A Fun Time was Had By All...

FIRST of all...Rock You isn't working again. I have the slide show made and it's showing some other family here! I thought I had deleted it and saved this as draft, but apparently I published it and some of you are probably wondering if I've lost my mind. Soooo...I'm going to start over.

Our Halloween party is over and it WAS a success! We had 15 adults and 12 kids from the church in addition to many neighbors who dropped by. We gave out 75 children's treat bags and a BUNCH of candy! Many adults took chili, soda and candy bars. And they loved the cookies! We met some new neighbors that we didn't know in the past. It was fun connecting with both our neighbors and our church family a bit more. Here's a little glimpse of the preparations and our evening:

It all started with Reverse Trick or Treat last Sunday. Here are some of our church family getting ready to surprise neighbors with a bag of candy to use for Halloween. I have to tell you, if you try this, bring a cute little kid in costume...no one refused these darling little girls!!
DS 4 took care of pumpkin carving. As you can see, he had a little "help" from both cats!
The "set-up" was a table for goodies, chili, cider, soda, AND water in the driveway. Chairs and a firepit for visiting when it got dark.

One of our church members is a professional baker and she brought these darling cookies to share. They were a HUGE hit with all the kids and adults!!

DS 2, DS 3 and their friends played frisbee all night in front of the house. It was amazing how this also attracted kids! I think it's funny how frisbee comes and goes by way of popularity.

DS 4 couldn't decide WHAT he wanted to be for Halloween. I did not type up this story, but here he is being a "funny guy" and loving on one of our church members' new puppy. The puppy got LOTS of love throughout the night.

And here are the sweet little girls who won hearts during Reverse Trick or Treat....

And then the kids and their families started coming. It is always so fun to see the cute little costumes everyone is wearing.
Even the neighborhood pets came by for a little loving.
I found these cute little lanterns at JoAnn Fabrics the other day. They were only $2 each and I got 8 of them to add to our decor.
And here is a picture of the lanterns and the pumpkin lights we found as well. When the sun went down, the firepit went on and we enjoyed visiting with everyone who came by to visit. It was fun to see how people came back after they took their children around the neighborhood. They came back for chili or drinks or just to visit.
Here are DS 4's pumpkins after dark. Can you tell he got tired of carving by the time he got to the big one? It became an abstract work of sorts.
And you know I can never show pictures without sharing the food that was INSIDE too!