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     Advent Calendars are a popular activity with so many families during the holiday season.  Many families that I know have 2 or 3 advent calendars going at once.  There may be activity ones, chocolate ones, ones with toys or verses, ornaments...  There are so many out there! Even though I don't have young children at home anymore, I still love looking at all of the choices each year and see what someone else has come up with.  Every year for the last few years we have put up our favorites for you to see and perhaps get for your own family.  Now is the time to start deciding because December 1st will get here pretty quickly! 

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     Happy November! 

     It is time to start preparing for Thanksgiving!  One of my favorite times of year!  If you are panicked about hosting Thanksgiving this year and need help, quickly  click on this link  and get some help!

     Now that you have calmed down, LOL, you can focus on some fun things that will offer that extra umph to your Thanksgiving table!  
     Back in 2019, I shared this idea about making cloth napkins and an ornament favor to give to each of your guests.  I still love the idea. 

Hi there, Lindsey here. I just wanted to tell you about a super fun Halloween party we threw on Tuesday! In our church I work with the young women (girls ages 12-18) and we decided that in October we wanted to throw a Halloween party for the primary kids. You've heard my mom talk about working in the Primary. Primary kids are ages 3-11.

The week before the Halloween Party, the Young Women met together to come up with ideas of fun games and activities to do with the kids. Here is a list of the ideas they came up with:

• Pin the Nose on the Witch
• Eyeball races
• Spin the Wheel
• Knock Down the Clown
• Cupcake Walk
• Pumpkin basketball
• Mummy Bowling
• Face Painting
• Ghost Face
• Haunted Table
• Photo Booth
• Spider Races
• Costume Contest
• Ghost Hunt

We had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and each chose a booth or two that she would be in charge of running. I handled making these certificates for the costume contest. We came up with ten different categories. Here is the one for "The Most Historic Costume." My daughter won "The Most Disney Costume." She is being Luisa from Encanto this year because "Luisa is super strong and so am I!"

At the beginning of the Halloween party we had the primary kids line up and march around together to music while the Primary Presidency (the adult leaders who make sure everything in Primary is running the way it should) judged each costume and came up with the winners for each.

​Then we started the festivities with every kid being able to go around to each booth. At every booth there were prizes.

I handled the Mummy Bowling. My daughter had bought me a toy bowling set for mother's day three years ago (it resides in her bedroom in case you were wondering.) It came with ten plastic pins and two small plastic bowling balls. When one of the young women suggested Halloween bowling I was so glad we had it on hand!

To make the mummies I cut toilet paper into strips and then wrapped the pins up in toilet paper. Then my daughter drew different faces on all of them. we wrapped the balls too and my daughter said it was going to be a Mummy battle!

At the church I set up the pins between two chairs and I wrapped twine around the chairs to keep the pins from going too far away.

The kids had two chances to knock the pins over. If they knocked any pins over they got 1 piece of candy. If they knocked them all over they got two pieces of candy. If they didn't knock any over their consolation prize was... a piece of candy. (Our goal here was for the kids to have fun!)

For the Ghost Hunt I made twenty of these little ghosts and taped them up around the gym. Throughout the night the kids counted up how many ghosts they could find and the ones who found the most won a prize! These ghosts were so easy to make! I wrapped a tissue around a cotton ball and tied it off with one of my daughter's small elastic hair tie. Then I drew the little ghost faces on with a sharpie marker.

My daughter really loved everything, but was excited to get a unicorn painted on her face. She was also excited by the glow in the dark fangs she won at one of the booths. We gave each of the kids small treat bags to hold their candy and prizes in as they went around to each booth.

She also especially loved the "Ghost Face" game. She had to stick her face in a pile of whipped cream to find the candy corn hidden in it. Her face looked like a ghost face when she was done because of the whipped cream all over it.

The Spider racing was a perfect game for little kids. You take straws and blow through them to get your toy spider to move. The first one to the finish line wins!

