Introducing Mr. Spider & other creatures that lurk at the Kenward household...

After several hours of tweaking and the supervision of several neighborhood boys, Mr. Spider is finally positioned in our yard. He's been with us for the last ten years (in various forms). His eyes are made out of Emma's former baby food glass jars which are filled with tiny Christmas lights. His body is made of a card table, chicken wire and black plastic. His legs are miniature Christmas lights and metal stakes. In our former Greenville house, he was perched on the roof.


As you can see from this picture, Josie has continued to do well with all the Halloween madness.

For the last three years, we have had a family of ghosts that live in the front yard. If you notice in the background shot of this picture, Jason is standing outside one of windows. I still have to remind myself that he isn't real when I look out the window at night.



Freddy also lives in our graveyard. Aside from our newly acquired Dracula, Chris has made each of our creatures by hand. He's definitely the mastermind behind the majority of our decorations.



Care for a hug?



My former Egyptian princess costume is now an outdoor creature that floats over the graveyard.



Despite the gore in the front yard, the garland on our front porch is very festive.



Believe it or not, this is only the beginning of our outdoor decorations. Woo ha ha ha!!! Be sure to check back later for more pictures.

A new member in the Kenward Halloween family...

Meet our newest addition to the Kenward Halloween family. Isn't he a lovely Dracula?



Chris is in full swing with the outdoor Halloween decorations. The front porch is very festive and the graveyard,tombstones and creatures are all in place. He's still working his electrical engineering magic for proper lighting. Stay tuned for outdoor pictures.

Over the years, I have several friends who have given me some very lovely Halloween decorations (thanks, Dr. Beth). Seventeen years later, these have turned into some amazing collections that I'm always excited to display on my fireplace mantle and my sixteen foot shelf in the sunroom. Because everything goes up in stages at our house, I've taken a few pictures of my fireplace mantle and a picture of my favorite Halloween ornament (Frankenstein).



Yes, those are eyeballs and mini skulls scattered across the fireplace mantle.



I haven't even begun to unpack my prized collections that go on my sunroom shelf. I'm finding it's much harder to decorate this year with a toddler who ALSO wants to assist. Keep checking back for more pictures!!

A dead tree and Mr. Skeleton's coffee

Sunday afternoon, Josie was introduced to several of our Halloween creatures. As long as we refer to the creatures, as "Daddy's toys", she doesn't seem to mind. Note in the picture that Josie is serving Mr. Skeleton "coffee" from her plastic tea set.

A tradition every year for the last seven years, has been to bring a dead tree from our woods into the house and decorate it for the Halloween party. The dead tree is actually quite festive once it's all done and many of our Halloween guests pose for their Halloween pictures in front of the tree.

We fill it with lights, garland, bats, birds, ghosts, pumpkins, mini skeletons and paper lanterns. Josie got right into the mix of decorating the tree this year and I've captured some of the decorating festivities in the movie below.

With the lights on


With the lights off

It's starting!!!

Today we officially started unpacking the Halloween decorations in preparation for the upcoming party. I wasn't exaggerating when I said we have tubs and tubs of decorations. These are a few pictures of the basement and the garage. There are even more tubs up the attic.



Not knowing how Josie was going to react to all the Halloween chaos, I decided to start with something tame. I gave her two plastic pumpkin candy buckets to carry around. She thinks they are great containers for little Fisher Price people.



After breakfast, we then headed to our favorite pumpkin farm to fill up the mini van with pumpkins, cornstalks and gourds. It was Josie's first time and she couldn't have been happier.








Unpacking and setting up the Halloween displays literally take weeks. I'll be documenting our progress in our blog, but I've promised my husband to keep a few surprises for our party guests. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Haunt with a Heart

I have to give some major kudos to my dear friend Shanna, who is hosting a Halloween party to raise funds for a little boy in China who needs open-heart surgery sponsored by Love without Boundaries.



She asked me to help her with a Blog Banner (as my reader's know I'm slightly addicted to changing my blog banner on a weekly basis) and I was more than happy to help her out.



I love the idea of doing this type of fund raiser to benefit Love without Boundaries. I think next year, I'd like to do the same thing with our own family friendly Halloween party to benefit Pearl River Outreach. Pearl River Outreach provides medical training for the caregivers who work with China's orphaned infants and children. You'll be hearing more about this in a later post.

Thanks for the brilliant idea, Shanna. Your heart is so HUGE! Be sure to stop by her Halloween blog to get more information.