Crazy, Wild Halloween At The Pines

 This week has been a flurry of busy as Midge and I prepared for our annual Halloween family bash at the Pines. This year her family came from Chicago to celebrate and leaf peep and just have some fun. Midge and I (with Jack having our backs!) babysat her 10 Grandkiddos on Friday night so her adult kiddos could catch up with my adult kiddos at Union Town Brewery in Ashland.  Whew! It was a little crazy but I think the kids enjoyed it...the littles and the adults!

My sister and her 2 daughters, Amy the nurse on the left, Katie the detective on the right.

My sister's son Bill and his wife Laura. They have 5 of the 10 Grands!  So as they all went to meet up with my boys, we entertained the littles with some outdoor ball games, cookie decorating and pumpkin decorating.  The older ones helped later with some food prep for the party on Saturday and the young ones watched a movie or played on their devices.

Bats and balls and boys...good combo!

My Great niece, Addy, decorating her cookies...Midge has an Addy and a Lexi too! Good thing we call our Addy, Rae and our Lexi, Lou!

Brooke and Ava...some posing with pumpkins!

Lots of silliness and noise and we were pooped by the end of the evening but hopefully these guys will have good memories of the weekend.

Saturday night we had a table full of food and a houseful of family...about 30 to be exact. We mostly hung outside. We had a ton of games planned and a haunted Creepy woods trail.  We had a Halloween egg hunt, a pinata smash up, and many more that we didn't have time to play. Of course a fire in the firepit was nice to sit around after dark.

We had 3 tiny pinatas that all the kids took turns hitting..finally they just smashed them open..those little suckers were hard to break open! (the pinatas, not the kids!) We didn't get a pic of the egg hunt but the Creepy woods trail was fun. I think we scared the adults more than the littles!

The gateway to scary!

Hello...

The idea of the trail was to find the lost trick or treater with their candy...but first you had to pass the cemetery of lost souls that appears every Halloween in the Creepy Woods.

It's a mystery how it appears each year.

Don't let the cackling witch stop you!

Don't let the Demon of Darkness grab you if you find the bucket of candy! 

The first pics were taken in the light so add the darkness and the sounds of the woods and all I can say is:

The trail was the hit of the evening but hopefully we made many more fun memories with the family. That's the fun of all the work we put into doing this. Hearing the laughter, the noise of kids playing and even the screams in the dark that also made us laugh since they came from the adults! I wish I had gotten a photo of the last part of the trail where a large wolf creature jumped out at the end! Even scared me! Ha!

Gotta love the Grands with the bat wings or bat pins...too cute! On a final note, Midge was going to stay tonight and go home with Amy and her family tomorrow. However, she was having some trouble with her diverticulitis and we all insisted she go home early with Katie. Amy also went with to take her to get a cat scan back in Chicago. Amy's hubby, Eric, took their 3 kids to Cedar Point and will go home tomorrow as planned. He's a great guy and a wonderful Dad to do that all on his own while worrying about Midge.  But her scan came back good and just antibiotics are happening and she could go home tonight. Whew! I was really worried. We were both sad she had to leave early but we weren't taking any chances with her health. We've had a wonderful Fall so far. The weather  has been great and all the leaves are really popping out. Take time to enjoy the beauty of this season!  Thanks to all my family who came this weekend...we love you all!