Behind the Scenes

Welp, we survived another Halloween!! I'm sure that many of you regular viewers are sitting on the edge of your chairs waiting for the moment of truth eluded to in yesterday's post, and you won't be disappointed.

In addition to the regular trick or treating festivities yesterday, our annual Halloween bash took place.  I may have shared the story with you last year--but I will re-tell a little bit of it again.  Approximately 8 years ago, several of my girlfriends and I were talking.  We thought it to be SOOO sad to buy these cute little costumes (because 8 years ago, we had LITTLE costumes to buy) and go trick or treating in the dark. .where no one could see our little monsters darlings.  At that time, we usually tried to meet at someone's house to view everyones appearance during trick or treating.  We decided it would be a lot of fun to have a small halloween party.  Everyone could dress up, we'd play some games, and then eat some spooky food.  You might say it was a hit.  We had around 20 kids that first year and everyone had a great time.  A few of the same original families still have kids young enough to enjoy it!  But each year it seems that we add some families with kids that would enjoy the fun.  This year we had 55 kids that came (though some of them were too OLD to play the games) and 34 parents that stayed around to watch!  We were so thankful for the beautiful afternoon--last year it rained--and I'm not sure I could have gotten 90 people in my house!! Over the years we have tried different goodies, different games, and different agendas for the party.  I usually have tons of pictures--and I will share some of them with you this week.  But the post for today happens to feature what happens around here BEFORE the party starts!!  We still have one game that has been played at every party since the first one.

It involves wearing blisters on the inside of each thumb. .a small fact that I forget each year until I have stuffed at least 5 balloons. We have used witches warts, nerds, eyeball gum, and various other treats to hide in the balloon.  This year we used gum.

It takes a LOOOOOT of air.  Thankfully, these two still like to blow up balloons--and they can even both tie them shut too.  I will recall many days of having small children blow up the balloons only to hand them off to me, dripping in saliva, because they just can't get it tied right.  All of my children have learned to tie balloons while helping get ready for the Halloween party!!

So here is the mountain of balloons tossed over our heads onto the floor of my room.  They get placed into trash bags. .lots of trash bags. . to wait for the relay game in which they are the star guests.  Be sure to stop by Wednesday to see who can pop them by sitting on them!! You may be surprised!

Hey, has anyone seen my hat??? I got a new one this year--one that was a little more. . . Feminine!! Didn't stop my clean up crew from trying it out.  That is what Halloween is all about isn't it?? A good excuse to be anyone but yourself.  Ok, OK. . .maybe I don't dress TOO out of character!!

Time to fix my share of snacks.  After 8 years of fixing mummy dogs, you would think that I wouldn't still have to look up the oven temp and bake time. .but I do!!  I typically make about 60 mummy dogs.  Sometimes they are gone in nothing flat, sometimes there are leftovers.  Tonight for supper we are having leftover mummy dogs and macaroni and cheese :-)  Parents always impress me with the spooky food they fix for the party.  Most of them are VERY creative!! We had some extra hearty foods yesterday, since it was likely to be everyone's supper before heading out for the REAL Halloween fun!

You just take canned breadsticks and wrap them around a hot dog--mummy style. The first year I was really careful to get it just right. Then you dot 2 eyes on with mustard.  The mustard doesn't stay on warm hot dogs too well. .and the kids just really didn't care what they looked like anyway.  So now I quickly slop them together and call it good!!

They're ready for the oven--you can easily get a dozen on your cookie sheet by turning them to this angle (PS--it took me EIGHT years to figure this out. . .so run with that tip!) Bake 'em at 375 for about 14 minutes.  I also fix punch.  This year we had green punch using lime sherbert, pineapple juice, and 7-Up. And we had an icy orange punch using orange and peach jello and pineapple juice.  That got frozen overnight and gingerale added to it before serving.  Sometimes I fix tea too, but I forgot yesterday--and we just had punch! Hey, it was a BUSY weekend!  Sorry!! That menu got supplemented with little smokies, smoky fingers, sausage balls, spinach/dressing balls, chili, creepy eyeball (cake balls) cookies, caramel popcorn treats, spooky finger cookies, graveyard brownies, little monster sandwiches, chips and dip, cupcakes, puppy chow and probably some other things that I am forgetting!! YUM!  It's the best part of the party!

Time to get ready!! Costumes everyone!! Not sure WHAT Camille was doing THIS for. .but I watched her for quite a while before I figured out that she was trying to get her fingers in her mouth to make this horrible face. .and I just thought she was trying to get hair out of her mouth.

Oh, here she is.  A shining, sparkling Tinkerbell Princess. .who did NOT want to have Tinkerbell hair (AKA a little bun on top of her head) But thoroughly enjoyed getting real makeup to wear.  She was finished wearing her dress BEFORE the party started, and again BEFORE all the party guests left.

The bloody scream mask made it's way into our parade of costumes again.  Dev did NOT have spikes coming out of his head. .I just noticed the draecenia plant sticking out of his head in this picture!!  Jeremy asked last week how many years we were going to have to see this costume. .My reply was something like "as long as someone likes it AND it means I don't have to buy another costume. .Until it breaks!!"

Big kids are so BORING!! They don't believe in Santa. .and somehow they even stopped liking to dress up!! BAH HUMBUG! $3 bubba teeth and an old wig made this "near" teenager's outfit! And don't he look excited about it too!! 

I didn't even SEE this kid until the end of the party.  He snuck in with his friend sometime after it started!! He also got bubba teeth.  This was their first year to be allowed to hang out with their friends on Halloween.  SOOO SAD!! I did advise them that I had better not catch wind about any tricking or vandalism going on! And I think they were good.  Any one see them Halloween?? Let me know.  Hopefully they could at least remember to say thanks without their mother standing there!

AND

SOOOOO. . .

The moment of truth for the red head in the pictures yesterday!

Isn't he SO precious?? 

He was a great sport about it. .and surely impressed many of his friends!! If any of you know Jeremy. .this was TOTALLY out of character for him--which makes my heart smile. .cause I know that he was dressing up just for me. .and hopefully he didn't like it TOO much. .cause I really prefer his everyday "manly" look!

Places. .Places everyone. .the party is just about to get started!!

Come back in a couple days. .I have a ton of pictures left of our party games and guests!!

Guess what. .today is the official start to the Thanksgiving season!!

Give thanks with a grateful heart!