Happy Halloween!!

We celebrated Halloween with a BANG this year.

Instead of having birthday parties this year we decided to throw a huge Halloween party for everyone. In case you're wondering-- yes we are crazy.

It was so much fun though!

We had Kohler and Lauren's party together. Here's a picture of the boys.

Here are the girls. I tried everything to get this picture to face the right way-- not happening. 

I think we had a total of 24 kids at our house that night.

We split them up into groups and had different stations.

Cookie Decorating.

Pin the nose on the pumpkin.

Freeze Dance

Watching Scooby Doo.

For dinner we had mummy dogs, ranch dip in a pumpkin (pumpkin brains) and goblin fingers and toes (veggies).

To drink we had swamp water, Mary's blood and polyjuice potion.

We handed out ghost pops at the end.

We threw a separate party for the older girls. 

 Alyssa and some of her friends.

The big girls party. We had around 20 tweeners at our house. It was crazy loud! People said they could hear us all the way down the street. They had a lot of fun though. 

Cookie Decorating 

 For dinner we had bloodied bats, bat droppings (chocolate fondue) and goblin fingers and toes, witches wands, fingernails of a hag and ghost droppings (stuff to dip in the fondue). We also had spider ice cubes where I froze spider rings in the ice.

Kamary and some of her friends 

Playing murder in the dark. I loved this as a teenager.

We were going to have a separate movie night for Hanna and her friends, but she ended up getting really sick and we had to cancel it. :( We'll have to reschedule sometime, maybe for Christmas.

Jason was a great husband and help during the parties. I could feel myself getting tense during the big kids party and Jason would be there to help me chill out. Then he would get tense at the little kids party and I would help him chill out. Together we made it possible without going insane.

After that the kids had a Halloween party at school and we had a Halloween party at our church. 

 This year Alyssa was a Karate Kid. Lauren was Rapunzel from Tangled, but she didn't want the long hair (less work for me) and Kohler was Batman. I really like how Lauren's costume turned out. I did eyelets for the first time. I was pretty nervous but they're easy. I think it added to her costume.

Hanna was Draculaura (from Monster High) and Kamary was a spy. Kamary came up with her own costume and her own props. I had no part in it-- very nice. 

Brynlie was our cute little witch and stole the hearts of all who saw her. 

This year at our church instead of doing a trunk-or-treat, everyone decorated rooms and the kids went trick-or-treating inside the building. It was a lot of fun. 

I went a long time without dressing up, but the past couple of years I've wanted to dress up. This year I was a pirate (in honor of my pirate novel I'm writing). 

I'm trying to give an evil eye. It's not working out too well. 

On Halloween night we watched a scary movie. I thought everyone looked so cute lined up on the couch. 

More movie watching 

Usually Kohler and Lauren fight like crazy. I thought this was so cute with them cuddled up to each other. I guess they do love each other--sometimes. 

Again with the side pictures-- grr.  Here is everyone carving pumpkins. It's kind of nice because my older kids could help the younger ones and it was very low maintainance for me. 

more carving 

The finished product. Some were pretty massacred.  

I love Halloween in Arizona. The weather is always perfect and people really get into it. Houses are decorated and people are out in their driveways with a firepit and their candy. It's a very social thing going trick-or-treating in AZ. This year I took Hanna, Alyssa, Lauren and Brynlie. Kamary was "too big" to go this year and Kohler got in trouble earlier in the day. :(  I really don't feel bad for him missing out because he's been to so many parties. It was good though for him and the others to see that I follow through on my threats. 

 Here was a particularly creepy house and its owner (behind us).

One house built a pirate ship in their driveway-- so fun! They had a cannon that shot out tootsie rolls, sound effects and fireworks. They were all dressed like pirates. I felt like I fit right in! :) 

 The kids had to "Walk the Plank" to get their candy out of the treasure chest. Hanna was the only one that braved it. The rest of the kids just gathered tootsie rolls after the cannon shot them out.

 After trick-or-treating we came home and had our tradition of Soup in a Pumpkin. Yummy.

To top off the night we had carmel apples.

It was a crazy busy month but we had a great time celebrating.

Now to welcome November!!