The Eyeball Racing game was just like the egg spoon race game where you have to balance an egg on a spoon and "race" from one end to the other without your egg falling off. However, instead of eggs we used plastic toy eyeballs.

The Haunted Table was the "scariest" thing we did with the kids. The table was set up with a sheet and kids had to reach their hand in to feel "eyeballs" (peeled grapes), witch's fingers (carrots), brains (chopped mushrooms), and a pile of nerves (spaghetti). Then they had to guess what each thing actually was.

Towards the end of the party we gathered all the kids around to play Halloween Bingo. One of the women who works in the Primary already had cards made up that she's used in the past with the older primary kids. Since it was all words we teamed up a reader with a non reader. The board had all Halloween words. We played until three teams had gotten Bingo. Then we took a group picture and announced the costume contest winners.

The Primary kids had a blast at this Halloween Party, and the Young Women absolutely loved throwing it for them! I hope this will give you ideas for your own Halloween Party, and have a fun and safe Halloween!

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      Some of our grandchildren were going to be in town two weekends before Halloween, so we thought we would gather the family together and have an early celebration.  Since we also have 2 birthdays in the family that are close to Halloween, it seemed like the perfect time to have a party!  Because we had our party early, maybe some of our ideas will help you with any event you are now planning at the last minute! 
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The Menu:  

     I wanted to keep it simple, yet satisfy a lot of different tastes and make it feel like Halloween! Maddy and I planned the menu together and we came up with:

• 2 kinds of chili-regular beef and bean chili and Lindsey's famous Pumpkin Chili! 
• Baked potatoes  to top with chili if you wanted to.  Some people love baked potatoes in our family and some don't, so they could just eat chili if they wanted.
• Toppings such as sour cream and cheese.
• Corn bread, (which didn't end up happening at our party, even though it was in the plan.)
• Homemade Root Beer!
  
• Cake
  
• Pumpkin Pie 

     Maddy loves strawberry cake, so I used a cake mix to make one.  But, to make it special I decided to decorate it with my Disney Skeleton Apple mug that Maddy bought me from Disneyland one year. I made strawberry sauce to use as blood! Click the gallery below to see how my granddaughter and I did it. 

     The root beer was a big part of the fun! I found root beer extract at our local grocery store.  That brand was much less expensive at the store than on Amazon.  But, if you can't find any, there are a lot ofbrand choices on Amazon that are less expensive.   We made 3 gallons, which was way more than enough.  The best part was putting in the dry ice.  The kids loved that! The root beer was delicious! 

The Fun!

     Two days before the party, I went to the store and purchased a variety of different pumpkins.  Maddy came over the morning of the party and she and my son set up a pumpkin patch in my strawberry garden box (without smashing my strawberry plants) and decorated with fall leaves and flowers. 

     We had been having some cooler weather in Phoenix, but of course on the day of the party , the temperature shot up again, so some of our plans didn't happen as I had hoped.  We set the carving tables up at the side of the house in the shade! We had hoped to have everything outside, including a fire in the firepit, and then lighting the jack-o-lanterns around the yard after they were carved.  But, we had to move everything inside because of the heat of the day.  The kids loved carving though! We had plenty of those carving kits that make the carving so much easier! 

     After the carving was over, we sat all of the pumpkins on the table.  The kids were able to sit and eat their dinner all around them.  Then, we all visited and talked awhile until the sun set.  I had purchased small battery powered candles to put inside the jack-o-lanterns.  We lit them and turned off all of the lights so everyone could oooo and aaah!  Then we sang happy birthday and ate dessert! 
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     The party was a success overall, in spite of a few glitches to our plans.  Of course, today the Fall temperatures are back! I guess we can have our firepit going on the real Halloween, but it won't be as much fun without the grandkids! 

Other Halloween Ideas You May Enjoy:

• Spider Candy Dish
• 3 Last Minute Costumes
• Halloween Party Appetizers
• Labels for Your Halloween Treats
• Quick Way to Decorate Halloween Cookies

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