Spooktacular Halloween Party

Every year for the past four years we host a family-friendly Halloween party.  This really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because I don’t even like Halloween.  Seriously, the whole death/zombie/ghosts thing freaks me out.  I have zero desire to be scared, see no point to horror movies or haunted houses, and do not see the appeal of eating food that looks like eyeballs or any other body part for that matter.  The whole holiday is so odd to me, and that is why our annual party is just completely illogical.  But years ago I realized that I am raising boys and boys love Halloween, so I better get over my issues with it. 

Since we still have young kids I can get away with the friendlier side of Halloween for now.  But as Joey gets older he is asking for more and more spookiness...I see some over the top Halloweens in my future.  This year Joey was so excited about planning the party.  He poured over catalogs and browsed the internet for hours looking for just the right things to get.  I took him to Party City to pick out $40 worth of decorations and he said it was, “the best day of his life!”  Gee, I wonder who he takes after…

In the days leading up to the party we were hard at work decorating the house with both homemade crafts and store-bought items. This year we co-hosted the party with a good friend of ours.  She runs a daycare out of her house and had tons of great ideas for kid games and themed food.  It was a lot of fun doing the party together this year!

Our kitchen cabinets got some embellishments thanks to construction paper and tape...

A roll of black felt was easily transformed into bats which were placed in a swarm on a large mirror.

 

The night before the party we were hard at work wrapping apple juice boxes with white crepe paper and gluing on googly eyes to transform them into mummies.  Joey felt the need to be in character to do this task...

We also turned Nutter Butter cookies into ghosts by dipping them in melted white chocolate chips and adding sugar eyes to them.

Chocolate cupcakes with Oreo cookie eyes (Junior mint pupils) and Reese's Pieces beaks were fun to assemble.

Leftover white chocolate and chocolate sprinkle eyes turned ordinary pretzel sticks into yummy mummies!

Mandarin orange cups were turned into jack-o-lanterns with a Sharpie.

Altogether between the two hosts we had a ton of food!  Artichoke dip, deviled eggs with olive "spiders" on top, Chex Mix Muddy Buddies, chips, several different kinds of cupcakes, cookies made to look like witches hats, the list goes on and on!

 

The princess was ready to party and eagerly awaiting her guests to arrive...

Since I don't have permission from all the parents, I am not going to post most of the party pics.  But I will say that we had approx 30 kids arrive and it was total and complete Halloween chaos for a solid three hours.  We had witches, race car drivers, spiders and more, of all ages running around having a total blast!  We played games like eat the donut off the string, eyeball on a spoon relay races, a ghost pinata (that was madness with that many kids - just imagine the scene when that candy hit the ground), a Halloween fruit snack hunt in the backyard, pin the nose on the pumpkin, dig for prizes in brains and eyeballs (spaghetti and grapes), and even a costume contest (that was a total disaster because all the kids voted for themselves - it was a 30 way tie!). 

Here is Joey playing the donut game.  He came in third, and this was easily his favorite game of the day.

Here he is reaching into the bucket of brains and eyeballs for his prize...

Here is Logan playing the same game but after he touched it he gave up, he didn't care what the prize was!

The hard part about a party like this is that when it's over, you just want to clean everything up - but there are still a couple more days until Halloween.  We still have pumpkins to carve, the fall festival at school to attend, the haunted corn maze at Dave's Farm to navigate, It's a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown to watch, and of course TRICK-or-TREATING!  Fun times!

Disney Family Movie Nights

Family Movie Nights are some of our favorite times.  All the blankets come out, pajamas are on, and popcorn with M&M's in it is a requirement.  Yes, you read that right, M&M's right in the hot popcorn.  I don't know where I came up with that idea 10 years ago but boy has it stuck! It has gotten to the point where Joey, Logan and Emmie think that's just how popcorn is made.

Emmie is finally old enough to sit through a movie (as long as it's animated) and even holds her own in the argument that always takes place about which movie to watch. 

