Last Saturday we hosted our 2nd annual Neighborhood Halloween Carnival. It was awesome. I have seriously the best neighbors ever. We just threw our hats in the ring to be our HOA Social Directors... so there might be more partying coming up in the future!
We managed to get the kiddos to sit still long enough to get a family photo. That was my only request of the day... hooray, it was a semi success!
Jessie trekked up to help out with the carnival. She was Andrew's buddy since about an hour into the party he decided he was all partied out and wanted to go inside and play with his play-doh. Yay for awesome Aunt Jess!
I created monster golf and a bottle pumpkin knock down game for this year's carnival. The rest of the awesome ideas that I had were quickly forgotten when I found lots of cheap carnival games at Target. I love being creative... but sometimes it is not worth it to make something cute when you can buy it for under $10. The key for me to not be stressed out is learning to let things go!
The best part of the party was having lots of volunteers. Last year I helped run three booths all at the same time... this year we had enough youth volunteers (10-15) to run every booth... and then some! I loved just roaming, socializing, filling candy, and attempting to keep Caitlin happy.
We had our favorite "gone fishing" game again. This one is an automatic win... no real skills are involved and the kids get cool prizes. There was always a long line.
Showing off her prize
The candy walk was another favorite. I doubled the number of cards this year (from 12-24)... and all 24 spots were usually filled.
Did I mention it was hot? Yeah, around 80 degrees. Notice how sweaty Andrew looks. He could barely wear his costume because it was too hot.
Little Peter was among my favorite dressed up little kiddo. So adorable!
Cate got lots of bonding time with Kevin while I did some hostess duties. She loves to try and claw her way out of your arms and try and get to the ground... makes for fun times.
We had two bounce houses, probably 10 games, snacks/treats, and tons of candy prizes... and yet this little guy just wanted to hang out with Aunt Jessie inside. She is obviously super cool.
One of the prizes was (were?) fangs... they were a big hit.
Since it didn't rain this year, we were able to utilize our entire court... and spread things out a bit. Last year everything was crammed together because of the rain. Kevin and Greg counted about 150-200 unique people throughout the day, so according to them, we had an awesome turn out. I was just please that almost everyone I invited was able to come. It was fun to chit chat a bit and see everyone in costume.
Andrew got his second wind towards the end of the party and did some crazy dances
Jessie was the leader of the pack and some of the kids just followed her around... there is never a dull moment where she is.
Clean up was totally quick with lots of helpers and we spend the rest of the day recuperating. I was exhausted!
Monday we cleaned and organized. I think I now have a photograph of every outfit Caitlin owns. I'm making myself an outfit cheat sheet to stick in her closet... so she'll actually wear more than three outfits.
Tuesday I got to go a fun baby shower for one of my favorite friends at a yummy Italian restaurant. "Happy Baby to you, Happy Baby to you" :)
Wednesday we played and played with friends. We babysat a friend's kid in the morning, had the Balenas over in the afternoon, went to Virtues class after that, and then I ended the night with YWs and a Girls Night out for ice cream with friends. I also managed to snap a few pictures of Catie in her adorable Halloween outfit from Grandma Shari!
She is in love with Sophie right now too...
Thursday (today)- Catie actually was nice to her babysitter while I went and worked in Andrew's preschool. Andrew and I had so much fun together. We painted paper bag pumpkins and we participated in The Great California's Shake Out with an Earthquake drill (which is ironic to me now since I just felt an EARTHQUAKE while I'm typing this blog post. I think it was a 4.2... so not huge, but still scared me).
A fireman came to preschool this week too... so one of the pretend play areas is decked out like a fire truck. Guess who spends most of his outdoor time in fireman clothing?
They even have real fire hoses to play with (with no water)... so awesome!
We also played at the pumpkin patch... because another pretend play area is set up like the pumpkin patch. Andrew is an awesome pumpkin shopper and some of his little friends had fun being the cashiers.
They even had a scale to weigh their pumpkins. I don't know who was more excited about the "pumpkin patch"... but I think maybe I was?:)
It's been an all around great week. Tomorrow should hopefully be awesome too as I am gearing up for my girls trip to the East Coast while Kevin is gearing up for a week as Mr. Mom. I'm sure I'll have a gazillion pictures to share when I get home.
Happy Thursday!!
3 comments:
The carnival looks like it was a blast, and Andrew's preschool seems amazing. Glad you guys are having a good October!
can I move into your neighborhood please???
I'm so bummed we missed this!! We hit up G & M, and it would have been so much fun to be there with you guys. B was a little wary of the corn pit--haha!
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