First Ever Swan Family Halloween Bash

Our Halloween was a huge success! Aaron's mom (Debbie) and older brother (Ryan), were staying with us for a week because Ryan had shoulder surgery, also, Aaron's younger sister (Sydni) and her husband (Jake) and their little boy (Zac) were staying with us Halloween night and then we were watching Zac for a few days while Syd and Jake went to Vegas...because of all the family in town, Aaron and I decided to throw the First Ever Swan Family Halloween Bash. We also invited Aaron's twin brother (Kelly) and Aaron's two aunts and uncles and Aaron's cousins who live in the Provo area to all come over and hang out. Aaron and I even made individualized hand-made invitations to send out to everyone. (I took a picture but it's on my mom's camera, so as soon as I get that from her I'll post it.)

Before the party started we had the ward Trunk-or-Treat. We got Lincoln and Zac in their costumes--Lincoln was a monkey, and Zac a firefighter--and took them over to do a quick run through of the Trunk-or-Treat. Aaron and I also decided to be festive and dress up (well, mostly I decided and Aaron was a good sport about it) I was a cowboy and Aaron a was an indian. Notice his awesome paper-sack vest. Kelly helped me make it a few nights earlier. Lincoln had a blast trick-or-treating. After a few times of showing him how to do it, he got to the point where he would lift his own bag up as high as he could in the direction of the candy bowl and say, "Uh-uh". It was funny. And everyone said he was such a cute little monkey. He also carried around my pistol from my cowboy outfit the whole time. I'm not sure why he was so attached to it, but he would not let it go. So he was a little monkey carrying a pistol around. Ryan decided that made the costume even more funny. I agree. Debbie stayed home to take care of Ryan and to make the yummy treats for the party.

We had lots of great food. Graveyard Cake, Pumpkin Cookies, homemade root beer, homemade wassail, pumpkin seeds, apples with caramel dip, doughnuts, and pizza from Papa Murphey's. Not to mention candy.

Our decorations were pretty cool too, if I do say so myself. Aaron and I made them for family home evening the Monday before. We had orange and yellow paper chains hanging from the ceiling and little Kleenex ghosts in the doorways and on the windows and a few on the ceiling too. Nothing like decorating on a budget of zero dollars. But I thought it looked fantastic.

After Trunk-or-Treat we put pjs on the little boys and shipped them off to bed. Our guests (the ones that weren't already staying at our house) started showing up around 8:30pm. We had several activities planned. Aaron had built a left-turn-only maze on our living room floor with masking tape. When people came through the door they had to follow the course, only making left hand turns, until the reached the kitchen where the food was. It was pretty fun. Not everyone attempted the maze, but I think everyone who did eventually got to the kitchen. Aaron, Kelly, and Jake participated in a doughnut eating contest. They had to eat doughnuts off of a string and whoever got the whole doughnut chewed up and swallowed first was the winner. I think this contest was the highlight of the evening, everyone was laughing pretty hard all the way through it. Aaron came out the winner! Yay for Aaron! The boys played a few strength games using a wooden dowel. I think Kelly won all of those. They also played around alot with the bow and arrow, tomahawk and spear from Aaron's Halloween costume. Mostly we all just sat around and chatted. While we did that there was a Halloween word search that got passed around. Sydni and I also got to try on our bridesmaids dresses for Whitney's wedding. We decided to be identical twins for Halloween, well, at least for the 10 minutes we had the dresses on. All in all, I think everyone had a good time, even if we did stay up way too late. ;)