We have decided that all movies between now and December 8 must be Disney movies to help us get ready for our big Disneyland trip in December.  We will of course make an exception to watch, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown - another family tradition for Halloween.  

Last weekend we watched Finding Nemo.  Emmie had never seen it, so it was fun to watch with her, and it had been awhile since the rest of us had watched it.  Now they are definitely ready to talk to Crush at Disney's CA Adventure!

Silly faces before the movie starts.

"Mommy let's make sad faces now!"

Angry faces!  Can you tell we were killing time waiting for Daddy to hook up the DVD player??

Parenting Tip - Prevent Rolling Out of Bed

This past weekend we spent the night in a hotel room as part of our trip down south for a wedding.  With just the three little kids with us, one room with two queen beds was a tight fit but doable.  To prevent the inevitable musical beds routine in the night we just decided to start the night with me in one bed with Logan and Joey, and Jeff in the other bed with Emmie.

This arrangement worked out as well as it possibly could have until Emmie started rolling out of the bed and onto the floor in her sleep.  I don't care how exhausted you are, or how deeply you are asleep, when you hear that thud and immediate crying you jump out of bed.  At home her bed has a guardrail so she can't roll out of bed, but the hotel beds are not designed for tossing and turning toddlers. During previous hotel stays I have spent fitful nights half awake with my arm around her so she doesn't take a tumble.  But this time it was Jeff who was with her and he doesn't do "half awake" - when he is asleep he is very asleep.  So, throughout the night she rolled out of bed, and rolled out of bed, and rolled out of bed.  It was ridiculous! Pillows next to her didn't work, putting her in the middle of the bed didn't work, and Jeff laying her on his chest didn't even work.

By 3 a.m. I was desperate and remembered a Pinterest tip I had seen about using a pool noodle under the mattress pad instead of a guardrail.  I obviously don't travel with a pool noodle, but the hotel beds were made with those decorative bolster pillows and those worked great!

Line up the pillows on the bed to block the edge.

Cover the pillows with the fitted sheet so they can't slip off the bed with your child!

Viola! An easier solution than staying up all night with your arm around your wayward toddler!

Whirlwind Weekend

This weekend Jeff's sister Jen got married in Porterville and Jeff was in the wedding.  Porterville is approx 5 hours from where we live so this trip with the kids took some planning.  Jeff had to be there on Friday so he left solo and then I followed with the kids on Saturday.  I must admit I was nervous to attempt this road trip alone with three kids - 6 years old and younger.  But with a lot of advance planning and some serious good luck the trip went very smoothly. 

I knew the kids would meltdown if I attempted to drive the whole way without at least one long stop.  So I packed a bunch of snacks in individual sandwich bags (to eliminate any possible sharing issues), some juice boxes, empty juice cups with lids, and of course our overnight bags and off we went Saturday morning.  Our first stop was the Stockton Children's Museum.  It was about an hour into the trip and would allow the kids to play in a contained environment.  Plus we have been there once before so I knew what to expect, which was nice. 



The future firemen.




Or maybe future vets.



Or farmers.

Or police officers.

Fun with the fun mirrors.

Joey took this pic for us.

After the museum we drove for about another hour before driving through McDonalds for Happy Meals.  Those empty juice cups with lids came in handy when the Happy Meals came with bottles of chocolate milk.  No way am I passing back a bottle of milk to a two year old.

After another 45 minutes the inevitable "I have to go potty" chorus began.  Since the thought of gas station bathrooms gives me nightmares I opted to stop at Baskin Robbins for ice cream and much nicer bathrooms instead.  The kids loved this idea!

We made it to the hotel just in time to meet up with Jeff, get changed, and load back into the car for the wedding.

Logan is wedding-ready with Pandi Bear in the elevator on the way to the car.

This was the first wedding for the kids and they did great! We sat in the back row in case I needed to make an escape  - but thankfully a quiet iPhone game kept Emmie's attention and the boys were on their best behavior.  Only once did Logan ask, "Is it over yet?" which did get a few chuckles from the next row up.

Patiently waiting for the ceremony to end so he could have cake!

