Halloween Festivities

I am not a Halloweener (he he).  I did not grow up in a Halloweeny home. I can never get my husband to dress up and last year was my first adult year dressing up only because my kids kept asking me what I was going to be for Halloween.

So I am trying to reform.  Trying very hard to be Halloween festive.  Enter the internet.  So many great ideas!  (I know pinterest would be a great resource, I'm only concerned with getting into it for the potential amount of time I could see myself wasting there.)   So we started off with a great idea I saw here - power tool pumpkins.  Genius idea for a house full of boys and no carving involved.

I forgot to take a picture of it lit up. Hers looked better, we should have tried to make the holes bigger since we didn't have a bigger drill bit, but it still looked cool. And was fun.

Then I decided to have some little Halloween parties for my kids.  I did one with the little kids we do preschool with for the twins.  Then the next day I did one with some kids from Cash's class at school.

I chocolate-dipped a bunch of pretzels and tried to make them festive looking.

 

Then I talked about how it was October and because of Halloween I found the weirdest foods at the grocery store.  Like...

Mummies.  And....

  

Monsters.

And yes, even...

Since there was such strange stuff at the store I tried to look elsewhere to see what else I could find to eat.  But since it's rained here so much lately, well, guess what I found a lot of....

Yep, worms.  Lots and lots of slimy, wiggly worms.

Then I had to concoct my Witches Brew.  Pour in some bat juice (I debated calling it spider blood or something but wanted to stay on the side of gross rather than gory), add a few spider eggs (raw sugar crystals), and then I asked Cash what his dad did for work.  "He's a doctor."  Right, and what kind of doctor?  "An eye doctor."  Yep, so I had to have dad bring something home from work so I could complete my potion. Eyeballs.

It may not look like much in the picture, but the effect was great.  

It was so fun watching them laugh and squirm and giggle and get so grossed out!  Phoenix covered his mouth and backed away every time I came near him with a worm, and Ashton never even broke down and tried one. They were made of jello that you pour over a bunch of bendy straws with the necks extended that you then squeeze out one at a time.  It was hilarious. Even when I was squeezing them out of the straws some of them I swear would keep moving and give my mom and I the willies!  I found them here, and she referenced this person who had an unbelievable likeness in the ones she made!  I also got the monster pudding cups from this same blog (I've made lots of stuff from her blog and love it), saw the mummy ideas here, and got the ghost poop idea from a very Halloween-savvy friend.  

I made a bean bag toss and gave away prizes when they played.

We also did a couple crafts - some simple spider pops,

(Although they looked better the second time we made them since I cut the pipe cleaner a little shorter, and I would have liked to find all red suckers so they would look like black widows but no luck.)

And then we did these super cute Halloween lanterns I saw on my cousins blog.  She's the one who led me to find them here and all the other great stuff I have since found on that blog.  

It was so fun and turned out so perfect!  The crafts were fun and really cute, not too hard for kids too.  (I'd already pre-cut all the shapes out of construction paper).  

As for that witches brew, I have to say I love these new submersible lights I got - (interjection - they made for great bath fun too with some baby food containers filled with water and food coloring and then closing one of these lights inside them.)

 

Anyhow, there you have it. I am now officially Halloweeny.  The kids had a blast and it was super fun. 

Who knew the three year-olds would be so much easier to control than the five year-olds?  Man, those kids were wild!  We did invite a set of triplets, however, so maybe we were asking for it.  :)

  

I'd say I could make it a tradition - but I think I already used up all the good ideas I could muster.  And of course I can only do it if my mom decides to keep up her annual October visits...and she will probably change her mind after this.  :)

May your Halloween season be just as spook-tacular!