Our 10th Annual Halloween Party: A Witches Convention

Sidenote: I only noticed this morning that this post did not go out on Hallowen Morning, as i thought I had scheduled it. OOPS! So let’s just pretend I dont have porridge brain, that I am not sleep deprived and actually got it right! Hmm, k? Thanks! 😉

It has to be said that trying to organize a Halloween party, as a breastfeeding mother of a newborn, is something else. I mean, this is not my first rodeo, cowboy – in respect of both kids and the Halloween sense. But put a little bit of a) and b) together, and it makes for an interesting little juggling act. But driven by passion for these kind of things, or pure madness (dumbness??)- whichever you feel is appropriate – we just about pulled it off.

This is our 10th year running (I know, right?! TEN!) and even though this was our smallest and earliest (in the daylight) Halloween party, it left me pretty knackered ( the unprecidented three wakeup calls that followed thereafter, didn’t help either-thanks Yuriko-Mae)
But,oh,the fun that was had!

The initial intention was to have a mad scientists lab party (Morgy loved her visit to the science centre last term & tried to convince Parker to have that as her birthday party theme).And I had it in my head, for her whole class. But I gave myself a few slaps of reality and knew that if I was to successfully have a party with a newborn on the boob, I’d best scale it down….a whole lot more. So I invited only a small handful of her school girlfriends because that’s all I could manage. And since it was on such a last minute invite,I knew I had to make things simple for the moms. And thus, A Witches Convention was born- all you needed was your pointiest black hat and most kaniving cackle you could crack. That was it – costume sorted!

Also aside from this being an earlier and much smaller party(our very first one back in the day, was at night, with 16 kids….as a sleepover!) I also made it not as creepy as in the past. For I had learnt once we had our first child, that what was once scary fun for our older nieces n nephews, became far too scary for our smaller ,sensitive babies. This was quickly learnt after our first Halloween party with Morgy as a one year old hiding her face from all the creepy things we had up around the house. I decided to pack it away till they were older.

And yet, fastforward to five years later, both Morgy n Pax gave me serious grief about this years party that was not scary enough: “you’ve got to make it scary mom!”( morgy). And Parker-Grace who found all the old creepy decor up in storage with me the other day, begged me to put it up – I vetoed it, as I refuse to deal with scared small kids calling me in the middle of the night cause of some stupid paper mache ghost. But needless to say, I’ve been tasked by my own kids to bring back the creep and scare for next year.

But for now….grab your broomsticks and your cauldrons,witches, for this year’s witches convention…

Looks like Yuriko-Mae is also trying to make a heart with her handies

I tried my best to take as many pix while still trying to host the masses AND breastfeed my lil Coco in between, but that was damn near impossible. But you can at least get a feel for it here:

We served up a lunch of vampire hearts and zombie guts (the ol’ faithful of Halloween kid dinners).

Although with a bunch of 6 year olds I didn’t put too much effort into the food, ’cause all too often I know this is the ripe age of picky eaters. The thought of eating blue zombie guts might appeal even less to their already tenuous love for food. My girls however? Never been known to say no thanks to a good meal,let alone a fun one like this one. (Pax was so good,she didn’t even look at a cupcake till after she came to show me her empty plate. Sweet child)

I usually have quite an arsenal of Halloween foods to serve up (I started a Halloween series on the blog back in 2014 but just never back to it. I think I will though, especially since its such easy and simple ideas and Halloween is definitely started to pick up in SA now)

But for now, food colouring is your best friend for Halloween…it’s what transforms simple spaghetti into zombie guts.Or Sprite into Monster Blood – my nephew, as grown as they are now, still refer to monsters blood drink like it was the most magical drink could have ever served up. As for zombie guts, just pop it into a large Ziplock with a little water and food colouring of your choice.

For the best special effects dry ice is your friend! It’s what gives witches brew it’s magic touch,a potions lab the right feel and graveyards into the eerie places they are.

The decor was mostly all of my old props from previous years,but found two new skulls at a party place called Kattys place. Best discovery for me this year – all thanks to my Instagram community who share in my love for Halloween.

And really you don’t need much, just some stock standard spiderwebs, some skulls, some cheap spiders and creepy crawlies you find every where at cheap stores and party places this time of the year . Throw in some Halloween music and sound effects and boom! You got your self the perfect setting.(You can get a whole selection of great sound effects and classic songs over here).

Potions Class Setup

mde

cof

Speaking of music, I usually have the music and special effects going at the front door as guests enter and in the back, while the activities proceed,but these girls decided a party needs sick beats to dance to and so took over the Youtubing with some more pop music vids to shake their booties to…Someone, please tell me, when the hell did they become teenagers????!

sdr

cof

We had spider webs as favours (simply candy floss and a toy spider)

cof

We had brain cupcakes and witchy fingers – both another stock standard Halloween treat we serve up… especially the fingers.

They are to die for. Even though it’s basically just a traditional Christmas cookie that is then shaped into a finger. I have tried different recipes before,but this one is my favourite .

sdr

The brain cup cakes are super easy.

Just using two different pink shades of icing and a Ziplock bag to ice the details on. And even easier is if you run out of time and just buy plain cupcakes at PicknPay. (I am not a complete sucker for punishment, you know?I know when to admit defeat. But I felt like i was winning with that choice.)

I made chocolate covered apples, framed as chocolate heads…

I had alot more planned for the little witches, like my usual battery of fun activities from previous tims. But in all honesty, I could feel I didn’t have the mental capacity to carry it through. I was bone tired. Although you wouldn’t say it,cause truth be told,you know this is my jam and this kind of thing excites me, and drives me. But, I wisely decided to just take the girls through a Potions Class at least and then let them have free play for the rest of the time.

Potions class was perfect as it now also had some science experiments under the guise of Witchier things. Each girl got a wand. (A painted chopstick. Or you can embellished yours like my girls did for their Potter week they had recently)

We had three potions in the curriculum:
Dancing unicorn milk, making Snow in a Cup and Erupting Rainbows. All of which had them oohing and ahhing.

cof

sdr

I’ll do a break down of these in another post soon. But just know, adding some swishing and flicking of the wand along with some made up words out of our spell book and boom,you’ve got yourself some intrigued little girls. Granted they were pretty sharp, calling me out on this not being potions, but merely science. Although the snow in a cup had them believing.(and they were delighted to be able to take it home with them)

sdr

Also, fair warning,dont you ever question this mama infront Parker-Grace.:) That girl will put you in your place faster than you can say, “your mama’s so…” As short as she is amongst her sister’s friends, she is dynamite ‘n quick witted, and clearly not afraid to use it. Her character astounds me day by day.LOVE that child.

Once all the potions were done, the girls moved the party outdoors and declared it a witch’s picnic – only witches allowed.

sdr

There were the ones that didnt want to be the first to leave, and begged to stay longer – which always makes my heart happy seeing the kids enjoying themselves.

cof

Just a bunch small little girls in pointy hats giggling and cackling – making my heart sing with satisfaction and gratitude for a sweet life with my little girls. Where I get to spin a little fun magic for them to dance in, and they themselves take joy in bringing their friends into it.

At the end of the evening, before I could even ask the girls what each of their favourite parts of the day was, Parker climbed onto my lap, declaring, “my favourite was the brain cupcakes, the witch fingers and making the potions.” I turned to Morgy, and she said with a sweet smile, “My favourite was having my friends here in my home.” –urghhh, LOVE that child!

dav

And now tonight w get to dip into those funtimes again, as we join friends for a night of trick or treating. Also, we got our costumes sorted, and as has become tradition, it is a family affair – I cannot wait!

Happy Halloween, folks! Have fun!X