Our 2nd Annual Halloween Party

What started out last year as me saying, "let's stay home and play game instead of trick or treating, it'll be less work for me!" has turned into me scouring Pinterest for game ideas, decorating ideas and food ideas, weeks, even months before Halloween. But in the end, it's always a great time.
I don't do any decorating until THE day and once the kids have left for school. My mom pops over as my saving grace and gives me a hand. Thank goodness!
This year I got the hubby to make a version of our own grim reaper and I think he turned out fantastic!!

I downloaded some eerie sounds and music from the web, so I had a small boombox playing with heavy breathing, evil laughing and a scary voice as the kids came up the deck. Their reactions were priceless.

On the other side of the grim reaper I had a stuck upside down witch

then it was time for food and games

I had lots of fun with the food this year. The Witchy fingers turned out good. I used a simple sugar cookie recipe but one thing is make sure you roll your fingers thin as the dough does spread a lot. Next is the Bizzare Brain, it was pretty jiggly but tasty. The Punch was a hit. I had to add the frozen hand again and I also tried gummy eyeballs but they kept flipping upside down. The Phantom Hands on the chip bowl added a nice touch to the theme. Then we had zombie eyes (devilled eggs) but of course I didn't have any good food coloring so the red came out pink. The Jello worms turned out good but they are very tedious and make quite a mess with lots left over.

All the games I got from  Minute to Win It. They were so easy to prep for because most of the stuff needed is found in the home already. We had lots of laughs!

Face the Cookie - using only the face, move cookies from the forehead to the mouth!

Flip Your Lid- flip a cup at edge of a table onto a bottle.

Matchmaker-pick up one of eighteen cups on a center table and place the small candy from under that cup into one of three glasses placed around the outer rim of the room. Object is to get 6 of each colored candy into the 3 glasses.

Nose Dive-Player must transfer cotton balls, 1 at a time from serving bowl to another using only petroleum jelly on the nose.

Rapid Fire-Players must shoot rubber bands ( I found some skeleton shooters from walmart that worked perfect for this) to knock a triangle stack of 6 cups completely off a platform.

I love my sons face in that last photo.

Bucket Head- Catch 3 balls in a bucket on top of the head. These guys got quite creative.

Junk In the Trunk- Wiggle a box that is attached to your waist filled with ping pong balls until the box is empty.

Ka-Broom- Drop a broom onto a plate, catapulting a marshmallow into the air, then catch it in a cup.

Split the Uprights- Flick paper triangle footballs between 2 stacks of plastic cups and into a bowl. 

Wet Ball- Player must propel a balloon into a garbage can using only a spray bottle.

glow bowling. We put glow sticks into pop bottles and used small pumpkins as bowling balls. This game was really cool in the dark.

I made this dart board last year and it was such a hit. I write a "prize" on a piece of paper and put it inside a water balloon before blowing them up. The kids throw darts at the balloons to win their prize.

And the Grand Finale-the pinata!

Birthday Party

For my daughters birthday we did a Candyland theme. The cake was so fun to make, I really don't think there's a right or wrong way to do a cake full of candy. I got this idea from Betty Crocker Cupcakes and more cookbook however she made hers completely out of cupcakes, my "main" land is a 9x13 and I made 12 cupcakes (regular size and mini's). 

we played a version of "pin the tail on the donkey". The kids had to feed cupcakes into my daughters mouth!

then we had water balloon obstacle races.

I also got the original Candyland game so there was a round of that played too!

Belle Hairstyle

What little girl doesn't want to be a princess? We've done Belle's hair for a friends themed birthday party and also for a Christmas concert. 

You can find this one at here

Happy Halloween!

This year we did things a little differently around here for Halloween. Honestly it all started because I was feeling super lazy and a bit of a suck.I didn't want the hassle of costumes-making them, buying them, I didn't want to go out in the cold...so I tried to convince my kids that let's just stay home and play a few games, I'll buy some candy and that's that. Well it worked, they decided to give it a try so then it was time to get my butt in gear and find some games. And I lost myself, once I started finding games and coming up with different ideas I was afraid I was going to run out of time-perhaps that's why I shouldn't leave everything to last minute. So this is what we did...
First as soon as the kids were on the bus for school in the morning, I got to work on the decorations...

                         

the Black Halloween punch with the frozen hand was a huge hit.  

the haunted house cake was found here

My mom popped over while I was decorating and gave me a hand with our "greeter"

First game was trying to eat a donut tied on a string without touching it with your hands, they were a little too close as they were trying to use the back of each others heads to get leverage.

The next game was bowling. I taped number values on the front of pop bottles and the kids had to throw acorn squashes while being blindfolded.

Next was bobbing for apples...

Then the dart game. I found this one on Martha Stewart there were some awesome ideas on there. I used water balloons and each balloon contained a small piece of paper with points or prizes written on it that I threw in before blowing them up.

The Grand Finale....

and even mom gets a chance

This pinata lasted a long time! I was rather relieved with the time I spent doing it I was glad it didn't bust on the first hit! 

Well I think it was a hit, the kids were even starting to tell me what we should add next year!!