HALLOWEEN PARTY

This past weekend we hosted a Halloween party for a few friends. This was our second Halloween party that we have hosted so we took a few ideas from the previous one (like Toxic Waste!) and added lots of new ideas! We asked everyone to dress up, I was a bank robber and obviously forgot to put my mask on before the picture (lol...fail). My daughter was a "cat burglar" and my son was a police officer. My daughter also did a costume change mid party (girl after my own heart) and wore a different costume to school...and has another planned for trick or treating. That girl just keeps pulling out costumes, I love it!

The day before the party I cleaned and decorated the house. I found a few decorations at the dollar store and cut out out the black bats from bristol board to create a photo wall.

I planned on hanging these ghosts outside, but it was so windy that night that I had to come up with a different plan. We used fishing line to hang them in the open stairwell.

The food! My sister in law was able to come over in the afternoon and help us with the food and drinks, she was a big help and next time I think I'll be asking again!

To save time we bought ready to go mini cupcakes (kids love them!) and mini powdered donuts. We added a maraschino cherry and ready made gel icing to make them look like eye balls. (So fast and easy!) We also picked up gummy worms and gummy spiders and served them in decorative plastic goblets. I had to pick up an extra bag so my son would leave them alone before the party, haha.

Rice Krispie brains...my favourite snack of the night! These were so sticky to make, we made a double recipe of rice krispie squares then by trial and error found that a 1/2C measuring cup was a good size. We sprayed a glass cutting board with cooking spray and as I scooped them up, my sister in law shaped them. After completing all of them we used gel icing to draw on the lines. It made a lot, so I probably could have gotten away with a single recipe...but who doesn't want leftover rice krispie squares??

Spinach dip and chips...100% my husbands project....It went over really well. Definitely something we would do again!

The meat and cheese tray...again 100% my husbands project, lol. It also went over really well. I'm sure it's something we'll do again. He found the skeleton at Party City, the little skeleton papers were for a kid's scavenger hunt...more on that later!

Pumpkin devilled eggs....For super easy hard boiled eggs, bake the eggs in a muffin cup at 350" for 30 minutes...life changing!! We added a little bit of red food colouring to the yolk before piping in the centres, and used green onions for the stems.

The Drinks! We offered a variety of drinks, but created 3 signature cocktails. Everyone went for the cocktails, so next time I think I would just offer the cocktails.

Toxic Waste - for the adults...we offered 1 drink with alcohol and 2 without.

I found this recipe in the Company's Coming "The Beverage Book"

4 C Orange Juice

1/2 C Blue Curacao

1/3 C Vodka

3 C Ginger Ale

Combine the top three ingredients and chill for 3 hours. Just before serving, add ginger ale and stir gently. Makes about 8 cups.

We made a double batch and didn't have much leftover.

Bug Juice - For a kid friendly drink, we made minute maid fruit punch and added a few gummy worms to the bottom to make it spooky!

Zombie Virus...the hit of the party! (Also my favourite) I refilled this drink 4 times over the course of the evening. It was so simple, I filled the decanter 1/2 way with orange pop and added 4 mini scoops of mango sherbet. Once I started to stir the drink, it started to foam up. I would definitely do this drink again!!

I found these milk bottles at Dollarama and bought enough for all of the adults and older kids (I had purple solo cups for the younger kids!). They were so perfect!

The activities! We didn't plan very much for activities, but I did have some craft supplies for the kids to make candy cups and a skeleton scavenger hunt. My mom had actually bought it for the kids and it was so fun, you hide the pieces of the skeleton and then put it together like a puzzle. They had so much fun they did it 3 times! We had the older kids help hide the pieces and they came up with some really tricky hiding spots!

It was fun, but I'm ready to pack it all away until next year! I started planning a pre-holiday party yesterday so I'm already in Christmas mode....lol