Hazel's Monster Bash

Hazel had a little Halloween partay for her friends today. Very low key. Very fun. Toby was there to help me out with all the preparations. Including, but not limited too, scaring the girls. (that was his main goal for the whole month, until he was invited to a birthday party on Halloween night. Now he just likes to scare every one. He is going as a vampire for halloween, again. But he is a good one.)
But the girls were unphased by his antics. Doesn't Toby know that fake teeth just aren't that scary?
Her friends came in costume and we played games and ate Halloweenie food and decorated cookies, read stories, and just played. Everyone didn't want to leave when their moms came for them after the party. So I guess it was a success!!

We played pin the face on the Jack o'lantern. The girls weren't too keen on the blindfolded idea. So they just played by their own rules.
We had an eyeball-on-a-spoon race, but it wasn't very competitive especially since each girl was holding the egg instead of the spoon holding the egg. But they still went around the course over and over and over.
We did pumpkin bowling. Toby helped with the prep for this game: filled empty water bottles with a little sand. Then he spray painted them orange and their caps green and put jack o'lantern faces on each one. Then we rolled a slightly round ball shaped gourd at the "pins" to try to knock them over. The "ball" didn't survive the game. But the girls had fun. The lone boy joined in for this game.

The girls played musical tombstones (like musical chairs). But I didn't count on my chairs being too big, so they used stools. They also didn't like the take-away-a-chair-and-one-person-gets-out rule either. So instead they just danced around the stools until the music stopped and then rushed for a chair/stool. (We take baby steps here.)

By then we'd worked up quite an appetite and so we had our rock star lunch

of mummies (hot dogs wrapped in bread dough) and caramel apple pops (little chunks of apple dipped in caramel and rolled in sprinkles)

and everyone drank loads of lethal poison (green sprite). Then we decorated a sugar cookie and licked the frosting knife (tongue depressors work so awesomely as frosting spreaders!).

The we read some monster stories and just played.

I love parties like this. Very little prep, not expensive, low key. We didn't play all the games. Even all the kids at the party didn't play together. Until lunch and cookies of course. But everyone had a great time.

The lone boy at the party spent most of his time hanging out with Toby, who made him a water bottle rocketship (water bottle with cardboard fins taped on). He also borrowed a costume from the dressup box upstairs and came down in a black cape with a black mexican wrestling mask on. (my favorite). '

Toby was the hit of the party and was a big help to me getting everything ready to go. Because, as usual, I waited until this morning to get started on any of it. He made the cookie dough (have I mentioned how nice it is to have children that can cook?), the bowling pins, the jack o lantern faces, the lethal poison, and played with the lone boy.
Toby is learning a lot about social rules with so many younger children around during the day. I think that it has been one of the benefits of home schooling him this year. He is getting the social skills education he needs to have but with an unlikely crowd to practice with. But, I think that this has been a best scenario for him. Interacting with children at this age ( three turning four) means there is no judging, no stress, no competition. And it is helping him with patience and realizing that there are other ways to do things. Hopefully, those lessons will translate into his everyday life. I think they will. He already has a better relationship with Hazel.

Mostly, the kids had a fun time and so did I. I think I feel a Thanksgiving party coming on in a couple weeks. and perhaps and christmas party in december for the little set. I'll let you know.