TipToe with Tarantulas

Last Saturday Pete had an all day Cub Scout training course, so I signed the boys up for TipToe with Tarantulas class. I'm not really sure what I was thinking when I signed them up, since I'm terribly afraid of spiders. Hope they realize the sacrifice I made to put my fears aside so they could have fun (haha). They learned all about tarantulas as well as touch one and its web. They also got to hold cockroaches, stick bugs and some sort of worm. Towards the end of the class, they made a few crafts before getting wrapped in a spider's web.

Harvest Festival

Two days after the Cub Scout Halloween party, boys got dressed in their costumes again for the school Harvest Festival. I was at the school from 11am-4pm helping with set up in the school gym. Pete came later in the afternoon to help set up the Haunted Hallway(. When I got home, I got straight to putting makeup on my boys and the neighbor kids while my neighbor Sara cooked dinner for all of us in my kitchen before having to return back to the school at 6. After getting everyone ready, I didn't have enough time to dress up myself. And by that point, I was E.X.H.A.U.S.T.E.D! and didn't care if I was in costume. We headed up to the school. The festival started out with a huge glitch-no money in the money boxes! There was some miscommunication with the PTA Treasurer, so Shane (PTA President) and I ran around in a panic trying to get that situation fixed. After a half hour, the money issue got resolved and all was good. Pete continued helping out with the Haunted Hallway and I helped serve pizza for a bit. Boys ran around playing the various games and going through the Haunted Hallway numerous times. I finally got a chance to relax right when Gordon, Michelle and Caleb showed up. They drove down to join us. I was happy then to just be a guest and hang out with our friends. The festival lasted two hours. I stayed late to help clean up. I think I finally went home around 9pm, but my body felt more like 2am. I passed out asleep the second my head hit the pillow!

Just a small portion of cupcakes I baked and decorated the day before for the bake sale at the Harvest Festival

Here's the only pics I managed to get during the night

Cub Scout Halloween Party

A week before Halloween, boys had their Cub Scout Halloween Party. I decided to throw a pre-party with our neighbor Sara and her 2 kids (her son Zack joined scouts too). The kids decorated Halloween cookies while I worked on dinner. On the menu was jack 'o lantern pizza, mummy dogs, pumpkin pop with spider ice cubes, and Frankenstein pudding. After dinner, the kids got into their costumes and I did their makeup. Clifford and Nikki were zombies, Zach was The Hulk, and Kristjan was a vampire. They received lots of compliments on their costumes at scouts. It happened to be the monthly pack meeting, so Clifford started off calling out orders for the flag ceremony. Kristjan and Zach received their Bobcat award. And both Clifford and Kristjan received some patches and belt loops. Once the official stuff was over, the party started. It was a good hour of fun!! At the end, the pumpkin contest winners were announced. Kristjan won 1st place for tigers, and Clifford won 3rd place for wolves!! It was a fun night!

Kids decorating Halloween cookies

Our festive dinner

So proud of my boys!

Let the party begin!

Pumpkin Carving

One evening we sat at the kitchen table as a family to carve pumpkins. I really, really wanted to take the kids to a pumpkin patch, rain or shine. But in the end, when we finally had a Saturday free of events, I was too tired. So we picked up a couple of pumpkins from Fred Meyers to go along with the 2 pumpkins the boys brought home from Mama Mickey's garden. For the most part, the boys cleaned and carved majority of their pumpkins themselves. Clifford carved ghosts, Kristjan carved a mummy, and Pete 'n I cared scary pumpkin faces. After we were done and sat our lighted pumpkins out on our patio, we pulled out our pull-out bed and watched a movie together.

Boys with their pumpkins

Getting ready to carve our pumpkins

The final results

Halloween Crafts and Decor

I've been super busy with life, and haven't been able to blog lately. Since I don't have anything scheduled this Friday evening (AMAZING!!!), I'll take this chance to catch up on all our Halloween activities. First on my list is to share some crafts I made to decorate our house for the Halloween season. All my ideas came from Pinterest, filed under my "Halloween" board, in case anyone wants to make these cute crafts for next year.

"Googley-Eye Frame"

"Bloody Candles"

My mantel after I finished decorating. On each end, you can see "ghosts". All I did was stack 2 of my flameless candles on top of each other, wrap gauze around them, and glued googley eyes on. They looked awesome at night.

This was my favorite craft to make. It's made with 2x4's, paint, raffia, gauze and duct tape. The bottom black part is suppose to have the phrase "Have a Spooktacular Day!" I ordered the vinyl saying thru Peter's cousins Jason and Cindy, but never got around to putting it on until I was packing it away yesterday.