a very halloween birthday

I'm sure by now you are all sick of hearing about Halloween, but I had to share a few more photos of Oscar & Audrey's double birthday party.  My friend, Sonja, and I put so much work into it, but it was such a great time!  Both of the birthday kids were in Halloween heaven.

I wish I had taken more photos of the decorations!  Sonja's house looked awesome - she made several cute felt buntings, including the bats pictured above.  There were also decorated lanterns, lots of bat silhouettes, and a gigantic yarn spiderweb that covered an entire wall in her hallway.

I made a simple cake (vanilla with blackberry filling and chocolate frosting), and decorated the top with cardstock cutouts to look like a haunted house, or "house of spooks" as Oscar called it.  Sonja made yummy nutella mini cupcakes, decorated with the cupcake toppers.  Sonja's husband, Jake, cooked up a delicious dinner of pulled pork burritos with all the fixings, and we also had clementines dressed up as jack-o-lanterns, spooky mummy sugar cookies on a stick, cookie bones, and brownies with cute jack-o-lantern wrappers (there was no shortage of treats).

Since the kids were mostly 3-years an under, we kept the activities simple.  After handing out the treat bags Sonja and I made, we sent them on a mini trick-or-treat to the doors inside her house.  The kids received stickers, spider rings, a piece of candy, and a pumpkin-wrapped brownie.  Afterward, we sent them outside to break open a pinata to fill their bags with a few more treats.

We ended the evening with cake, of course.  After Audrey beat Oscar to the punch of blowing out the candles, we re-lit them at least five more times.  I hope they got all their wishes in.

You can find many of the ideas and tutorials from projects mentioned above linked on my Halloween Party Pinterest Board.