Halloween

We started this weekend with kids-birthday-party craziness.  Cal's birthday is Halloween, but rather than have all the holiday insanity packed into one day, I decided to spread it out over the weekend and had his party on Saturday.  Before the party, Nick and I ran around cleaning, getting snacks and balloons, decorating etc.  Cal fell asleep in the car!  We had to wake him up when his guests started to arrive. 

The party was a whirlwind! Ten kids six and under (most were 3), and a couple of older kids, plus parents and baby siblings attended.  I had three activities planned including cupcakes and thought that would fill two hours.  I was sadly mistaken. For some reason, I thought because they are so young, it would take them longer to do things, but no. Because they are young, their attention span is very short. Duh. We made monster masks, then had a pumpkin hunt outside.  Both were fun, just short, together taking a half an hour. So, I went ahead with cupcakes and Happy Birthday song, all of which took another half hour.  That left an hour to fill. 

Cupcakes

Birthday Boy

Nice face!

These are the only pictures taken by our camera that day that weren't blurry (well, too blurry anyway).  And I didn't even take the last two.  I was too busy running around.

As for what to do with the last hour of the party, I took suggestions.  "Why didn't you just let them play with toys?" you ask?  Well, the moments between activities when they defaulted to that were incredibly chaotic and crazy.  I felt I need to exercise a little control.

Nick's sister mentioned a game they played at her daughter's party which consisted of dancing during the music and freezing when it stopped.  The kids enjoyed that for two songs.  Then I felt the tide turning again.  Next, Nick brought out Hullabaloo, a game that involves following instructions to move to different shaped, colored, and be-pictured pads.  It's fun and easy.  They enjoyed that for a while but when I next looked, there were only two kids playing.  Then one of the three year olds wanted to play Duck, Duck, Goose.  Yay!  Some of them had no idea how to play and none of the Geese wanted to catch the Gooser.  There was a lot of running all over the place, but they were having fun, so who cares!  Finally, Willa mentioned going outside, which was a brilliant suggestion because the kids ran around chasing each other, played with the trike, wagon, etc., and drew on our vast driveway with chalk.  Everyone was happy and I finally relaxed! 

When the kid party was over, the family party raged on.  Well, raged might be overstating it.  I collapsed into a chair with a glass of wine and let Nick take over (it was mostly his friends and family).  Thankfully he was totally amenable.  I had a lovely evening in my chair with my wine, letting Nick bring me food.  The kids happily messed up the house with Cal's birthday gifts and played with their cousin.  I was so exhausted, I can't remember what happened after everyone left.  Seriously, I'm sure it had nothing to do with the wine.



 Sunday we slept in (as much as kids would let us).  We cleaned up the leftover mess and then Nick made yummy french toast.  We let Cal open a couple of presents that remained unopened from the day before.  One was a long tube with 70, yes 70, little cars.  Not my favorite gift of the year.  We now need something to contain this traffic jam.  Cal was ecstatic. 

Nick escaped to work and Emily came over.  The kids spent the afternoon playing with Cal's new Play Doh Puppies Playset.  If you aren't familiar with this (and who is, really), it is a puppy whose Play Doh hair and tongue grow and who has molds for little puppies on her (I guess, right?) belly.  She also has molds for toys and treats all over her body.  The kids love it; I think it is kind of weird.   

I spent the afternoon carving our jack o' lantern.  I drew lots of faces until I landed on an owl.  Emily volunteered to scoop and did a great job getting out lots of goopy innards.  Willa was excited, but then grossed out. 

The masterpiece

I have to say, I really like this jack o' lantern and it wasn't terribly hard to carve. 

We sent Emily home to eat and get ready for the big event and then she and her mother met us back here.

Dorothy and Super Cal (he has a mask, but didn't want to wear it)

and a witch from next door.

We went out for about 45 minutes and then it got too cold for everyone.  We had our first freeze that night, so we weren't just being wimpy.  The kids got more than enough loot and came home cold and tired, but happy.

It was a crazy, fun weekend.  We missed you, though.

Whooo