Halloween 2008

Happy Post Halloween to everyone! We are recovering from our candy fueled rush last night.

Katherine's party and parade at school was fun. She made a craft, then they had their Costume parade around the neighborhood. They then had donuts, cider and cookies while watching Dora's Halloween episode. All the children in her class are very sweet. You can view pictures of her class here.

After school we had to bust tail to take Nathan to his mom's pick up time at 5 pm in Cedar Springs. What a nightmare. We ended up being stuck behind slow traffic and then switching routes to get there faster, only to be 15 minutes after pick up time. Katherine also fell asleep on the way there, fueling my fear that this whole arrangement had ruined trick-or-treating for us.

So Jonathan and I fantasized about being rich all the way home, which was quite fun. It distracted me from being upset about Halloween being ruined, so he's good.

Then we had trick-or-treating. We went to the same neighborhood we went to last time and had a pretty good time. Katherine was escorted to the door on the first house, to the porch on the second, and then I was forced to stay at the sidewalk with Daddy after that. She's so confident and outgoing and was very excited. We kept having to remind her that she needed to say "Trick-or-treat" or "Happy Halloween" when they answered the door and "thank you" afterward.

We got to walk by the Haunted Jail. It was pretty awesome looking. They had strobe lights and spooky shadows. I can't wait to take Katherine when she's old enough. They had treats outside so we bought some popcorn and kept trick-or-treating.

After walking around for almost 2 hours, I came to get angrier and angrier about one thing - Halloween etiquette. If you are handing out candy, you should have your porch light on. If you aren't, you shouldn't have your porch light on. My beautiful, confident 4 year old went to every single house with the porch light on, only to get frustrated because half of the people weren't there. Or how about the houses that had porch lights on, people at home, my daughter screaming "TRICK OR TREAT!" and knocking as loud as possible, they still wouldn't even come to the door to say "no candy" or anything. Losers.

So today we are being lazy. Cleaning the house, eating, playing. Just normal stuff.

More information on Katherine's party coming up!

Big Rapids Fall Fest, Planning Katherine's party and other news

Well, the Big Rapids Fall Festival was this weekend. In my opinion, it was crap. Now, I know that I had no hand in planning the event or donating any of my time, money or energy in the event, but I know for a fact that this could have been A: better planned and B: funner for the kids. I know what the 9&10 news story says. I just don't agree.

There were exactly 11 games at the festival (if we insist upon calling it that). Most of them were a spin on the Bucket Bonanza game made famous by Bozo the Clown (who, in all of his awkwardness, would have made the festival a hit instead of a miss). Then there were 3 different games of Pick a duck, all of the ducks bobbing upside down to show which ones were the winners and which were the losers. Then there were 2 fishing games, in which you throw a line over the sheet and snag a prize. Honestly, I could have spent a dollar at the dollar store and come home with better prizes and more candy.

I will be nice. Most of the groups were student groups donating their time and money to get some penny candies and some little prizes for the kids. The activities were supposed to start at noon, but by the time we got there at 12:15, they were out of prizes and giving out candy that had been dropped on the ground. If you think I'm generalizing, I'm not. I seriously saw a woman drop candy on the ground, pick it up and give it to a child. Yuck.

So, all in all, it wasn't the best time. Katherine really enjoyed seeing all the kids dressed up in their costumes and is really looking forward to trick-or-treating this Friday. She's also looking forward to something else...

HER BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!

She's been using her pretend phone to call me all weekend and invite me to her birthday party, which is perpetually tomorrow. She is so excited, and wants me to have rainbows on everything.

Since it is a rainbow party, I'm still trying to come up with more things that will be Rainbow-y and cheap, the magical combo. So this week I will be hitting up my favorite - Dollar Tree - to get her Halloween party stuff and check out what I can get creative with for cheap.

I have the perfect idea for her birthday cake - a rainbow layered jello cake. I've been searching around online and haven't been able to find exactly what I want to do, but I took an nudge from an episode of Ace of Cakes and an idea from online and I'm going to combine them into a Rainbow shaped jello cake. We'll see!

And for reference, I am looking for ideas for games and activities for the children at Katherine's birthday party, preferably color themed. If you guys have some, let me know!

PS No drinking games. ;)