Halloween! (Finally!!!!)

What a day! What a night! It was a yummy, delicious fright! 

The "caterpillars" when over great.

The carrots were left mostly untouched. Gee, wonder why? Maybe there was just too much other stuff! ;)

The "monster bites" were cute, but also probably too healthy to choose, when compared to everything else. 

The Muddy Buddies were a hit with adults and kids.

The fruit salad was yummy.

The Halloween Cake was fun to look at, but a little bright to eat.

Princess Elsa loved her dress. 

They got to go to HP to go trick-or-treating and show off their costumes.

 A big thank you to my co-worker Teresa for making that happen!!

Get a closer look at Aleaha's costume...it's that cute? Daddy made LED lights and screen on the face and an antennae and everything! The robot's name was "16 by 12 by 8", in honor of the shipping box from which it was crafted.

We put up lanterns to light the way to the barn, where more fun could be had.

It was so awesome!

The hanging ghosts were very ghoulish!

Kinda spooky, eh?

Nice little graveyard here. The skeleton hanging in the chicken shack in the background had blinking eyes.

The idea was to have people walk to the barn and then load up into the trailer for a hayride through the Haunted Forest. We were very lucky that the weather cooperated, and we were able to make lots of trips up there! The kids LOVED it, and even the parents had fun and took a turn to see what was up there. This was a total hit!!

We made up a legend about the "old farmer who disappeared", and then we found him on our property! Driving the old yellow pickup on top of the hill!

The LED tealights in his eyes really made it spooky.

These dancing witches were really awesome! (thank you, Pinterest!) This daylight shot doesn't capture the eerieness well enough, but at night, with the addition of the glow of the fire they are encircling, they were truly something to see. We used a generator, hidden in the woods, to make the fire light. And with a well-placed purple strobe light....well, it was truly something to see!

We had too much food, really -- the dining room table had munchies for adults, the kitchen island was totally covered too, and

the kids' table was overloaded.

It would not have happened without help from Holly and Jon. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of both of them, hard at work in the prepping and throwing of the party....but I do have one precious shot of her in her get-up from work that day:

Girl Gone Goth. Love it!

Mommy and Daddy even got dressed up and into the Halloween spirit.

Nicholas gobbled up lots of treats.

Jameson (aka Debbie Harry) seemed to enjoy it too.

Pirate Kaden had a blast (red eye intentionally left, for effect).

Aleaha's friend Wren happened to match Mommy!

Instead of bobbing for apples, we ate donuts off a string. The set-up was a little improvised, but it was easy to do in the barn.

The rule was that they had to keep their hands behind their backs.

Phoebe was a riot to watch!

Miri made it happen too!

We also made "Fairy Lanterns" in the barn - and that was completely awesome. Each child got a jar and a piece of tulle, then we activated glowsticks, cup them open to let their "ghosts juice" flow into the jar on the tulle, and they shook them up. It was so easy and so fun! I don't have pictures of theirs, but they truly looked like these:

How cool is that?? Even some parents got in the action on these!

We had lots of decorations all around, inside and out. There was the "Broom Parking" on the front porch. ("Violators will be toad.") 

Cousin It visited too.

Aleaha's pumpkin turned out wonderful - a grinning cat.

It was a wonderful night, made possible with amazing help from friends like Holly and Jon (for the prep and being there to watch over things) and Teresa (for taking the girls to the HP site that day).