One-Yard Wonders projects

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Halloween at the Farm

It what has become an awesome annual event, we celebrated Halloween at the Farm on Saturday and had a truly delightful day.

Though it rained some in the morning, by the time we arrived at 11:45 a.m. it was sunny and just a hint of breeze. We took over Grandpa Kevin's garage for the day and packed in eight hours of nonstop fun for our sons, Mazy and Bo, and assorted nieces and nephews, including Kael, Theron, Hudson and Marla. Two nieces were missing. I don't know why they missed out on the fun, but certainly it was their loss. Our Halloween party is THE BEST!!!

So here's a brief recap of the day:

1. Halloween costume parade and photos (Bo refused to wear his costume so he was not photographed.... Little turkey.... Mazy was by far the scariest in his grim reaper costume, which has two interchangeable masks and scary gloves and weapons. Can you tell he is his father's son when it comes to Halloween? Theron was dressed as a sparkly black cat. Marla was a colorful witch. Bo should have been a dinosaur. Kael was an Army soldier. And Grandma Katy was a wicked witch. And Shawn was a scary pumpkin guy.

2. Lunch of walking tacos and orange pop -- the kids were totally pumped and too excited to eat, so we did walking tacos in the garage, which they surprisingly ate very well.

3. Halloween crafts -- the boys colored skeletons in coffins, the girls made graveyard scenes, Bo made a Haunted House with Shawn. My sister Heidi and I complained about how hard the foam craft kits are to put together.

4. Outdoor play -- I thought we were very smart this year because we encouraged the kids to run around like crazy little beasts after each activity. This allowed us time to clean up and prepare for the next activity, and they ran off steam and had fun on the farm.

5. Ghost pinata -- Shawn and I brought a pinata this year -- a spooky ghost with black and orange streamers hanging from it. It was pretty cool. We filled it with candy, of course. But also with some cool treats, like silly band bracelets, Halloween rubber duckies, Halloween tattoos, pumpkin stickers, spider rings and some other things I'm forgetting. They had a blast whacking the pinata and little Bo, after initially refusing to hit it, ended up breaking it wide open and spilling the treats out for everyone to get. He was very excited about that.

6. Pumpkin carving -- Grandma Katy grew 57 pumpkins this year on the farm! She decorated the yard with them and each person was encouraged to go choose a pumpkin and carve it. It is always my favorite Halloween activity. Bo picked out a little baby pumpkin. It was so cute! He scooped it out and then told me what shapes to use for each of the face parts. Mazy picked a BIG pumpkin and I was surprised that he scooped it out almost entirely by himself. He wanted to carve his this year so we gave him a somewhat safe carving saw and let him loose. He had two faces on his -- a scary face and an alien face. It was very cool. I made a big toothy happy jack-o-lantern and then, inspired by the unusually warm weather this fall, I carved a flower into another small jack-o-lantern. Shawn free-handed a werewolf (show off!) and Uncle Troy made two or three, including a baby face in honor of his unborn baby due in May, a happy face pumpkin and a scary pumpkin that he torched and turned black.... That's Uncle Troy for you.

7. Haunted House in the Garage -- this was a new event for 2010. We let the older kids create a haunted house in the garage while the young set took naps. It was quite an undertaking, but it was also a blast. I used to make Haunted Houses when I was a kid. So it was so much fun to watch Mazy and Kael get into it -- both wanted to have a hanging spider that they could lower and scare people with. Uncle Troy changed all the lightbulbs in the garage to cool black light bulbs. He and Grandpa Kevin covered all the windows with cardboard. We had all kinds of decorations to hang up, big pumpkins stuffed with papers, some Halloween lights, etc. Each of the four older kids got their own section to decorate.

8. Hayride with Grandpa Kevin -- Love hayrides!! Love them, love them, love them. How can you not like piling on a hayrack with all your family members and taking a drive around the freshly harvested corn and soybean fields. It is always so much fun. As we rode we listened to the final minutes of the Iowa Hawkeye football game (they lost!) and the Cyclone fans (we won!) had a nice time rubbing it in to the Hawks on board.

9. Tours through The Haunted House -- once we returned it was time for the kids to take their places. We closed all the doors and lead two adults through at a time. I'm not sure who had the most fun, the kids or adults. When everyone had gone through, some went through several times, we asked the kids to come out and take a bow. They loved that part. What a great little bunch of actors!

10. Chili Supper and Grandma Maxine's caramel rolls -- Supper was a welcome sight for everyone. Having that much fun really takes it out of you. Grandpa Kevin and Uncle Troy had a bonfire going so many of us carried our food outside to enjoy the setting sun and the spooky orange harvest moon rising in the east. There was even cloud of lightning in the north to make it an especially spooky time!

11. Bonfire and Outdoor Fun -- The adults were ready to take it easy and enjoy the fire. And the kids, with new flashlights from Grandma Katy, somehow still had energy to run around and howl like werewolves. Seriously, how they all kept going for that long is beyond me.

And at 8 p.m., the party finally wrapped up. We took our tired boys home with their jack-o-lanterns and declared Halloween Party on the Farm 2010 a huge success!

2 comments:

  1. Sounded like a wonderful day - can't wait to see pictures of everyone! Too bad that Bandy and girls couldn't make it - I agree they missed a good time. Enjoy this week of Halloween festivities. I just saw on the news of 2 artist guys who make BIG bucks selling carved pumpkins that are no better than Shawn Hanson originals!

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