Halloween

For Halloween, everyone dressed up for our family party with Grandma.  The rolls for dinner came out of the oven just in time for us to leave for her house, but as we were loading the van a full blow hail storm broke loose and we just waited staring out the backdoor window.  I was sure glad we were having an indoor party.

We started off the party by everyone filling out some words for our Mad Lib and each person was given a Halloween shape.  Jessie drew them for me and she and  Abbie colored them.  Abbie colored the candy corn rainbow colors, and we had witches hats too, along with the pumpkins and bats.When it was time to eat we marched around the tables singing a funny Halloween song and when the song stopped everyone with a pumpkin sat down.  We then continued walking and singing until each of the shapes had been called.  It was a fun way to mix us all up.

For dinner we had soup and rolls.  Spencer was so impressed when some butter dropped on his roll in a perfect “I’m excited” (an exclamation point).I think the kids favorite part of dinner was the apple juice with dry ice.“I’m hungry too Mom!!!”Here’s one of the decorations Spencer helped me make last year that I still just love.  When we got one of them out it had a bunch of melted wax in it and Mark wasn’t sure how to get it out.  We couldn’t put it in hot water because of the paper glued to the outside and there was no wick left so I suggested we microwave it for just a few seconds to soften the wax.  BAD IDEA!! There was a loud pop as the bottom of the jar cracked right off.After dinner our first game was Backward Pictionary.  Someone picked a clue and then had describe to someone else how to draw it while the rest of us guessed what it was.Then we pinned the face on the pumpkin.When we were done Abbie made her own silly pumpkin face.Next was our pinata.  It didn’t exactly stay strung up and after a few hits on the floor Grandma helped it out.We had trick-or-treating too.  And it was so funny!!  Each “house” was a bedroom door and the kids had to knock and then do something.  Ken’s door was a cootie catcher – see Jessie’s new blog (http://jpsugarbaby.blogspot.com/2010/11/november-family-letter.html) for a fun story about that room.  Then we had fishing, telling a joke or singing a song door, and hopscotch down to the bathroom.For dessert (in case the buckets full of candy weren’t enough) we tied doughnuts on strings and ate them with out using our hands.  It was fun and once you got the hang of it it wasn’t really all that hard. My only regret was that by the time Ken picked up the doughnuts there weren’t any chocolate cake donuts left and those are my FAVORTIE!We finished off the night reading our mad lib.  ENJOY!!

It was a dark and stormy bedtime when Scott and Megan realized they were lost on Mount Rushmore. Instinctively, Scott reached for his Huggies, and then remembered he left it at American Home Product Innovations, Inc. when he was spanking there. And, to make matters worse, they noticed they were being surrounded by squishy, slippery tetherball poles.

Just then, to their relief, they saw Ken and Julie’s family running on the nearby boomerang. Megan washed quietly to get their attention. Jessie and Mark were the first to hop. Unfortunately, they were surrounded, too, as the creatures whimpered their slimy legs at them.

Next, Abbie and Spencer put on their superhero pants, and scampered over. The captors skipped for a minute, but then smirked clearly as they surrounded them, too. Oh, this was the hairiest month for everyone. Would they ever exult their striped tinkertoys again? Would they ever taste Julie’s spicy artichoke again?

Blandly, Ken, Julie, and Neil screamed up behind the leader. Suddenly, Neil let out a lumpy burp, which scared the flirtatious tetherball poles so badly they happily jumped out of sight.

“Happy Halloween!” the cousins all bounced together!