The Weekend - Friday

This past weekend was so much fun! I thought Cornbellys on Thursday would be the highlight for our weekend. I was totally wrong! I'm going to have to break this post up so I don't overwhelm it with pictures. Friday ended up being crazy, but so much fun! My next door neighbor and I decided to have a Halloween party for the neighborhood kids. We were so excited about it, but soon realized that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We prepared all day getting the food and activities ready. We were going to rotate activities between our two homes so neither one of us would get too overwhelmed. Candace started off at her house painting some cute masks for the kids. While she was doing that, I set up a scavenger hunt. This was my biggest stress. A lot of work goes into getting a scavenger hunt ready. I had been up the night before planning it out and some of the day writing out the clues to make it all cute and fun. So the kids finished their masks and came over to eat before starting the hunt. I had made about 40 little mummy hotdogs, which the kids loved. I also made a snake calzone, which didn't turn out as I had hoped. As the kids were standing in the yard waiting for their food, two of them said, "Oh, the scavenger hunt won't be very hard at all since Alex told us where the hiding places were." My head shot up quickly (since I hadn't told Alex anything about the scavenger hunt) and I asked what they meant. They went on to tell me two of the places I had just hid clues and prizes. I was pissed! I looked at Alex and he knew he was in trouble. I got all the kids food and after they sat down outside on the grass, I calmly asked Alex to come inside really quick. I asked him how the kids knew about the hunt and hiding places. He said he had gotten up early that day and came over to the computer and found the notebook I had written everything down in. He tried to lie and say he only told them one place, but confessed that it was 3 or 4. I wanted to cry. All that hard work for nothing. I told him off pretty good about how he needed to consider all the work and time that it takes for something like that and.... blah blah blah. As punishment, I told him he could not participate in the hunt. He was bummed and tried to negotiate with me a little. He said I could just change the clues. HA HA HA! Oh well, if it's just that EASY! I explained that was not going to work and would take a lot of time. He looked pretty pitiful watching the other kids do the scavenger hunt and I felt like a terrible mother. But I stuck to my guns. I got over it pretty quickly (but writing it down now is bringing back all the feelings. I'll probably be mad at Alex when he gets home from school and he'll have no idea what he did!) and we continued with the activities. We did a mummy contest with toilet paper, Halloween bingo, pumpkin race (hitting a pumpkin with a broom) and ended the night with a movie. The kids had so much fun and Candace and I were totally beat by the end of the night. And I was silly enough to go see a scary movie with my friends that night that didn't start until 9:50! Smart, huh? It was a fun and crazy night. Candace and I said we'll probably forget what a pain it was by Christmas and end up doing a Christmas party as well. :)

The snake was pretty cute and I was sad I didn't get any pictures of the mummies. All 40 of them were gone before I got the chance. I didn't even get to eat one! :)

On the Scavenger Hunt!

The Mummy wrap was hilarious! The kids had so much fun decorating each other. And I got to be the judge!

These two were being crazy and didn't quite know how to wrap each other, so I wrapped them together. They are so cute!

I didn't get to see this whole race, but I stuck my head out long enough to take a few pictures.

All the kids with their masks ready to head in and watch a movie. They had so much fun, were insanely hyper and very cute!

I'm glad we live in a neighborhood that has lots of kids around. Alex gets along really well with the kids in the neighborhood. They have a great time with minimal fighting. I'm glad I can help do things like this, especially before we move.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!