the starbuck {family}: { Halloween Party }

Brianna really wanted to have a Halloween party with all her friends this year, but as we looked at our October calendar, the weekends were filling up super fast. Between Austin’s soccer games(some here and some all over Georgia), Brianna’s service hours for school down in Westville, Aaron’s call schedule and church meetings, birthdays, school functions, baptisms, family visiting, and about 100 other things, our weekends were very limited. We started planning an awesome party, and then after looking at our possible weekends we almost bagged the whole idea when things didn’t seem to be coming together. A few days before, we finally found some time to squeeze it in, and just pulled it together. An quick announcement at seminary, and it seemed we had enough people who were in to make it a go.

The end result was a pretty fun party, and time for these guys to just hang out-which is really what they want anyways-not fancy foods or a ton of meticulously planned out activities. Give them plenty to eat, some good music, space to play, and they end up pretty happy.

Brianna helped decorate things, planned out all of the creepy foods to serve, and even set up a fun playlist on the iMac to play Halloween songs all night long.

I think these are the only pictures I even took of all of our fall decorations this year. These new paper bats we cut out, and some mice (the fake kind which I love the most) that scampered up and down the stairs were some of my favorites.

Our Spooktacular Menu for the Night

Mummy Dogs-hot dogs in crescent rolls

Blood for dipping-ketchup

Pumpkin Vegetable Tray

Eyeballs-deviled eggs

Pumpkin Fingers-big Cheetos puffs

Skeleton Bones-pretzels and marshmallows covered in almond bark

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Teeth-candy corns

Bats Droppings (gross I know)-Mike and Ike’s

Vampire Floss-Red Licorice Strips

Goblins Eyes-Recess Pieces and M&M’s

Frankenstein Blood, Bat Juice, and Pumpkin Blood for our drinks-Sprite, Root Beer, and Fanta

After eating, playing some volleyball outside, and jumping on the trampoline, they pulled out Dance Party 3 on the wii and tried to out dance each other. It was pretty entertaining to watch them practice their dance moves. I like to remind Brianna that I always give her a run for her money when we play that game-her moms still got some moves.

Brianna and her friend Ashleigh

Our Halloween Playlist

Monster Mash

Calling All the Monsters

This is Halloween

Theme from the Twilight Zone

Theme from Halloween

The Adams Family Theme

Crazy

Who Can It Be Now?

Ghostbusters

Creepy Halloween Music

Hungry like a Wolf

Haunted Pipe Organ Music

Sometime when there was a lull, the games were pulled out, and a pretty intense game of Jenga got started. Seriously SO funny to watch them. I love it that when we have these little get togethers at our house, everyone in our family is invited too. There are times when the big kids gather together more, but then the little kids just mingle right in, and Brianna’s friends are all so good to just pull them right up to have fun with the rest of them. This party actually turned into a way bigger party than we had planned-the little girls had some friends over to play, which they begged to stay longer, and then more kids their age came with older siblings, so we invited them to stay too. It was SO loud at our house by the end of the night. We do LOUD really good at this place. Really good! And truth be told, I absolutely love it! There are times when I don’t deal with loud very good (like random screaming from my kids )it just makes my head spin. But the kind of loud when kids are having fun, is like music to my ears. I think I could live with a house full of teenagers all of the time-just listening to them having fun. They really are all such good kids.

One of the few games Brianna wanted to do, was a donut eating contest-the no hands/all mouth kind of thing. Teenagers and donuts are a pretty sure hit we are learning-so string or no string, most of them were in. I am not sure there were any declared winners in this-just a bunch of funny wide open mouths, and a whole lot of donuts everywhere!