I love Halloween.
Because Ricky was 12 and in 7th grade, his trick-or-treating years were at an end. Instead, I offered him a Halloween party with his friends AND what if that Halloween party was a spook alley in our backyard? He readily accepted!
I’ve wanted to do a “real” spook alley since I was a little girl. My dad would take me around to spook alleys that people would do and it is a cherished memory with him. My attempts at spook alley-ness began with decorating my front porch when I was little and, finally, I got to do the real thing. I admit, I may have been reliving my childhood through this particular activity.
Ricky and I talked plans for over a month and had the backyard all figured out. Then the weather happened. It was supposed to rain. Not even sprinkle, rain. So I started begging for canopies from our friends and neighbors. We altered our plan a little but the show was still going to go on!
With about 12 canopies in our arsenal, we built a fabulous spook alley – especially for our first attempt! We had a cemetery …
A spooky spider area…
The mad scientist room …
The floating head room (I loved this one) …
And even a crazy barbequer serving “handburgers and hot feet” …
It poured that night. Our guests got wet (we had about 60 people come) but they came. It was a lot of fun and there were donuts for everyone! I think we will have to do it again!
Kevin and I got invited to a birthday party with a 70s theme. Time to pull out Kevin’s hair!
How can I resist this man???
With all the fun of the Spook Alley and all the other busy-ness October brings, we were lucky to get our pumpkins decorated! But we did.
There was a combination of potato head parts, carving, and puffy painting going on. So festive!
Halloween was a school day and there was a costume parade first thing.
Kevin even dressed up for work as Dumbledore the wizard.
The parade was adorable and fun and I love it! Best thing PTA ever brought back to our school!!!
We actually did a family theme this year. Ricky had wanted to be the Joker from Batman, but he got to dress up like that for his party, so he consented to our Halloween night theme. Bobby also was okay that his puppy costume got a couple of extra heads ONCE I promised he could play with the puppies after Halloween!
So we were a Harry Potter Family.
Kevin was Professor Dumbledore and I was Professor Umbridge (I’m a mean witch lady from the later books).
Ricky was Draco Malfoy, Harry’s arch enemy.
Billy was the famous Harry Potter.
Bobby was the three-headed dog, Fluffy.
Tommy was their giant friend and teacher, Hagrid.
And Rusty was Harry’s best friend, Ron Weasley.
We looked pretty awesome!
We went to our neighborhood Trunk or Treat and then Trick or Treated to a couple of homes, but it was early home and bed since the next day was a school day.
Bobby tried to get into the spirit by scaring us that night! We were at our trunk or treat eating some chili after collecting candy. Bobby mentioned getting candy at our car and I told him just a minute. I turned to my friend, finished my sentence and then looked back. Bobby was gone. I figured he couldn’t have gone far, so I started down the street asking friends I passed if they’d seen a 3 headed dog. We trunk or treat on a dead end road about a half mile long and we eat chili at the dead end part. As I headed down and passed our car, I became more concerned and disturbed. People were still saying he had passed them. I was quite far from the dead end and getting closer to the stop sign and could not figure out how he had covered so much distance without me seeing him or in such little time! Finally, a good friend was in her car driving towards the dead end and I was going to ask if she’d passed him, when I noticed Bobby sitting on her lap! He’d made it just shy of the stop sign when she nabbed him for me! Good grief! We’ve never had a runner before! Bobby said he was just looking for our car and his candy. So glad for good friends and a safe neighborhood for this three-headed dog to have run through!
I’m not sure we could have packed any more into our October if we’d tried. We celebrated Halloween and we celebrated it hard!
Love it!