Halloween Party

I have to say it.........I'm glad Halloween is almost over. I'm worn out. We had a big halloween party last weekend and Natalie is on her 5th costume tonight (2 of which I made). We had a great time at the halloween party though. The kids all looked so cute and we had lots of goodies, games, hay rides, picture spots, and food. Although at the end of the party everyone decided that Jumping on the trampoline and playing in the leaves at the same time was a good idea. I asked my dd what her favorite part was...I knew it had to be the games I worked tirelessly on or all the goodies I put together for the dessert buffet or the great hay ride the neighbor put together for everyone....but guess what she said. Jumping on the trampoline. Can you believe it? That wasn't even on my plan for 2 months ahead of time. Just goes to show you sometimes fun just happens without being planned :) Who would have thought. I could have just invited them got my pictures, picked up some pizza and threw them in the trampoline. Oh Well...I'll put that on my plan for next year.

So without further ado here are some pictures of my carefully planned out halloween party that hopefully someone who reads this blog will appreciate :)

I saw Amy Atlas halloween dessert buffet in a magazine and it went straight on my list of fabulous things to do for the halloween party. I realized mine would not look as glamorous but I think it turned out darn cute and if I could have found a wall that would have given me a seamless background in the house it would have even looked better. Although I did get reprimanded by my dh for putting thumbtacks in the ceiling after the party(I told him that's why I did the setup at midnight the night before when he was fast asleep..hehe) To setup the dessert buffet I took my buffet cabinet and another lower cabinet I have and placed them one in front of the other. This made the dessert buffet wider and it varied the height slightly. I then took boxes and wrapped them in black and white polka dot paper and pulled out all my white dishes for the orange, black, and white foods. I collected candies and items that were in the orange, black, and white color family all during September and October when I was out shopping. For the centerpiece I sprayed some branches black and placed them in a white vase. I also took some flower cones and painted them orange and placed black paper mache dots all around them and put some black pipe cleaners in the top of them. The balloons were from oriental trading. They are the pumpkin punch balloons. For the actual food I only made a couple of the items and the rest I purchased. The homemade items were the coconut balls, chocolate covered pretzel sticks, and the caramel apple(well my sister in law made those! Thanks Amy!) The rest of the items were purchased...the white donut and peeps ghost skewers, reece cups, m&m's, pumpkin suckers, smal pumpkin pies, and chocolate cream with orange icing cupcakes. All in all I think it turned out great and everyone loved it. I'm already dreaming up my christmas buffet idea.

Next, since I feared it was going to rain the day of the party I took all the games and placed them in my husband's basketball dome(don't ask). The dome actually came in very handy and I think we will have the games in there from now on. I had them lined up against the walls and instead of pumpkin bowling(since I didn't think the pumpkin and the concrete floor would cooperate) we used a basketball to knock down the bottles. We also had a small baskeball hoop for a hoop shoot, a tub full of sand and bones for a dig for bone game(small children love this one), and a duck pond. The other games we had was plinko(oriental trading), spider ring toss(oriental trading), bottle toss(oriental trading), punch out, and a bean bag toss. I used the same bean bag board that I had painted last year. My mom graciously made 4 bean bags for each person and the party and I found halloween buckets at Michael's for $.79 cents so everyone would get a bean bag game to take home with them. Each game had individual goody bags or tickets you could win. And of course we had a pinata. It took forever to get that thing to bust. After everyone played the games we took pictures in my homemade spooky picture frame wall. I think the parents enjoyed this just as much as the kids. After all the excitement of the games was over I led the children with their tickets to my makeshift ticket table. I set it up sort of like chucky cheese and they got to pick their prizes. They seemed to like this and it was funny the things they picked out. We then ate goodies, went on a fabulous hayride, and then we took a group picture and they jumped on the trampoline while playing in the leaves. Overall it was a big success. Natalie dressed up as a bee, my dh dressed up as a Buzz the beekeeper, and I dressed up as a Vampire. I'm always looking for something to put on 20 minutes before everyone arrives. This year it was throw on some face paint, rip up a white shirt, and put blood all over me. Maybe next year I will actually plan for me an outfit :) I hope you enjoy my party details and can use some of these ideas for your parties. Let me know what you think and let me know if you have any ideas for next year.