Halloween/Birthday Party

I have been planning this Halloween/Birthday party for well over a month now. What was going to be a low key few people party turned into a bit bigger of a shin dig. I have always wanted to throw a Halloween party and what better timing then to throw and Halloween themed birthday party?? So I started planning and looking on line and kept a whole notebook full of ideas and lists of things I needed to do. I first started by making lots of decorations for my house that would be fun for the party. I blogged about most of those craft and decoration ideas earlier on here. Then when the time got closer I started buying all the food and things for the party. I wanted to make most of the food because I figured that would help bring down the cost of the party. So I made a menu. Again, it started out small and the list gradually grew. So Friday and Saturday were spent by me running around the house like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything ready all while also entertaining and taking care of my kids (not as easy task when I have a to do list a mile long.) So just to give you a little overview; the plan was to have dinner at 5:30 then let the kids play a bean bag toss game that I had made and sewn bean bags for, then to make Halloween finger puppets that I had gotten a kit for at Michaels, then play pumpkin bowling (which actually got skipped over) eat cupcakes, open presents, and visit. It all went by in a flash but I was very happy with how it all ended up and we had a good turn out of friends. The menu and the decorations are the two things that I had spent the most time on and that I was very proud of. I made "spooky" food labels for all the food on the table to add to eeriness of the party. The menu was:
Hamburgers (Brain-Burgers)
Hot dogs wrapped in bread stick dough (Mummy dogs)
Tortilla chips and Bean Dip (Bone Chips and spider nest)
Potato Salad (Monster Mash)
Veggie Tray (Swamp Fixins)
Baked Beans (Ghoul Stool)
Homemade Caramel Popcorn (Caramelized Bat Brains)
Pumpkin Pie Dip with Tortilla shape cut outs sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar (Arsenic Dip and Goblins)
Veggie Straws (Splintered Cat Bones)
Jello Blood Worms-made by pouring jello into flexible straws (blood worms)
Tropical Hawaiian Punch (Witches Brew)
And last but not least Cupcakes (didn't put a spooky name with these)

I got the idea to make the Jello Blood worms from:
http://www.theidearoom.net/2009/09/jell-o-blood-worms.html

And I got the idea for the pumpkin dip and goblins from a Taste of Home Magazine.

I also made frozen Cranberry juice/frozen raspberry hands to put into the witches brew. Those looked pretty awesome! They helped to keep the punch cold because they were frozen, but because they were made with gelatin, they don't melt so it keeps its shape. I got that idea from

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/witches-brew/Detail.aspx

All in all I was very please with how everything turned out and I hope that everyone that came had a good time.