It doesn't get much cuter than this! Daddy and his princess dancing together.

One of the coolest wedding ideas ever - let the kids decorate the dance floor (sidewalk chalk and concrete dance floor).
Logan was so excited to show me the heart he made for me.  LUV!

The very awesome DJ brought out a box of crazy hats for the kids.  Obviously our kids loved them.

This was the hat Logan kept on for the majority of the night.

The wedding was beautiful and thankfully very laid back.  From the unique "farmers market" favors to the family recipes served for dinner it was obvious that a lot of thought went into every detail. I know that we had a great time and for me the best part was when the dancing started.  Joey was so excited to dance with me, we danced for hours!  I will never forget dancing under the twinkly lights with my little man.  My other little man was using glow sticks to bang on a pumpkin like a drum for most of the night.  Emmie was either monopolizing Jeff, dancing with "the princess" who was of course the bride, or making new friends.  There were a couple songs when Jeff and I were able to dance with each other, but mostly I was twirling around Joey for the night.

Always wonderful to see family and to finally meet family we only really "know" through Facebook posts and pics.  All in all a great night and memories that will last a lifetime - what more can you ask for?

On the way back to the hotel from the wedding Joey said, "I'm scared to grow up and be a daddy." Why? "Because I don't know if I can be as good at it as my daddy is."  This will probably be one of those quotes you remember forever.  It was so spontaneous and heartfelt - my kids could not be luckier to have Jeff as their dad.  Of course we told Joey that he will be an awesome dad because Daddy will teach him how to do it. :o)

We got back to the hotel and headed straight to bed.  Me with Joey and Logan in one bed, Jeff with Emmie in the other bed.  I am pretty sure I woke up at least ten times last night sandwiched in between those boys -and their stuffed animals of course.  At least four of those wake ups were to the sound of Emmie rolling out of the bed on to the floor - see tomorrow's post for how I solved that one!

This morning we started off with the hotel continental breakfast...

Then we headed home but first planned a stop at the Fresno Zoo.  We had low expectations for the Fresno Zoo, assumed it would be small and we would be there an hour or two.  Ha were we wrong! That zoo was amazing and we were there for over four hours.

Joey was very excited that this zoo had bears!

One of the coolest zoo attractions I have ever seen, a "Dino Dig" where kids can brush and dig away gravel to uncover a buried TRex.  If we let them they easily would have done this for hours.

Emmie at Seal Cove watching the sea lions swim by.

Logan being Logan.

Emmie in the petting zoo.  This baby cow was so cute even Jeff said he would have trouble eating meat for awhile.  Well apparently "awhile" meant 20 minutes since he ordered a tri-tip sandwich for lunch!

Emmie's new caterpillar friend.

All in all it was a fun-filled weekend.  Even I can't believe how much we packed into 2 days! The kids had trouble picking their favorite thing from the weekend.  For me dancing at the wedding was my favorite activity and the baby orangutan at the zoo was my favorite animal (simply adorable but couldn't get a good photo!).  So happy to be home and to sleep in my own bed tonight.

On to the next adventure! 

Logan's First Haircut!

Logan got his first official haircut! Yes, he is 4 years old and yes this is really his first. Partly this is because it took him forever to grow hair.  Here he is on his 1st birthday and as you can see, practically no hair...

But let's be honest, it took me this long to get his hair cut professionally mostly because it's Logan.  Logan has been our little challenge and trying to get him to sit still during "his terrible twos" or his "you have got to be kidding me threes" was out of the question.  I wouldn't subject a stylist to his tantrums and instead I cut his curly mop in the bathtub whenever I could distract him.

But he is a much more reasonable four year old now and I felt like he was ready.  Thankfully I was right - he did great!  In fact, after his cut he asked if he could come back the next day and do it again! 

 

Emmie didn't get a haircut but the princess still got attention. She loved the sparkly face painting. 

Here is the "After" picture of Logan and Joey's haircuts.  I am happy to report Logan's hair is just as crazy curly as it was after I would cut it!