Halloween 2020

For years we have gone to my friend Elissa's house for Halloween. We have dinner together and then trick or treat together. We started doing it because we were friends through a Stay at Home Moms group and Carter was friends with her son. Her son hadn't trick or treated before so she wanted him to have an older friend to show him the ropes. As they've gotten older and started school they spend less time together and it's gotten to where they see each other a few times a year: at Halloween and for their birthday parties. This year her son wanted to invite friends from school for Halloween and it was going to be a bigger get together than we were comfortable with so we decided to do our own thing at home. We invited over my friend whose daughters are still in distance learning and have been really careful about their exposure level. I wanted to make it super fun since it was on a Saturday and we had a blast!

Carter made this sign for the front door and I thought it was so cute!

I ran my Virtual Tulsa Run 15k that morning and then came home and got things ready for the party. I had Halloween Bingo, Tic Tac Toe, and a bean bag toss set up. The kids never wanted to play bingo or the bean bag toss, but surprisingly the tic tac toe was a hit! I pre-made sugar cookie dough and the kids used Halloween cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Once they were cooled we decorated cookies. The kids spent a lot of time in the backyard and on the trampoline.

We decided we wouldn't do much trick or treating so I wanted to do some fun trick or treating things at home. I put candy inside Kleenexes and used pipe cleaners to hold them closed and make a loop to hang them from. Then I drew ghost faces on the Kleenexes and we had a ghost hunt. The kids had a lot of fun with that. Then we did trick or treating in the hallway. Niki, Ty, and I all went in a room and closed the door. The kids came and knocked on the door to trick or treat and we gave them candy. They kept rotating through until we were out of candy. They thought it was hilarious when Ty ran out of candy and gave them socks.

Going on a ghost hunt.

Carter used his mini Snickers to spell out Snickers.

For dinner we made mummy hot dogs. We had them with orange Jell-O jigglers Ty made the night before. The kids took turns cutting Halloween shapes out with cookie cutters. I also gave them grapes and called them eyeballs. They giggled over that. They decided they wanted to sit together at the kid tables so we pushed them together. After dinner our friends headed out to get their costumes on and do a little trick or treating at their family's houses and we did the same. Carter originally wanted to be Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, using his stuffed tiger as Hobbes, but decided not to because he didn't think people would know who he was. Instead he switched to a Red Power Ranger costume we had from an after Halloween sale. Elise surprised me by choosing to be Cinderella. She wore the Cinderella costume I got at Goodwill years ago for $5! Cheap costumes for the win!

We went to a few of our neighbors who told us they had special goody bags for Carter and Elise on Halloween. Then we went over to Jeremy's house. He made them special spider cookies. After that we went to Thomas' house. He had a cooler full of candy and told the kids to take as much as they wanted. Elise carefully picked through and took a few pieces. Carter grabbed handfuls until his bag was full. Thomas poured some candy into Elise's bag. Carter told Thomas he had so much candy, he must've spent $100! Thomas said close, he spent about $70! We stopped off at one house on the way home that was decorated really cool. it was almost embarrassing for Carter to go up with his bag so full of candy he could hardly carry it! We were home and in bed before 9:00 which is great for Halloween. I wish every Halloween could be on a Saturday!

Trick or treating at Uncie Taco's house.