October is over. Wow. What a crazy busy month it has been!
I hosted a neighborhood Halloween party for the kids, but the only fancy thing I made for the party this time was this platter of decorated marshmallows-on-a-stick. Actually they're paper straws...gotta stay accurate around this house because I have three precise, very literal children who insist on it. ("But mom, you said come to the kitchen for dinner, not the table!") ... or my favorite broken record response ("But you didn't TELL me to brush (and/or) floss - you only said to get ready for bed!")
I got the idea from a magazine, but I don't remember which one. It was either Country Living or Better Homes and Gardens. I had ripped out the photo to save in my file of ideas, but Hazel shredded it when she was mad at me about something. Sigh. No strong-willed personalities in this house. Not ever. Not even me.
Anyway, my critters are a little different than the magazine, but definitely the same concept. The white stuff is fondant, the orange stuff is melted Wilton candy. The mummies' eyes are mini M+Ms, the black is store-bought icing that comes in the tiny tubes (Not the gel! The gel is awful and never hardens). They didn't taste all that great because of the fondant, but they sure were cute!
The highlight of the kid's party was the Make-Your-Own-Monster activity. It was a big hit last year, and it's something I'm going to do from now on. Much easier than slaving away for 2 days making a table full of magazine-worthy treats, and the kids enjoyed it much more as well. Win/win all the way around!
Eliza's going to love me for posting this one. She inherited my habit of sticking out one's tongue when concentrating on something...it really does help! :-)
Hazel's kindergarten class had a field trip to the local pumpkin patch, which was a lot of fun for everyone.
Hmmmm....which one is THE perfect pumpkin?
The kids got to see how ice cream was made the old-fashioned way. It brought back memories of when I was a kid - when we had family parties, we would make homemade ice cream and would take turns sitting on a folded towel on top of the big hand-cranked bucket to turn the handle until our arms turned to jello. I loved the rock salt and using a hammer to smash the big frozen cartons (no store bought ice bags for us) of ice to put into the bucket.
This sign cracked me up! I love it. I wish I had bought it. But then everyone who visits would have found out our secret!
The day of the pumpkin patch field trip was an exciting one for Hazel, as it coincided with the day she got to bring home the classroom stuffed animal (Rosie the puppy) and journal about all the things they did together.
Ah, Despicable Us! Back in September my kids were talking about being Minions, and my friend Jaime and I were laughing about how fun it would be to dress up our 2 families as the Despicable Me crew. It ended up being much more work than first anticipated (of course!) but we had so much fun dressing up!
Despicable Us2
I made all the overalls and yellow hats, and Steve's costume (minus the lab coat that Jaime ordered). Everything else was a collaborative effort. The kids got such a kick out of it, and even little Riley kept her headgear on long enough to snap some pictures before going trick or treating. Success!
Here is Steve modeling his couture Dr. Nefario costume: duck tape goggles, hand-painted fleece pants, and custom-cut yellow duck tape on the black gloves. Very very nice. :-)
On a little classier note, I had a Black & White party for grown-ups recently as well, which was admittedly more fun than making 5 pairs of Minion overalls. :-)
I just love to set up a fancy dinner table!
Inside the boxes are hand-piped black candy mustaches, but I forgot to get any pics. Oops. And I promise that this is the last mustache-themed party you will see me do. At least in the near future. I told you it was the year of the mustache for me! :-)
You may recognize the silver glass containers that I did for last Christmas. I used the mirror-finish spray paint and sprayed it to the inside of the glass, and added a rim of silver German glass glitter to some of them.
The painted pinecones were a bit of a flop - rather than spray painting them (which I should have done) I thought I'd simply dip them into the paint. Welllll, I discovered that when they got soaking wet with paint, they closed up! Argh. They used to be all big and full and gorgeous, and now they're tight and rather funny looking. I'll know better for next time.
Even the food was black and white - I made a salad (okay, I fudged on the green lettuce) with peeled cucumbers, sliced white mushrooms, black olives, and jicama. I hadn't had jicama in years, and now I wonder why - it's delightfully crunchy and almost sweet. Love it!
I also made clam chowder (yum yum) but failed to get a photo of that.
I made a trifle with homemade chocolate cake and brownies and real whipped cream. Nothing had calories that night, by the way. My guests brought black and white food too - it was so much fun!
Yes, that's really my teeth beneath that 'stache...I always knew I had big front teeth, but hello, Roger Rabbit!!
What's a party without party games? We all had so much fun. This one is a take-off on the Chubby Bunny version.
You can see that Steve decided that the one-by-one mini marshmallow rule was just not cutting it...
We played charades/pictionary, and the person could choose to act it out or draw it. This, believe it or not, is a swan pose. Actually he got confused and thought for a moment that a swan was a crane. Or Karate Kid. And we will never let him live it down.
This was one of our favorite drawings of the night. Yup.
The kids wanted to play pictionary the next morning, and this is Hazel's vampire. Isn't it awesome? I absolutely love it.
I really wanted to get a good shot of the hairpiece thingy that I made, but the mirror technique wasn't really working that well. Not enough light = blurry.
So here it is off of my head. It's just 3 yo-yo's made from soft velvet, with silver jewelry beads sewn in the middle.
The back is not so pretty, with all the hot glue holding the feathers (clipped from my black boa on the mantle) and barrette clips. You can also see the curved piece of black felt that the velvet flowers are glued to.
Alrighty then...next stop, Thanksgiving! I'm going to try really hard to get the ever elusive firepit done this month - it's getting to the point of ridiculousness that I'm still not finished with it yet. Besides, this is the perfect season for a roaring bonfire in the backyard. Wish me luck!
I love the strong personalities comment! And Clay wants to know if you ever rest LOL.
Posted by: Jen N. | November 06, 2013 at 04:21 AM
What a great Halloween season you had!! I LOVE the Despicable Me costumes..your family always has the best costumes so fun!!
The Black and White party looks like it was a blast!!! What fun games and the "chubby bunny" with mini marshmallows..what a blast!!
Tell Hazel the girl's say hi and they LOVE her vampire!! Nice job on your headpiece as well!!
Posted by: Wendi | December 04, 2013 at 11:26 AM
Oh and the strong personalities and taking everything literal....it sounds like my house as well...I always think these strong personalities are what are kids need to help them through what the future will hold...it also teaches us as parents A LOT of patience (okay at least me) and I find I have to pray like crazy at times to know how best to help guide and lead these amazing spirits the Lord blessed our home with!!
Posted by: Wendi | December 04, 2013 at 11:29 AM