My husband and oldest daughter are in full "Halloween" mode right now.  It is exactly one week until our annual Halloween Spook House, which takes place in our basement. I've included some pictures of just a few of the items that are included in the "Haunted Basement" maze and tunnel that is part of the Halloween annual event.

We have almost as much Halloween stuff as we do Christmas stuff, because of this extravaganza.  As mentioned in my previous post, I am not exactly a brave person, so having goblins, coffins and such laying around my basement makes me uneasy so I haven't been making as many trips to the basement since they began the building process this year.

This year, the Spook House includes the following:

• Grim Reaper who leads the participants down into the basement
• "The Tunnel" - participants must crawl through old moving boxes with strategic holes placed in them and at the end of the tunnel a scary ghoul tries to grab them.
• Werewolves in the corner (my 13-year-old daughter and my nephew) as they maze changes direction.  They have sound changing devices for their voices so that it's scarier.

This year, in an effort to be even more MULTIMEDIA, the Spook house will have a movie that is showing while the people go through the maze.  The movie is not really a scary movie -- it has video footage of our pugs, Lucky and Peanut, set to scary music. It's so strange it's not really scary.

The Haunted Basement includes the classic standards, as always:

• Fog machine running non-stop
• Flesh eating zombies (My husband's business partner, Wil)
• Fake blood everywhere
• Giant spiders, bugs
• Creepy people jumping out at you while you go through (friends, other parents)
• Creepy people grabbing you as you go through (friends, other parents)
• Scary music blaring from every corner of the basement
• Scary sound effects at every turn
• Coffins with the undead

As kids (and big kids) wait for their turn, I play circus master to the crowds by having Halloween crafts, face painting and games for the kids.  I am also in charge of beverages for the "Big Kids" and we have some beer, wine and "witches brew" for those adults that want to partake.  My crazy husband also cooks delicious ribs for all the people that want them as well as his world famous guacamole dip.  Seriously, people would go to war over his dip, it's just that good.

More to come and will post pics of the Spook House progress as the week goes on.

Check out Disney Family.com's group Halloween blog, The Ghoul's Guide, for more stories and tips.