Ode to Halloweens Past

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Halloween was cancelled due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. As blessed as I am, it was still difficult to swallow my girls' disappointment. Even in our attempts to celebrate in new and creative ways, they just could not understand why...

I thought it would be fun for the girls to reminisce of happier Halloweens! So in honor of Halloween's past, here is a trip down Halloween lane:

Kirsten's 1st Halloween 

Halloween 2007

My Adorable Insects, 2008

love that stinger

2009

Dorothy & Glinda

2010

2011

even Chris joined in on the fun

Hurricanes & Halloween Don't Mix

Hurricane Sandy put a bit of a damper on Halloween for the northeast this year. Unfortunately, she created a lot more damage and devastation for so many loved ones and friends. We were so blessed to get by unscathed and maintain power in its aftermath. Having LOTS of company this week was another blessing we received.

Since Halloween, in our town and many others, was cancelled this year, we attempted to create some normalcy for our children by having a makeshift Halloween get together. My gracious neighbor, Katie, invited us and the children on her block to a backyard Halloween party. My girls were so excited to put on their costumes and march (well, run) around the corner. We took our house guests and our 5 pound bag of candy!

After sprinkling the candy all over the backyard, we let the kids loose for a candy hunt.

The candy, fresh air, and running around was just what these cooped up kids needed!

Alice in Wonderland Tea Party

As I mentioned in my post about Julia's 4th birthday, Julia's 5th birthday was presenting a challenge to me since she just loved last year's party. She easily selected her theme, Alice in Wonderland, since Alice is her favorite Disney 'not really a princess' princess!

Once we had our theme, which naturally leant itself to creating a tea party, we began by creating the invitation. Julia loved this black and white original illustration from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, drawn by John Tenniel, so I incorporated it into our Queen of Hearts playing card idea.

For our decorations, we went with a pink and blue color scheme and created a simple tea party for two.

Pink cylindrical and blue spherical lanterns from Target hung above our table. The table was set with

bright pink wavy plates from Party City, which sat atop metallic teal chargers (on sale at Michaels for just $1.00 each - boy do I love a sale). 

It was also adorned with talking flower centerpieces made from fancy glass olive oil bottles from Home Goods, with keys tied round their necks.

Alice needs both the key and the little bottle reading 'drink me' (which Julia & Kirten both LOVED drinking from) in Chapter 1 of Julia's favorite story.

For dessert, Pillsbury Funfetti cupcakes were a must with our favorite buttercream frosting tinted pink. 

Four cupcakes were tea party ready, being baked in silicone teacup shaped cupcake molds, which came complete (I believe from Home Goods) with plastic serving saucers!

My Home Goods cake stand and Dollar Tree silver serving trays made for quite a lovely presentation! And of course, our Alice figurines (minus the Cheshire Cat, who seemed to have disappeared a long time ago) made their way to the table with some help from none other than Julia.