Happy Halloween!!! The day has finally come and while Halloween was wonderful this year, I am already feeling more relaxed. Today was the final Halloween party. We invited five of K's friends that he goes to a "mommy and me" playgroup with. All of the boys are in the same grade, but K is the oldest. The youngest just turned two this past weekend, so they are all within six months of each other. I thought it would be mental with six moms and six two-year old boys, but it ended up being really nice. K had an absolute ball!
For this party, I made puffed rice treats to look like Jack-o-lanterns. They ended up really cute. I used this recipe from the "Rice Krispies" website, but did a few things (most things??) differently. The first is that I didn't use Rice Krispies - yet another thing I can't seem to find here. I imagine we have them some place, but I just couldn't seem to figure out where. We do, however, have sweetened puffed rice that is often given to kids as a snack. I was afraid it might melt under the melted marshmallows, so I did a trial run on the weekend and they turned out just fine.
The other changes I made were leaving the chocolates out - a lot of the kids have yet to eat chocolate, poor babies. We also don't have gum drops, so I used little snacks that are a long cracker-like stick filled with chocolate cream. Finally, I had some buttercream left over from the cupcakes I made last week, so I dyed some of it black and piped on little faces. I originally wanted to do them all different and make a few of them funny, but they were so tiny and working on an uneven surface proved to be a bit of a challenge. Some are definitely cuter than others.
The other treats I "made" were marshmallow ghosts. I didn't really make them; I just drew little faces on them and stuck them on sticks. They were pretty cute though and the kids ate them up!
I also made little felt bags for the boys to take goodies home. I got three 40cm X 40cm pieces of orange felt and two of green felt, cut the orange ones in half and sewed up the sides. I added a few details in green and also made the handles green. I then cut out a set of eyes and a mouth from a scrap piece of black felt for each bag and attached them to each bag with a nametag. The kids put the faces on at the party. I felt like a factory pumping these bags out. It was surprisingly fast to make all of them, but doing six of anything at the same time makes it feel like ages.
K put the mouth and eyes on by himself - he nailed the placement, but the eyes in different directions, yikes.
Finally, I decorated our front door to look like a monster. I did this for the last party as well and K LOVED it! He loves coming home and being greeted by the monster. For a while, his hair had fallen off and K was none too pleased. I put it back on while he was napping, so when we greeted our guests, K had a surprise as well. He was so happy!
One of the other moms drew Jack-o-lantern faces on mandarin oranges; so we had a bowl of tiny Jack-o-lanterns as well - so cute!
K ended up taking them out of the bowl and used a bulldozer to move them around. It cracked me up.
He had such a fun time with his friends. They played trains and cars and jumped on the mattress in his room. One of the boys has a little sister who is four months old. K adores her. He was so stoked that she was here, too. He talked to her a lot and kept trying to get her to hold his toy trains. She had little interest, but kept babbling on to him so he was pleased.
At the end of the day, just before going to bed I always ask him what his favorite party of the day was. Today he said, "playing with my friends." My heart melted. I hope he always has this much fun with his friends.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
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