Some of you might know this already about me but Halloween has to be my most favorite holiday….regardless if we're in the USA or here in China.
What's not to love about Halloween? Lots of colors, fall is in the air, pumpkins everywhere, dressing up in funny and outrageous costumes, CANDY, treats…and who can forget the jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, skeletons, mummies and other creatures that creep and crawl through the night????
And what better way to celebrate my favorite holiday than with a PARTY??!!!! (plus, I really wanted to share all the Halloween stuff I'd brought back with me from home with my friends).
🙂
Naturally the main floor of the house should be decorated:
My favorite skeletons (I made them a few years ago out of craft foam. Boy, they were a bugger to cut out!):
Annika's creative addition to our Halloween party:
TOXIC MOLD!!!! (peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips that Annika colored green with edible markers) and CAUTION! Beware of the creepy brownie monsters! Annika baked both the cookies AND the brownies….how awesome is that?????
And naturally Halloween isn't complete without a pumpkin patch….ours is just different than most. 😉 It works for us though! Here Annika is busy creating a Treasure Hunt for all the kids coming to the Halloween party. The treasure hunt will take the kids on a wild goose chase on all three levels of the house and the girls used their Halloween candy stash as the "treasure".
We're all set! I've got two kinds of soup on (chicken with homemade noodles and pumpkin & red lentil soups), home baked bread, treats, goodie bags as filled by the girls (with Halloween candies and stickers), and several arts and crafts projects that young guests can do.
And the table is set:
I asked guests to bring a dish to share…Here's Sam's awesome fruit salad in a watermelon jack-o-lantern:
The kids are grouping together and getting ready to start Annika's treasure hunt:
Rachel's super duper awesome pinata jack-o-lantern cake:
Check out what's inside the cake: (candy!!!!!)
Friends enjoying good food and wonderful company:
The littlest guests, Jacob and Pete, enjoyed playing with the balloons:
Ava and one of Crystal's twin daughters (either Abby or Jordan- it's tricky for me to tell them apart) got to work painting small green winter squash (in lieu of the sugar pumpkins I'd normally use back home) and painting cinnamon scented salt dough Halloween ornaments that the girls and I made the previous night:
Annie and the other twin (either Abby or Jordan; I feel terrible that I can't tell them apart!) busily working on their creations:
Charlotte painted and decorated lots of pieces. Anna and Amelie are playing in the background:
Charlotte takes after her very craft mom, Rachel:
That was an awesome party! Sadly, Mark was on a business trip to India and therefore couldn't join us. Boooo!!!! Let's see….who attended the party? Agnes & Robert with their children, Crystal & Mike and their kids, Sam and her kids, Jen & Andy and their munchkins, Kathy & Dave, Holly & Kevin and their kids, Claudia and her kids, Rachel and Chris and their kids (they drove all the way from TEDA to join us!), Frances and her boys….did I miss anybody? I didn't end up chatting with the adults in the group for very long as I supervised the arts and crafts projects happening on the third floor. Some of the older kids even tried carving the tiny winter squash.
Whoopsie…I just realized that the following photos were actually taken a day before the above photos. So…this blog isn't quite following a proper timeline. Oh well. Let's not worry about it and move along…alrighty?
Several of the OC (Original County – the name of the community we live in) friends and neighbors hosted a large outdoor Halloween party of sorts. One of the American families organized the event and provided the pinatas. Last year we went door-to-door trick-or-treating which was lots of fun but due to some lovely road blocks in place this year it was decided that it just wasn't safe to go door-to-door. So, instead the adults handed out candy to eager little hands who had to stand in line to get their treats. (after the pinatas came down).
This year Ava wanted to be a ZOMBIE cheerleader. I think she's got the cheerleader part down but I'm still questioning the zombie part. LOL!
Even some of the adults got bitten by the Halloween spirit and dressed up for the occasion:
(Kathy, Petra, Renata, Julia, friend, and Claudia)
Sam and Pete…can you guess what they're dressed up as?
Pinata time! The American family that set up the event really had a smart idea- they had different pinatas for different age groups…starting with the youngest and gradually moving up to the big kids:
Ava with some of her friends in front of one of the pinatas:
Ninja Annika! I bet you didn't even recognize her, right? Isn't that costume just the coolest ever???
Annika's turn to bash the heck out of the pinata:
And now the rush to get as much candy as you can possibly manage into your bucket event:
And…as always…even though this event was held well off the main path this large group of crazy looking westerners still managed to attract Chinese visitors:
I'm really curious what these Chinese people thought of the rather large group of foreigners dressed in crazy, weird costumes.
Another look at Annika and her cool ninja costume. She's waiting in the thou-shall-receive-candy line:
Sam and her kids dressed as….the Mystery Inc. gang! I LOVE IT!!!!!
One last look at a very proud Annika and her Halloween food creations. I am SO VERY, VERY thankful to have two creative daughters that genuinely provide help and stimulate the creative juices. Thank you , girls!!!
So…that was our Halloween. The kids did have an after school Halloween party on Friday 1 November 2013. That was huge fun for the girls. I, along with several other parents, helped the teachers decorate the play room for the party. And this year the secondary (that's middle school and high school combined) students got into the Halloween spirit….they created a haunted house for the primary students to walk through. It always make me happy to see the older kids involved in doing things for the younger ones.
Fun! Fun! Fun!!!!!