Maya had no school yesterday or today due to teacher workdays… and I’m actually grateful! A 4-day weekend is just what we needed to recover from a fun Halloween and an emotional Dia de Todos los Santos (All Saints Day) yesterday. More on Todos Santos in another post. This one is all about Halloween!
As I write this, the girls are outside taking down all the spooky Halloween decorations. They’re having so much fun with it… but not as much fun as we had putting everything up, though! You may have read my recent post about Backyard Discovery sending me a basket of goodies to decorate our playset? Well…
The “haunted house” in our backyard was a big hit!
I’d like to say that the girls helped me decorate, but they just ran around…
A few spooky signs, some caution tape, and lots of spider webs is really all you need to set the mood! The graveyard underneath the fort was fun to put together. I made the tombstones out of cardboard, and my husband spray-painted them with a textured paint. Nice enough to save for next year, too.
I set the table with some dried up flowers, and Maura helped me decorate a couple of pumpkins with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head parts. This is a great activity for kids too young to carve a pumpkin! Spider rings were scattered across the table, next to a stack of Halloween coloring sheets and crayons (which were hardly touched, as most of the kids were having a blast on the swingset!) Complimentary broomstick parking was available under the slide. 😉
There were dozens of kids in AWESOME costumes… including my little pumpkin and cheerleader, of course! Even furbabies joined in the festivities. It ended up being a beautiful, warm, sunny day.
Perfect for a parade… our local fire station dropped by to lead the procession of kids (and their parents) around our circle. Neighbors pulled out their lawn chairs and waved to us as we walked by.
Afterward, the kids had an opportunity to climb in to the fire truck for a photo op.
Even after doing this year after year, it never gets old!
Then we trickled into the backyard for snacks and refreshments. It’s BYOB, and every family brings an appetizer to share. It’s the second year in a row that we make it a NO SWEETS event, which is a genius idea. Kids get enough sugar when they go trick or treating later in the day!
The kids all ran around in the backyard while the adults mingled. It was a lot of fun!
Wow! What an amazing event and such an added treat to have the “haunted” playset for everyone. I totally love the “broomstick parking” – very cute!! I took my Plants vs Zombie inspired zombie out trick-or-treating…..we had fun, but it was freezing, literally!
Cathy´s last blog post ..You dont have to install solar panels to call yourself green
None of the little witches took advantage of the complimentary broom parking. Sigh.
Hope you had fun trick-or-treating!
How fun and creative to decorate the play set!!! We went to Boo at the Zoo for the first time!
Debra @ A Frugal Friend´s last blog post ..New Printable Coupons- Ziploc & Elmer’s Glue
It was a lot of fun to decorate 🙂 Did you have fun at Boo at the Zoo? We’ve gone the past 3 years, but didn’t this year, unfortunately. Tickets just got too expensive for the whole family.
WOW! Your neighborhood really knows how to do a Halloween celebration! Nice job on decorating the playset! 🙂
Thanks, Patty! We’re lucky to live in such a great neighborhood.