Halloween Madness!!

Our family loves holidays! Any excuse to make the day extraordinary….and we’re in!!! The kids know to expect fun decorations and plenty of activities to “honor” the day.

Decorating the house.

The kids were super excited about their pumpkins.

Can’t you tell??!!!

The 2013 kids area…complete with Halloween books for them to read. The little ones love to pick at all this stuff and play with it.

Our halloween mantle. I found some really cute Halloween picture frames in the clearance aisle of Target last year. I framed pictures of past Halloweens, which were fun to look at an reminence. The little black lanterns were from IKEA and the spider webs were from the local dollar tree. We grabbed a few small pumpkins from the local farm stand.

The outside of the house: complete with carved pumpkins, corn stalks, mums, a hay bale, and plenty of spiders and webs.

DDD loves scary stuff and wants to go “crazy” with scary decorating for halloween. I do not like the gory and scary aspect of halloween, and recently found the story of St. Felix. You can read about him here.  He was an amazing saint who was being persecuted by the Roman guards and was protected in hiding by a spider who spun a web to conceal his hiding place. After reading this story, I explained to DDD that he would be allowed to put spider webs up for decorations. They would serve as a reminder to us of the story of St. Felix. He LOVED that idea and was given “full reign” in taking care of the webbing outside. He was totally impressive and took great pride in what he did. I could have easily “fixed” what he did….but…is it really that big of a deal??

So…there’s webbing everywhere….my son feels great…..that’s really what it’s all about.

Activities:

DDD’s scary jack-o-lantern. He managed to grab my cell phone and take this picture. Unfortunately, my hands were so covered in pumpkin seeds that I didn’t get close ups from the other kids.

This year I bought Mini Me a “stick on” face. She had so much fun arranging and re-arranging his face. She was obviously proud of herself!

These little foam shapes and patterns from the local dollar tree were fantastic for helping keep the little ones busy during the day.

Food

In the past, we have made orange pancakes with chocolate chip jack’o lantern faces.

I found this idea on Pinterest and loved it. I simply used a black sharpie to draw on the faces. It was a great non-candy treat after dinner.

Dinner has always been something super simple to keep warm and feed the families that come over. Last year, it was chili. You can see my recipe for chili here. This year, it was a spiral ham, and homemade macaroni and cheese.

Our table, last year, decorated for our party! I grabbed some halloween plates from the dollar store and found a cute black web napkin holder at the Ross last year. This picture shows our fun art clothes- line that details our artwork from the day.

Costumes

Last year, the kids were ALL ABOUT being ScoobyDoo and Mystery Incorporated. How funny are they?

This year I had a Doc McStuffins and her stuffed animal, Lambie.

I could just squeeze them!!!

Sweet Pea wanted to make her own costume. How awesome is she???!!!….she was a table!!! haha. She wore this around her waist. It was cumbersome but every one of the houses we visited commented on how awesome and creative her costume was. She loved it!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any close-ups of DDD, and the fashionista. The fashionista was a little kitty cat and DDD was a power ranger. In our excitement to get out the door to trick or treat, I missed snagging a picture of them.  Boooooo

I just love to watch my kids run from house to house in their excitement for candy. It’s like the ultimate scavenger hunt! It’s not about getting a ridiculous amount of candy….it’s about the fun of the adventure.

Here’s to the next Halloween!!!

God Bless,

Tammi