Halloween party

Wow , what a busy month it has been. We finished our October with a party after school this afternoon for Halloween. Since this is not an Aussie tradition , we embrace the opportunity to celebrate it whilst living here in the expat community (what is not to like ?? a holiday with loads of lollies , "candies" and dress-ups as well) We have trick or treated each year but this was our first year to host a party. Each of the kids chose a few friends to invite so we had about 16 kids along with my friends children also. I baked some halloween treats, a vanilla witch cake, some choc ghost cupcakes and little goblin pots of jelly. I can see all the Mum's out there cringing at the sugar- never fear I also made sandwiches and mini hotdogs and we ordered in pizzas.

We had a variety of games starting with some halloween colouring pages and maze puzzles, a variation of bobbing for apples using forks (didn't want to risk spreading the change of season lurgies- and this was a novel way to get each child eating some healthy fruit before the serious sugar overload.) , we wrapped Mummies up using kids as mannequins and toilet paper as bandages and had a great and very noisy treasure hunt for chocs and lolly pops. I must admit part of my motivation for holding the party was to control the types of candy the kids had (in light of the melamine scandal- I bought only Australian, US and French chocs), and this saved me having to confiscate the "questionable" candy they would collect going door to door.

Each of the guests left with a little noodle box filled with chocs and lollypops which Riley had helped me decorate with spider stickers. It was lovely to get a chance to catch up with my friends after the busy month we have had and Odila was a wonderful help with all the busy little party-people.