Spooky Halloween Ideas!

We could not find a babysitter for Friday night. I was so bummed because Eric and I haven't been out together just by ourselves in a long time. Because it was a Friday, we decided to do something fun anyway and bring the kids along. We decided to go to Gardner Village and go for a "Witch Hunt". Gardner Village put together a scavenger hunt for the kids to find every witch. When you have found them all, you go to the bakery and get a cookie for 25 cents. Click HERE for the Scavenger Hunt.

Maya would not get in any of the pictures. She just kept saying, "Scary!"

The finished Hunt!

I totally love Gardner Village! It's especially fun this time of year. The kids were good the entire time, until I decided I wanted to peak into Pine Needles. Then they all (including Eric) complained! It was such a great night, though. They have carriage rides with witches telling stories, but my kids didn't think that would be a good idea. Go try the Witch Hunt and let me know what you thought. (or invite me to come along! I will probably go do it again)

For Family Home Evening last night, we did a little Halloween craft after the lesson. This idea is from Family Fun magazine again and it's a winner!

We bought mini pumpkins and painted them black.

When the paint is dry, you attach spooky eyes (you can use craft foam or paper) to the pumpkins.
Then you cut wings and bat ears out of black craft foam, tape wooden skewers to the wings and toothpicks to the ears and stick them into the pumpkin.

And there you have the spooky bat pumpkins! They only took about 45 minutes, even with drying time for the paint. Hayden's HAD to have a mouth and nose! Click HERE for complete instructions.

Hayden turns 5!

We celebrated Hayden's birthday last week with a Jedi party. All the kids were instructed to bring their lights sabers to help them fight the dark side. As they each arrived, they chose a mask to decorate and that was the character they would be for the day. We have Yoda, Anakin, C3PO, Darth Vader, A storm trooper, and Darth Sidious.
This was a Jedi Training camp, so the first thing they had to do was to prove their abilities. They had an obstacle course where they had to stomp the storm troopers on the stairs, jump over lava, hit an apple out of the tree with their light saber, jump through some ladder rungs, fight the master Jedi (Eric), and do their best trick on the trampoline. Every boy did this at least twice. They loved it!
Then we divided them up into two teams and gave them water balloons to blow up the other team's Death Star, which was drawn on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. This was hilarious!

Here they are trying to keep the balloons in the air with their light sabers.

Then they had to rescue Padme and Princess Leia from the dark side. They each were hidden in balloons that they had to try and pop in order to save them! (I just had pictures of them rolled up in the balloon) The boy that found the princess acted like he had won the lottery. He was screaming and jumping up and down. It was so funny.
Here's my attempt at Hayden's cake. Can you tell which scene this is? It's the lava scene with Obi Wan and Anakin before Anakin goes to the dark side. I tried...At least it tasted good!

Happy Birthday to my favorite boy!

I have to mention that he got a pogo stick from my Dad for his birthday. It is the coolest present! It's a smaller one that only holds up to 80 lbs, so it's just right for him! He is now pogo-ing with the best of them. I'll get a video of him doing that.

This is Hayden demonstrating the Training Course.