Halloween Party 2012

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I already posted the Halloween party preview, but I wanted to follow up and show the actual party pictures.  They aren’t quite as pretty because I was rushed (guests were arriving as I took these!) and the lighting was terrible so I had the flash on.  I hate using the flash and try to avoid it at all costs!

You saw this table before but now it has food!
Here’s the other table with utensils, napkins, plates and the hot food.  Which didn’t really stay hot very long and makes me wish I had some chafing dishes.
My mother-in-law made her homemade root beer (with dry ice of course to give it that misty creepy look.)
She also made these fun “finger” cookies.  They are green sugar cookies with painted halloween fingernails.  We also served halloween chips & salsa, fruit kabobs…
And a plate full of carrots and olives to make a jack-o-lantern face.  I got the idea from my friend Sara from Mom Endeavors and hers is much cuter.  I just didn’t have the time to arrange it perfectly.
I spent all morning making these donut holes from the same method I used in my cider-spiced donut holes recipe. One thing I learned–you MUST use the buttermilk biscuit dough and no other kind because it just won’t work. I also made some pizza rolls. I normally make them with buttermilk biscuit dough as well but since I had to make so many I made the dough from scratch. They still turned out great! I set up the silverware in jars and had these little pumpkins all around the table.  But no one even saw the straws!   And the most popular snack was these little hot dog mummies! I wrapped hot dogs (cut in half) in croissant roll dough. I cut the dough into smaller strips to make it look more mummy-ish.
I have a horrible crafter’s confession:  I never make my kids’ halloween costumes!  Okay I did the year we were the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown characters but every other year I just bought them.  I just see some cute costumes that would be a lot of time and effort to replicate and they cost $20—how can I compete with that?  And when Will put on the Tiger costume he just looked so cute and squishy, I was sold.

Can you tell what we are?  A circus!  Yes, our costumes were very symbolic.  I’m the ringmaster, Will is a tiger, Lukey is a monkey, and Miss E is an elephant.
My brother came to the party too and I had to share this cute picture of him with his kids.  They borrowed our fireman-themed costumes from a couple years back and were the cutest little fireman team!

It was such a great party, seriously. I’ve never thrown a party that went so smoothly, actually. The guests arrived and ate all the food up and mingled.

GAMES!

The Nametag Game:  During the mingling part we did that nametag game where you put a famous character (halloween characters in this case) on a nametag on someone’s back and they have to guess who they are based on others’ clues. I didn’t choose hard enough people I think.

Candy Bar Game:  Then we played the Candy Bar game. If you are not familiar with this game, it’s a very good game for all ages (although my tired parents were not thrilled at taking their turns.) You sit in a circle and pass around a pair of die, everyone rolling for their turn. If you get doubles, you must put on a bunch of stuff (we used a scarf, a headband, and two oven mitts) and then you have to open up a VERY well wrapped–as in layers and layers–candybar with two spoons. You try to get as far as you can until the next person rolls doubles. Whoever opens the candybar wins it! And guess who won…me. I wasn’t even playing but my mom rolled doubles three times and was sick of doing it, so I went. Haha!

Wrap the Mummy:  Then we played ‘wrap the mummy’ where we divided into two teams and each team designated a ‘mummy’ and then people helped to wrap him up in toilet paper. This game ended very quickly and I think we could have added some sort of element to make it last longer.

Pinata!  Finally we ended the night by having all the kids hit a pinata! And then we divided all the candy up and the kids had a great time with all their candy and prizes. It was a very popular party with the kids.

I would love to have a halloween party where there’s lots more spooky elements and decorations, although my husband worked all day adding some spooky things to the entrance (which I’m sorry I didn’t take pictures of).  But you have to do what you can handle and I think that’s what I did.  Someday I’ll have the Greatest Halloween Party ever though.