Pre-Halloween

On Thursday we woke up to SNOW.  We were all up by 7 Am (when it is still really dark. I hate waking up to darkness) and I told Lucy I had a surprise for her. I opened the blinds and turned on the porch light and Lucy gasped, "but it isn't January-its October!"  Nonetheless she was very excited. By 7:20 in the dawn light we were all decked out and ready to play in the snow. The babies enjoyed their first sled ride and Lucy made multiple snow angles before our ceremonial snowball fight. It was awesome.

 Today I threw a Halloween party for Lucy's friends. She thought of the idea at the beginning of the month and I surprised myself by saying okay. Halloween parties usually seem like they require a lot, so I called it a Halloween play-date and felt a lot better:) We had nine little girls come in their costumes for crafts, snack and play. This is Lucy wearing her Merida costume for the first time with her best friend Elle (yes, Lucy had curlers in last night so she'd look more like Merida:)

 We made Halloween bracelets and then decorated some foam pumpkins.

 After our crafts we had snacks. Thanks for the ideas Pinterest! I made mummy juice boxes, spider fruit kebabs and cheese and Lucy and I drew jack-o-lanterns on cups for our crackers.

After our snack I sent the kids to the basement to play for 30 minutes before our next activity.  I expected them just to play-but almost immediately heard loud happy screams- Danny had invented a fun game on the lovesack. When I went down with my video camera I found all nine girls clinging to the side of the sack while the "rock" tried to throw them off. Then they played a game where Danny held out the hoola hoop and each girl took a turn jumping thorough it onto the love sack. It got pretty intense with the hoola hoop moving around quickly and in circles. Its a miracle no one got hurt or ripped their dress-thank heavens! Afterward Danny told them a ghost story and they acted it out. I had no clue five year olds could act out such good mummies/zombies/ ghosts! Each girl wanted to tell a story afterward so we had quite an extended story time in the dark in our basement.

My little duck woke up from her nap  during all the screaming and wanted to join the party.

 After every girl had a chance to tell a story (all of which were variation of Danny's original ghost story) we went upstairs to decorate cupcakes. I used a cinnamon cream cheese frosting recipe that was AMAZING. I sent everyone home with a goody bag, crafts, a cupcake and some push pin art we didn't have time to do. It was a success. Hallelujah!