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Monday, November 1, 2010

Neighborhood Halloween Fun!

Remember this post where I talked about how I got roped into throwing a carnival for our whole neighborhood? Well, it was on Saturday and it was a smashing success... despite the foul weather! I had so much fun that we are contemplating making it an annual event.

Party co-hosts!


We started setting up bright and early on Saturday morning. It wasn't raining... we were hopeful it would stay that way.

The kiddos put spider webs everywhere and added spider rings


Everyone ran around in their pjs (or lounge wear :)) and moved tables and got things ready


Kev & our neighbor Greg had fun moving the large bales of hay for our photo booth out of our garage ;)


Two of my favorite Smiths were on hand to help out and run around after Andrew


Around 1pm (party time) it started pouring... so we rushed to move a lot of activities into garages. Fortunately we'd already emptied our garages a little bit so there was plenty of spaces for almost all the activities (except the bounce house).

We loved that someone set up these caution wet floor signs when it was raining :)


The bounce house was SOAKED inside, so Kevin spent the first part of the party sitting inside keeping it dry with towels.


The rain cleared up pretty quickly and then lots and lots of people started coming! Jessie and Jenny manned the photo booth and took adorable pictures of everyone. Kevin and I were so excited that several of our friends and their kids came to party with us... here are a few of them that got photo booth shots!






We even managed to get Andrew out of the bounce house for a few minutes so that we could take a family photo. I think he bounced in the bounce house for at least 2 hours (starting at noon when we were setting up... then taking a break for a little bit... and then bouncing until 4pm while we were cleaning up).



The night before the big party I suddenly felt creative and came up with a few more carnival games to add to the list of ones we'd already put together for Saturday. Kevin was my super helper and foam cutter.


We made a witch golf game


a Pumpkin candy toss game



and a Gone Fishing game


When the little dude wasn't in the bounce house, he was fishing for prizes



or doing the candy walk (same as a cake walk... but with candy instead).


Some of the other fun stations included Halloween picture frame making, coloring Halloween pictures, face painting, and tatooing.

Halloween picture frames


Tatooing

The inside of the bounce house was quite a party spot as well. This is a picture of Andrew during the rainy part of the party- he was dripping wet and so happy!!


We also had a spooky snack spot. We kept things low key and cheap and just had a mix of Halloween marshmallows and fishy crackers... but other guests just kept showing up with treats... so we ended up with cookies, Halloween jello, and several other snacks.


We utilized the whole cul-de-sac and blocked off the road with cones.


These lovely ladies were some of our volunteers who helped run the different stations. A few of them are neighbors and some of them my neighbor's friends from church. They were so darling with the kids.


I have gazillion more party pictures that you can see here...



The day couldn't have gone any better. I love my neighbors and neighborhood and had so much fun putting together such a great event!! Now I am excited to rest a little bit until we come up with another activity to plan.

1 comment:

Jenny said...

you guys did such a great job we had a blast! thanks for letting us join in the fun!