A couple of years ago, I had a birthday party for the twins with a Halloween theme. Their birthday is kind of close to Thanksgiving, so moving it up a few weeks makes sense for me. I host Thanksgiving & Christmas every year, so this makes it easier on me too! I don't do parties every year, I'm not that parent. I'm also not the parent that spends a small fortune on the party. The last time I hosted this party I had 30 kids. Um, yeah, never again. Some people's children are just not properly home trained. Anyway, the party was a great success and I wanted to do it again-on a smaller scale.
I still had lots of stuff leftover from the last party, including the gift bags! I found these at Marc's for 2/$1.00. How cute are they? They cost more than plastic bags, but I couldn't resist. Plus I saved tons of money on the rest of the stuff-so I splurged. The little tag tied to the bag is a "thank-you note". Then I don't have to remember to tie them down to send them later.
I still had lots of stuff leftover from the last party, including the gift bags! I found these at Marc's for 2/$1.00. How cute are they? They cost more than plastic bags, but I couldn't resist. Plus I saved tons of money on the rest of the stuff-so I splurged. The little tag tied to the bag is a "thank-you note". Then I don't have to remember to tie them down to send them later.
I found this awesome 18 pack of pencils, stickers, rings, stencils, & erasers for $5!
I buy a lot of my decorations at Marc's. I'm seriously sad for you if you don't have a Marc's of your own. But any store with a close out section, like Big Lots works too. They have the cutest stuff for really cheap.
Or another thing I do, after every holiday, I go to the clearance sales for next year. They mark everything down to next to nothing to get rid of it for Christmas (which as you know practically starts in July). I've been living on my own for 20 years now so I have a pretty large collection of decor for every holiday.The kids all help out with the decorating. For the last party, D took cheap black garbage bags & shredded them into curtains for the doorways. He also took it upon himself to make an adorable wreath out of paper towel rolls. This year, we were able to reuse everything from last year.
Last time I made hot dog 'ghosts' in a sea of mac & cheese. This year, I decided the food would be more 'snacky' since it was between lunch & dinner. BabyGirl made cute cookies with frosting. & I made witches' brew-which was just apple juice, pear nectar & ginger ale. You could also use Tang for the orange color. I also made a really simple cake. It was supposed to be a 3D Frankenstein head, but I got busy at work and I was just too tired to make it. I thought this one was cute too, though.
BabyGirl made these sandwich cookies-you can't tell, but the middle is red (blood), the top is yellow (for the moon), then finished them off with a black icing bat. Sadly, nobody got a picture & they were demolished in seconds!
And my favorite-the bleeding heart! I filled the plastic mold with jello and turned it onto a white plate. Then I mixed burgundy food color with corn syrup for 'blood'. The kids loved it!
The kids all wore their costumes. Even Stewie put his on-he's a turtle (minus the hat).
And don't forget the games! The games they loved best were musical chairs & the mummy contest. I made a Halloween playlist on my iPod for musical chairs & believe me -that takes up some time. The musical chairs winners got a $1.00 pack of glow bracelets and everyone got a little trophy for Mummy Wrapping.
Then the inevitable happened-toilet paper fight.
And after all the kids went home, we may or may not have turned one of the presents into a drinking game.
Check out that action shot!
Sorry the pictures aren't the best, I didn't take most of them & obviously the camera setting wasn't right. But you get the idea!
Hope your Halloween was just as fun!
