our haunted house...

We had lots of spooky fun last week! On Wednesday, Benjamin made these lollipop ghosts for his classmates: On Thursday, his preschool had a costume parade and Halloween party. Here's Ben in the hallway, trying to walk like a tarantula:
Sitting in his classroom chair (I think it looks like the tarantula is eating him, LOL):
Time for the parade!:


All the little boys and ghouls:
On Thursday night, Nick made lollipop ghosts for HIS classmates:
We also carved our pumpkins:
Ben drew the face on his, and I carved it for him:
I also had to scoop out all the insides. Before we started carving, Ben told me that he wanted to do the scooping. Once the pumpkin was open, however, he said, "No way! I'm not touching that stuff... it's nasty!" LOL!

Ben painted his jack o' lantern when it was all carved: Nick and Emm did their pumpkins all by themselves:
I think they all turned out great!!:


(The Jack Skellington one is mine.):
On Friday I took Ben over to Nick's school for their costume parade. It was held inside this year because it was POURING outside. Here is Nick with his friend, Jordan:
Parading through the gym:
We attended the class party for a little while:
That afternoon, we finished getting all ready for Emmalie's Halloween party. The tombstones were a group effort ~ George cut them out of plywood, I spraypainted them, and then Emm painted the sayings on them:
My scarecrow:

We had some fun with this! I dressed one of my old life-size dolls in some of Ben's clothes and the cat mask, and also gave it a pretend knife. We put it in the back hallway, and even though we KNEW it was there, it kept startling us whenever we'd go around the corner, LOL. (And one time, Nick quietly set the doll right behind Emm when she was on the computer. Later, when she got up, the screams echoed throughout the house, LOL!):
We set up this Darth Vader in the closet, hoping to scare some of Emm's friends when they went to hang up their coats. (Part of the time, Nick was in there, too, ready to jump out at them.):
We had lots of yummy food:
Like these forked eyeballs that Emmalie made out of donut holes:

and these cupcakes that Emm frosted:
I dressed up like a witch:

And we even got George to dress up!:
Thirteen of Emm's friends showed up for the party. They all seemed to enjoy themselves! They played Halloween Taboo for awhile:

We went outside for part of the time, but despite the fire George built for us, it was pretty cold out there (and the grass was too wet for flashlight tag and other games that Emm had wanted to do outside). We did do some pumpkin bowling:

Here's Emm with a few of her friends:
Dancing to George's Rob Zombie music:
Bobbing for donuts was a popular game (and it was fun to watch, too!):





The kids also told ghost stories for awhile, and during one long story about the lights going out whenever a murderous ghost was around, George snuck out to the garage and turned OUR power off. You should've heard the screams, LOL! (Maybe you did!)

We also watched The Nightmare Before Christmas, had a costume contest, and several other activities before the party ended at 11pm.

Saturday was Halloween, of course. Emm did not go trick-or-treating (much to her dismay), but she chose to dress up to hand out candy. My sister made this medieval dress and gave it to Emmalie over the summer:
Nick the stag beetle:

Ben the tarantula:
To go along with the bug theme, I dressed as a zombie entomologist, LOL. I sewed some of Nick's big plastic bugs to a shirt, and a spider toy to one of my headbands, then borrowed the kids' magnifying glass and bug house (filled with more plastic bugs):


George dressed up, too, as a zombie exterminator, and carried around a can of Raid, LOL. Here we all are, ready to go trick-or-treating:
Die, bugs, die!:
Oh, my goodness, what big bugs!:
At the neighbor's:
Trick or treat!:
We had our traditional Batwing Soup (homemade tomato and garlic) and grilled cheese with jack o' lantern faces for supper that night. I also made us some yummy caramel apples:

All in all, I'd say it was a spooktacular Halloween! :)