Party Hardy!

All right, let me start out by saying, Fall is my favorite time of the year! I love the colors, I love the weather, not too hot, not too cold (typically). I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE anything that tastes like pumpkin: pie, bread, lattes, donuts... However, I do NOT love carving pumpkins. I never have liked it. Even as a kid, I would just get ticked because mine NEVER turned out how I wanted it to. I always had a vision in my head, and it just didn't happen. Mine was always the one that was falling apart, or was half way finished because I got too frustrated. So.... last year Kent carved a pumpkin with Brayden, this year he was out of town and not too willing to jump into it when he got home. I decided we would have a PAINTING party! This way no disappointments (mostly by me), no gunk, no slimy, slippery seeds, no KNIVES! I thought it would be perfect! Once again, not so much. I made a special trip to the store to buy crayola paint (it doesn't stain), and come to find out two hours after arriving at home, the paint was already missing. (B found it two days ago in a "safe" spot in his room). Anyway..... we did have some crusty paints left over from last year that were nearly frozen from being in our garage. But we made it work! Ellie contemplating if this was really going to happen.

Dani diving right into her masterpiece.

Brayden and Ellie working together. About halfway through this project, Kent rolled in from work. At this stage, 10 minutes into the project, I decided I desperately needed a caffeine fix, and decided to grab a mocha from my favorite coffee stand. I left Kent with the camera and halfway painted pumpkins and jetted off for 10 minutes, tops!

I returned to find this:

If you can't tell, the pumpkins are pretty much paint less! Kent was working at his tool bench and Brayden had decided to wipe ALL the paint off of the pumpkins with the towel in the garage. I don't even remember why, it may have been because smoke was coming out of my ears and I couldn't hear him.....if you can see, MOST of the paint is all over their clothes. After all this time and effort, the pumpkins were back to mostly the original condition. I stripped their clothes off, threw them in the wash and told everyone to get inside.... I needed to sit down with my fix and get some happy juice flowing through me before I could look at them again. :)

One project down, and a Halloween party coming up.....

Our neighbors, and Brayden's best friend from school, hosted a Halloween party for about six families on our street. It was amazing, they went to so much work and the kids had tons of fun (so did we). Jackie had five or six games, punch, pizza and lots of treats!

Kent and I were the only ones who were not dressed up. I felt pretty lame, I just convinced everyone that I was dressed as a HAPPY mom, with my smile pasted on my face. :)

Julie, the pregnant nun.





Jackie had the funniest/grossest costume I've ever seen. She actually had a button she could push, and diarrhea came out of her bum. I think we all threw up in our mouths more than once that night.

Pin the nose on the pumpkin.

I was quite proud of Ellie, she participated in just about everything!

Brayden bobbing for apples.










Dani and Ellie busting a move!

Finding gummy worms in the whip cream.

B's beautifully frosted cookie.

This is Chris, our host. Halloween is his favorite holiday, and they go all out! He actually was kind enough to take off his costume while the girls were there because it FREAKED them out! After they went home to bed, he put it back on. It was great!

Almost everyone all dressed up!