Friday, October 9, 2009

Last Year's Halloween Playdate

Today I am participating in the monthly Round Robin held at Keeping up with the Schultz Family and Kid Friendly Friday at I Blame My Mother Since I wasn't blogging a year ago, I thought I'd show you what we did for last year's simple Halloween themed play date. Really it was just an excuse to let the girls dress up one more time! I love the picture of the three of them from last year: fairy, flower, and witch I am such a sucker for little kiddos all dressed up! This was also start of our tradition of fun themed play dates for our daughters, hosted between me and my friend Margaret. We're both former kindergarten teachers and after years of planning class parties wanted to put some of our experince into planning fun for our own kids for a change. Plus the two little girls were only two and otherwise wouldn't really have a party to go to.

Even with all the planning, the play dates still got started with a bang, or should I say slam. As in the slam of our wooden door bar coming down and locking us outside because I had never bothered to learn the entry code through our garage. Whoopsie, and wouldn't you know it none of the neighbors we knew were home. Luckily, the gal down the street came driving by and was nice enough to let me use her cell phone to call Brad. Otherwise it would've been one long cold afternoon! We kept it simple because ER and EV were so young and changed into play clothes for the actual fun. To start with, I gave each girl a set of orange and black with a cookie cutter for each girl, all wrapped up in cute cello bags cause you know it's all about presentation! I wasn't sure how long they'd play with it, because at this point ER wasn't too interested in it. Well big kid GN was a really great model for all the fun things you can do with it. Playdough time went on and on; it was the start of ER's love affair with the stuff. They played with playdough for so long that we didn't have time for print and color Halloween cards I'd found online for them. Bummer too, cause I had them in the cute bags I got above, personalized with their first initial. A year ago, ER was all about coloring so I thought this would go over big. Just goes to show that sometimes, type A personalities like me have to let go and let the kids' interest direct the party.
What kind of Halloween party would it be without some treats? We made sure they got lots of sugar when they decorated their cupcakes! Candy makes everything better☺
I HAD to give them a little treat bag too! These were very easy and quick. Just a purple lunch bag, wrapped in scrapbook paper, then tied with ribbon and a ghost tag. I used my ever so handy dandy scalloped punch and ghost die cut with felt to make the tags.
Inside were some Halloween clippies I made with ribbon and Halloween themed buttons. Cause I am clippie obessed and think we need ones to match every outfit and season. Here's my take on a tute on making clippies, more examples of ones I've made, and my post with links to some of my favorite resources. We also gave them each a Haba wooden pumpkin, that you can in the cupcake decorating picture above and a necklace that I made them. Shockingly, I don't have a picture to include in this post, normally I take pictures of every craft I make but couldn't find it in my photo archives. ER's is sleeping right now so there is no way I'm going in and risking waking her to find it. May post it later on.

Now you can see how easy it can be to do one of these play dates, hope you'll start having them youself. If you do be sure to let me know, because I'd love to come by and see it! I think all of the play dates we had in the past year are now on my blog, except for our Christmas one. It was also before I started blogging. I'll have to add that sometime in December. Look for THIS year's Halloween play date in a week or so, after we have it:)

And don't forget to stop by the main Round Robin post and see what everyone has added!

16 comments:

  1. This sounds like a fun time, Katie. Those bags and hairbows are super cute. So are the kiddos. Have a great day!

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  2. What fun!! What a lot of work for mom and a playdate, but is looks like everyone had fun and got some great treats! I am impressed!

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  3. This is such a fun and cute idea. I can't wait to see what you do this year. Thanks for playing along today. I hope you had a fun time. Have a great weekend.

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  5. This looks like so much fun. I don't know that I am that creative! Can't wait to see what you have planned for this year :)

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  8. Oh to be your neighbor! What fun it would be :-) Love all the details.

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  9. You are SO creative!
    You should have a day or two contest, where parents send in a fall themed pic of their kids and give some of you special hair bows away!

    I am just not crafty enough to make stuff like that! With my luck, the button would detach and my kid would try and swallow it!

    Thanks for sharing!
    Jill

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  10. I can't wait for our halloween playdate in 2 wks ... how much fun!

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  11. I love all your ideas, especially for the treat bags. Those are adorable and so simple.

    The picture of your girls is so cute. Do you remember where you got that flower costume? I have been looking all over for a nice flower costume for my 3 year old and can't find a good one. She is dying to be a flower and I'm running out of time to find a costume. That one would be perfect. Hopefully you got it from somewhere I can order online.

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  12. You are such the party planner!! The three girls were so darling in their outfits.

    I have said this before but I want a scallop punch:)

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  13. So cute! I have the same buttons but never thought of turning them into adorable barettes! I'm using them on a Halloween felt advent calendar.

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  14. This is awesome! I agree that they could use a few more times to wear the costume (not that any little girl needs an excuse to dress up). You had a great theme going!

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  15. Your halloween treat back came out way better then mine!! Check out the ones I poste today. I'm jealous. lol

    I'm finally getting around to visiting everyones blog from Amy's round robin!

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  16. so I cracked open my latest issue of famliy fun mag that I've had but haven't looked in yet. I flipped to a page & instantly recogized a very cute little girl's face! then to confirm my suspicions I read the info & YEP there is was....katies nesting spot!
    Now you likeyly blogged about this already but I missed that one if you did. congrats! & how cool to "see you" outside the blogsphere!

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