of 30 some kids putting their cute faces in a bucket of water and opening their adorable mouths in said bucket, attempting to bite an apple their friend had previously tried just didn't sit well with me.  Just as I was ready to rule out that fun activity, Ethan's daycare provider, Heather (my savior) to the rescue!

I don't know if you your children are in daycare, but I am a working mom so I've had to rely on daycare providers all of my children's lives.  We have been blessed to have absolutely fabulous ones - and every time we have to switch providers, they get better and better!  I tell everyone that my children are mostly the well-behaved kids that they are due to our daycare providers!  Goodness knows that they wouldn't be like that if they were stuck with me all day :)

Anyway, back to the activities...  In lieu of bobbing for apples, Heather suggested bobbing for donuts which they had done with the daycare kids.  For this game, each child gets their own donut - no swapping of germs.  You will need a rod of decent length so 4 to 6 kids can stand next to each other.  You also need the smaller sized donuts that the kids can get into their mouths and some string.  Put the string through the hole (if there is not a hole, use a knife or toothpick to make one).  Tie the string around the donut.  Leave enough string that you can later tie at the child's height and to tie around the pole.

To play, I had the kids line up and then tied their donuts to the pole at their height.  If you tie it too tall, they can't reach the donut.  I tied between 5 or 6 donuts on the rod at a time.  The object is to be the first one to eat your entire donut - but you can't use your hands to eat the donut. 

This game was hilarious to say the least.  Not too surprising, the boys figured out how to get the entire donut in their mouths rather than nibbling on it daintily as the girls did.  Here are some pictures of the fun and games:

 

(Okay, so the "no hands rule" was not strictly followed.)

 

 

(These cuties are triplets!)

 

One of the other activities I attempted with the kids was fortune telling, of course to go with my costume...

 

By the time we got around to this, I had lost most of them.  But for the kids that played, it was fun.  I bought a Magic 8 ball, but they weren't too into that.  What they loved was the Fortune Telling Fish.

They were fun for the adults too!

 

We also played pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern - another fun, inexpensive game for the kids.  It was also a great way to get Grace involved in the party planning.  I traced the jack-o-lantern and used puffy paints to go over what I traced.  After that dried, she colored the picture.

 

 

And, I had pumpkins for each of the kids to decorate.

 

I purchased these pumpkin foam kits from Oriental Trading.

 

 

 

 

I also had some other craft supplies for the kids to use to decorate their pumpkins, including glitter glue, pom poms and sequins.

 

 

 

In addition to the pumpkin decorating kits, I also had these Halloween scratch ornaments from Oriental Trading.  My kids love to do these.

 

 

I hope the party didn't fall in Kim's 2x2 party category and the kids had fun.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to the other activities I had planned including Halloween Bingo and Toss the Ring on the Witch's Hat.  I'll have to save those for next year!

 

Buckets of Halloween Party

I am SO exhausted from our Halloween Party but I wanted to post a few pictures.  I have so many and want to give the party its justice with Jessie Warner's pictures.  So I'll do two different posts.  The first one I am featuring pictures of Anders Ruff Halloween printable collection.  As I've said before, printables are fabulous - you can customize them for your party and you can use them over and over.  I just LOVED this collection and had so much fun using it for the party.  Here is a sampling for some of their goods.

But first, here's Grace and Ethan in their costumes.  I did Grace's make-up with a "paint by numbers" kit.  Ethan, my boy's boy but who hates to be dirty wanted the face paint off as soon as I had it on. 

 

 

 

(And here's one of me as a fortune teller - to go with my fortune telling games.)

Remember the spray paint in the backyard?  Here is what the spray painted sticks turned into...

The printable banner from Anders Ruff says, "Trick or Treat."

A close up of the tree:

"Boo" letters from hobby Lobby

Paper Poms from My Silly Bear on Etsy

 

 

The Candy Table

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yummy Treats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture Back drop (Anders Ruff on top in the center)

 

Trick or Treat banner:  Pottery Barn Kids (sold out)

 

 

Favors:

Crayon Rolls:  Its the Small Things

Frame and Halloween Basket:  Hobby Lobby

 

 

Fun and Games

 

 

 

 

I can't wait to share more photos.  The party was lots of fun - especially the Bobbing for Donuts!  After Ethan's birthday party and this one month later, I think I need to go on party hiatus for a while. Party planning can be exhausting!  Enjoy the rest of the weekend and Go Packers!