Frightfully Delightful

 It's that time of year again.  You know, party season?

Which means it's time for the kiddo's Halloween party.  Which seems to have turned into an annual thing (2010 and 2009).  So we'll call this the 3rd Annual Merrill Halloween Party.  Such an official title.

This year the kiddos just invited their school friends since I hadn't met a bunch of them (everyone lives in different neighborhoods).

First, a shout out to my sister- without who this party would have had a lot less decorations and treats.  Thank you Whitney.

Since we live in Arizona and it isn't cold in the fall here, we had the party outside.

I didn't want the kiddos walking through the house..

We sat up the grazing table by moving my kitchen table outside (hey Mom- I really need that folding table back).

For the snackages we had Frankenstein Bolts

(and you can see the Goblin Fingers in the background),

Zombie Tongues,

Petrified Bat Wings

And cake mix cookies (hey, not everything has to have a spooky name)

Totino's pizzas were the main course, but those disappeared before I could get a shot of the whole table.  I also planned on having witches fingers (celery sticks), troll eyes (green grapes), and more... but I honestly ran out of time before the kids got here to cut, wash and set them out.  So the little ones had a wonderfully-healthy-food-free night.  Sorry moms.

The drinks

I loved these mini soda cans.

I didn't have any extra tables to set up, so we just threw out some plastic tablecloths (with rocks weighing them down) and had the kids gather there.

Pipe's friends (seriously, these kids had so much pop, pizza and pixie sticks)

They kind of look like garbage bags just thrown down, right?

Porter only had one little friend to invite

But they had an awesome time together!

Yep that's a picture of him burping.  I captured a moment here, people.

Then came the games.

First was Ghosts and Goblins.

This was by far the best game I had.  Thank you Pinterest.

Next up was the Skeleton toss.

Ha.  My girls couldn't even tell that were supposed to be stacked-up pumpkins.  Here's what it was supposed to look like.  This reminds me of another goodie floating around Pinterest:

Ha!

Anyway, here's Miss Pips tossing in her plastic skeleton head

Then came the good ole traditional Pin-the-Eye-on-Frankenstein.

Then, another idea taken from my newest favorite addiction, was Catch the Monsters.

This game was fun, but there was one little problem with doing it on our dying summer grass:

Can you see the little girl in the background picking the grass out of her mouth?

And of course we had a sugar cookie decorating table (what party is complete without one?)

Adi and her amigas:

Oh, hi Jake and the Neverland Pirate!  Funny seeing you here...

Then the kiddos ate a ton of sugary goodies and drank gallons of soda.  They also did a lot of jumping on the trampoline (I still thank the day we bought that $200 gigantic kid entertainer).

The kiddos danced (oh, and Nana too)

And then the girlies spent over an hour perfecting their cheerleading skills

Thanks kiddos!

** I must mention how grateful I am to live in a climate where it is warm enough to party outside at Halloween.  This party was waaay more relaxed than when we had them inside in Utah **