Halloween party- posted a few days late

This year we decided to host a Halloween fest with some friends. It's simply not enough to attend a ward Trunk-or-Treat/Carnival, a neighborhood party, and a family party at Nate's company. We must prolong the holiday as much as possible! We need more sugar-highs and late nights. Really though, we need more days to dress up. There is a woefully inadequate shortage of days when mature adults can dress up to their hearts' content without garnering disapproving glances from society.

We planned out a fun party full of activities like eating donuts from strings, wrapping mummies with toilet paper, Halloween Bingo, and finding prizes inside a giant spider web maze. We also planned fun festive foods like mummy dogs, spider chip dip, crispy bat wings, and witch's brooms(my favorite).

Nathan was really excited because a friend of mine (a fellow entertainer) let us borrow his fog machine for  the weekend. He was so excited to set this up in our front room for the trick-or-treaters.

I had meticulously kept my day unscheduled so I had all morning/afternoon to set up for the party.

Unfortunately, my booking agent called this week and said, "Lifetime Fitness is having their big party on Halloween day and they specifically requested to have you be there. PLEASE tell me you're available!" Erg. This is a long-time client of mine so I couldn't really say 'no'. These are usually the type of parties that run for 3-4 hours (which equals a nice paycheck) and are very well-organized and relatively low-stress to work. The problem is that the party was scheduled to end only an hour before my party at home starts.
Double erg.

The gig itself was also more stressful than usual BECAUSE it was Halloween day. Everyone wanted their kids to have the BEST face painting ever so they could wear it to their costume contests, other parties, and trick-or-treating that night. A lot of kids would pick something simple, like hearts, but the parents would say 'No, you don't want that! Get a full cat face to match your costume tonight!" or "Show her a picture of your other costume that you'll be wearing, let's have her match the patterns on the fabric!"or "Get something big that people will see tonight!" As a result, the line was massively long and people were sneaking in line even after I cut off the end of the line.

*Quick rant* I really hate to send people away when it's time for me to leave. I feel like a criminal. All the kids have been hoping to get painted and they are so crushed when they are turned away. That's definately the worst part of my job. A mother had cut in line even after I explained 3 times that the people in front of her were my last customers. She said she would wait anyway and she told her daughter they would get painted. I felt so bad, but I really had to leave since I was already 10 minutes past my end time. I explained "I have told you 3 times that the line is ended, I'm sorry you waited in line, but I REALLY have to leave." The lady wasn't happy with me and the little girl was crying. It made me frustrated at the mother for getting her daughter's hopes up like that when I had clearly explained the situation. I felt terrible. *end rant*

Nathan and Sarah worked the entire time I was gone and they cleaned up the house and made all the food and drinks. I learned that setting up the giant spider web was way more work than I expected, but it did look very cool. We filled the living room full of yard strands weaving back and forth and I hid prizes at the ends of the strings. Each child took a string from the starting point and followed it through the room, climbing over or under other web strands as they searched for their prize. It was really fun and the kids liked it.

The definite favorite was eating the donuts off the string. We used powdered donuts, which added to the fun. The children loved looking at their faces after each round so they could see the mess. We played this game several times since everyone wanted to repeat it.

The mummy wrap was fun, but the little kids lost interest after 3 minutes and the bigger kids finished it up. After that the children just played on the trampoline and with the chickens (but not at the same time). It's surprising how much fun it is to chase a flock of chickens, catch one, and pet it's soft feathers. I think some of our friends played in the chicken 'pasture' for over 20 minutes.

Dinner was delicious...everyone brought fall foods. There was a delicious assortment of festive food that made it a feast. Nathan and Blake made a 'witch's brew' with dry ice and sherbet and Sprite. We learned that dry ice freezes the thick protective plastic table top and actually warps it. Luckily it went flat again as it warmed up.

It was so fun to spend time with friends that we see far too rarely.  One of our pregnant home school friends delivered her baby three days ago and she still came to our party! I told her she was not allowed to leave the rocking chair and we gave her a brass bell to ring whenever she needed food or drink. It was so fun to see their beautiful baby!

By the end of the party we started receiving our first trick-or-treaters. After our friends all left, we decided that we did not want to actually go trick-or-treating. We were such humbugs that I decided not to give out candy either (even though we had bags of it for this purpose). I just wanted to have quiet time and be with my family. I turned off all the lights and we put on a movie and the kids had fun sorting their candy, counting it, and making a chart measuring their treasure.

We picked out any candies that would work well for a gingerbread house in December and put that all in a bag in the pantry. Then the children ate whatever candy they wanted. Anything left over was put in a bowl by the front door for the Pumpkin Fairy. The Pumpkin Fairy comes at night to take away the candy and leave prizes in the bowl. Sarah and Matthew woke up in the middle of the night and snuck downstairs with their glow sticks to see if they could catch the fairy. They had planned out this adventure very carefully and were so excited to tell me all about it in the morning!

They all received new character toothbrushes (they always love this in particular since they get the 'fun' toothbrushes with favorite cartoons on them, or battery-operated toothbrushes that vibrate) and new books. We really enjoyed reading Matthew's new book as a family. He received "Mr Popper's Penguins". On Sunday afternoon Nathan read it out loud for almost an hour while everyone listened and cuddled.