Happy Halloween! Halloween Activities for the Family

Happy Halloween everyone!

This is one of my favorite holidays! I go all out. There's something amazing about the new Fall weather and spending time doing things just to make your kids happy. It just makes Halloween one-of-a-kind. Yesterday my family did all our Halloween activities in one night because we have been so busy this month! This is what we did.

Halloween Bingo!

This game has been a family tradition since I was a kid. My family played this every single year, and every single year I looked forward to it. In our married life, we have usually lived close enough to home that we could go to my Mom's house to play every year, but this year we are on our own, so I made our own Halloween Bingo cards! I think they turned out pretty cute. I got the pattern from Artsy Fartsy Mama. She actually has printables for it, and they are ADORABLE. Unfortunately for me, printables are for when your printer is actually working. I would have just printed mine off since they are so cute, but since I couldn't I made my own based on her pictures and bingo cards. It's ok though, it was hard work but I feel like it gave a more personal touch to it and I will treasure it a little more with each passing year.

So, bingo is a pretty simple game and the rules are basic. The only thing you do differently with Halloween Bingo is that you use candy for your markers. Then, when someone calls BINGO! you forfeit all the candy on your card to the player that won. Then after each round, you rotate your cards clockwise.

Vincent enjoyed himself immensely. As you can see by his huge candy pile, he won most of the rounds.

And as you can see by Max's lack-of-candy-pile, he didn't win at all. Haha, don't worry he's only pretending to be upset for the camera. It's actually funny, because he usually won almost every round in previous years. This bingo set must be enhanced with magical kid-advantage powers. =)

Another tradition we have is making Ghost Suckers!

All you need is lollipop sticks, aluminum foil, and chocolate. It is so much fun and tasty too!

This is something else I grew up with. My Mom had us make ghost suckers every year around Halloween. Once again, loved it and always looked forward to it. The picture above is Vincent's "Big Smile Ghost" and also his "Boo from Ruby Gloom" ghost. This is what we normally had when I did it with my Mom growing up - just melted white chocolate and milk chocolate chips. But now I am an adult. And like I said, I go all out for Halloween.

This is my ghost. She's dressed up for Halloween. This year she is going as Little Red Riding Hood. Unfortunately for her, in this version she gets eaten by the Big Bad Gela. =)

Here we have just a couple of the ones Max made. He made a Deadpool sucker for himself (left) and a Spidey sucker for Vincent (right). Turned out great right? He's so talented.

Here's another one Max made - The Grim Reaper! He looks so happy to be here for our Halloween party, doesn't he?

We just happened to have the red and black melting chocolate leftover from Eva's and my birthday party over the weekend. (More on that in the next post! Stay tuned!) But if you are feeling as ambitious as we were, melting chocolate in virtually all colors can be bought at most local crafting stores. I got mine at Jo~Ann. 

And of course, we also carved pumpkins!

Well, I have a long day full of trying to keep my kids' Halloween anxiety down before the fun stuff tonight. Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween!!

Ghost Story~ Happy October!

I just recently posted something new in my shop. It's a

HALLOWEEN HEADBAND!!

Isn't it just the cutest? I'm pretty much in love with it. So is Eva. She likes playing the korker bow and clicking the two ends of the headband together. What a sweetie pie.

It's also October 1st today.... Don't know if anyone has noticed....

But I'm seriously in HALLOWEEN MODE right now. I have lots of fun activities planned throughout the month to do with my family (thank you Pinterest!), and I am so psyched to share them all with you! But for now, I have something else on my mind....

I wanna tell a ghost story~!

(Dun dun DUN!!!!)

So, I won't get too freaky.... This is a family friendly blog after all =) But I do want to get a little personal. The story I'm about to tell is 100% true. And I know this because it happened TO ME. Here goes.....

When I was a preteen, I was up late at night playing video games, unbeknownst to my parents of course. I couldn't have any of the lights on because if my parents were to wake up and see the living room light on from under their door I would be busted. So I sat in the dark playing video games alone. Normally this never bothered me, but tonight was different. I started hearing a rustling sound. I looked around and didn't see anything, so I went back to my game and thought nothing of it. But it kept going on. I tried not to let it get to me, but eventually I couldn't stand it anymore. I HAD to know. So I paused my game and got up to investigate. I walked toward the sound, and realized it seemed to be coming from the kitchen. So I walked in and looked around. There were grocery bags all over the floor from when my Mom had gone shopping earlier that day and they hadn't been cleaned up yet. One of them was moving across the floor on its own. Me and my amazing logically-sound-12-year-old mind figured "Eek! There must be a mouse under it!" So I mustered up all my courage and lifted the bag......

No mouse.

Hmmm....... My brain started to turn. Then what could it have been? Then I realized.. "Hey, the air conditioning vent is on the floor of the kitchen. It must have blown the bag around when it kicked on." So I put my hand over the vent on the floor.....

Nope. It's not on. And the bag.... Started moving again.

It was just ever-so-gently drifting across the floor. I couldn't think of another explanation, but it wasn't that freaky so I turned back to my game and ignored it. I sat down for only a few minutes before I heard a different kind of noise. A rattling sound. This time I got up right away because I recognized that sound. It was the knob on my parents' bathroom door. I thought they were coming out to bust me. I knew I wouldn't have enough time to turn off the TV and act like I wasn't doing anything, so I turned around and waited to face my punishment and get sent to bed.

.......And nothing happened. The rattling just continued.

It almost sounded as if the door was locked and they were trying to come out but they couldn't figure out the handle for some reason. This went on for a while, so finally I mustered up the courage to walk over to their bathroom door. (I had to pass the kitchen with the moving bag to get there, luckily the bag was motionless by this point.) So I crept up to the door and stared at the doorknob. I could see it rattling. And yet, there was no light on in my parents' bathroom. And I knew my eyes weren't playing tricks on me because my Mom used to keep her hair ties on her bathroom doorknob so that in case any of her girls ever needed one we could just grab one off of it. And I could see the hair ties bouncing up and down with each rattle of the doorknob. And as I approached, the rattling got more violent.

So, I bolted my little self as fast I could to my room, closed the door, turned on my light (closet light too!) and went to bed. That was enough excitement for one night.

If that was my parents playing tricks on me somehow, they sure got me good.

I never played video games late at night again.

The End.

Have fun trying to get to sleep, everyone! =)

Mwahahahahahaha!!

Happy October!

~*~Gela~*~

P.S. I told Vincent that I was telling a scary story on my blog today, and he said he has a good one for you all. It goes like this, "I had a strange dream that there was TWO Vincents. It was very, very, very strange."

Hehe.