Halloween Party Time!!!

Well, the day that we look forward to all year has now come and gone. I even had a hard time sleeping the night before because I was so excited. It felt like Christmas Eve. Call me crazy, but I just live for these Halloween Parties. My husband and I started this tradition 3 years ago. This was our 4th Annual Halloween Party. I can't take all the credit, because my amazing and creative husband is the brains behind most of this. He sure knows how to throw a party and have fun! We throw this bash for both sides of our family. It is a great family tradition for us. Sometimes this is the only time that our families see each other, so it is a great reunion. We have a rule at our Halloween Party that you must dress up, or you are not fed! We get the best costumes, and they get even better over the years. We all want to out-do each other. We also keep our costumes a secret from each other. That makes it a lot of fun. We had a Medieval theme for our party this year. My husband dressed up as Merlin, I was Guenevere, my 3 year old was Lancelot and our little 1 year old was King Arthur. This post is all about our Halloween party. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for your own halloween bash, spooky food, a medieval b-day party, entertaining ideas, etc.!

This was my awesome centerpiece! My husband had a time when he loved knights, wizards, & medieval times stuff. So this noble knight worked out perfect with some spider webbing to spook it up a bit. We will get onto the food later in the post, but here is a sneak peek!

We always start off our parties with something to do while we are waiting for everyone to show up. This is our Halloween Flag, to be used for all future Halloween parties. I am no artist, but my college calligraphy class came in handy on this one. The "A" & "B" are the initials of our last names. We had everyone sign the flag, including something about who they dressed up as. We got some creative one liners!

This is our backdrop for pictures. We started this last year, and it is a great thing to have at an outdoor halloween party. This is a great time to get pictures with everyone dressed up. This scene was perfect with plenty of spots to sit. those massive pumpkins we grew in our garden.

Merlin's Volcano Potion...

This was an awesome activity for the kids. I wish that I had small viles for each ingredient, but couldn't find them. My husband made him a spell book by brushing paper with lemon juice and putting it under the broiler until it browns up. This really gives an old, mystical look to anything.
The kids had a great time adding the ingredients. They couldn't touch what was inside the bag or else they would be thrown into the potion! Here is the ingredients:

Potion Ingredients

1 black cauldron

spaghetti noodles (brains)

the tips of 2 plastic knives (dracula's teeth)

small circular pancake drippings (witches worts)

corn hair (werewolf hair)

spider webbing

plastic spiders

chunks of pumpkin (smashed pumpkin from sleepy hollow)

2 long screws (frankenstein's screws)

baking soda (bone powder)

vinegar died a spooky color (spooky potion #11)
ghost call (have all the kids do their best ghost sounds into the cauldron)

You want to do this in a place where you don't mind your potion over flowing. In our case, my husband did it in our garden so that it wouldn't hurt his grass. You want to pour in the vinegar last and watch how it bubbles and boils over. The kids thought it was pretty cool.

Let the games begin...

We had some great games this year. The first one was our Gladiators game. If any of you out there remember the show American Gladiators, that is where the inspiration for this game came from. We got 2 large cement blocks that were big enough for both feet. The players face each other each with a swimming noodle. You have to have both hands in the middle. On go, they battle to try and get the other off their block. It was so funny. There were a lot of laughs, falls, brotherly-kindness, & great fun! Demonstrating is Grumpy and Peter Pan! The 2nd picture above is our Sword in the Pumpkin for the kids. We got a monster pumpkin and a strong play sword. We used some strong caulking because that was what we had. We coated the sword before putting it into the pumpkin, then loaded glue at the top too. You could use gorilla glue, super glue, just something strong. This was easy enough for the kids, and they all got to try it, even after it really had been pulled out. They all felt like they pulled the sword out themselves. The 3rd picture was our catapult. We did this a few years ago with pumpkins launched to a target. This time we used tennis balls and the target was a big cardboard box painted grey to resemble a tower. The goal was to hit the tower. We made the launcher with surgical tubing and sewed some denim jean material for the pouch. This activity is always a winner! The 4th activity was our amazing magician. He was awesome. He is a family friend, and very talented with his magic. Everyone loved it. It was entertaining for the adults and children. The set up was perfect in our garage. We decorated with halloween paper lanters hung throughout with some of my spooky curtains made from black garbage bags I found on Martha Stewart's website. We set up several straw bails for seating.

On to some yummy food! Everything we ate was a finger food. We had to use our hands. I didn't even put out silverware. We ate on black plates with black cups and black napkins. We lined up 4 long tables with black tablecloths to eat on. It was like a royal table. We wanted everyone to eat together. We drank ale (aka., sparkling cider). Because the bottle sparkling cider is so expensive we made our own with 3 liters of apple cider and 2 liters of sprite. We also had orange and green kool-aid. Here are some of the fun foods our guests brought!

These are yummy homemade bat tortilla chips. Spray both sides of tortillas with cooking spray and sprinkle with Salad Supreme Seasoning. Use halloween cookie cutters to make spooky chips. Bake 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Serve with favorite salsa, guacamole, seven-layer dip, etc.

This is the famous Lembas Bread from Lord of the Rings, however they put cookies inside. Lembas bread is a special bread made by the Elves, which provides nutrition and sustenance on long journeys. My sister and her family dressed up as Lord of the Rings and showed up with this as their spooky treat. Inside are her famous Jumbo Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies. They are so good. We will post them soon. She wrapped them in tinfoil and glue gunned leaves from a Hostas Plant around them. What a clever idea!

These are the famous mummy dogs! Hot dogs wrapped in crescents. You can also wrap them with breadsticks. You bake them in the oven at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes. These go over great with the kids!

These are deviled eggs with yummy olive spiders. Very creative , spooky and delicious!

We served fried Chicken & biscuits. Of course that's not homemade fried chicken... It was definitely bought from the deli at the local market & KFC! I've learned that in planning these parties it's gotta be simple. I did bake the Pillsbury biscuits, which by the way, are amazing! You buy them in the frozen section of the grocery story. You pop them in the oven frozen and have beautiful, fluffy, buttery biscuits in 20 minutes! They were perfect. The party was great! Thank you to all of our family members who dressed up, played hard, and put up with our love of Halloween! Until next year... I'm already excited!