Halloween Party–Gooseneck Style…

Last week found me preparing for our family Halloween Party on Saturday night.  I spent two days hanging fake spider webs and spooky things  all over the house.  I must have done a convincing  job, because our 5-year-old granddaughter has been scared to come over and visit for the past couple of days!  Actually, the main source of her fear comes from a large spider hanging over the front door…that drops down whenever there’s a loud noise.  We finally had to turn it off during the party.

Of course, what’s a Halloween Party without a few outside decorations, too?  In addition to the two jack-o-lantern/skeleton men on the front porch, and the lit-up spiders on the windows, I asked Ed to make his traditional “Halloween Man”.  As usual, Ed didn’t disappoint!  Just envision a man hanging from a tree, with one foot missing, and fake-blood stains all over his hands and clothing, and a face that looks like this…

The family arrived at our party right on time!  As promised, I had the television tuned to the Georgia/Florida football game.  Everyone sat glued to the television until after the game ended.   Our Georgia Bulldogs beat the Florida Gators–for the first time since 2007.  You should’ve seen us.  We’d jump up during the commercials, take a few photographs, then take our places on the couch before the game started up again.  It was hilarious!  The Bulldogs were the stars of our party for a while.

The game ended, we finished taking pictures of everyone in costume, then it was time to eat.  We had some very interesting-looking foods at this party.  Check out what we had going on in my kitchen:

The drinks of choice were Spider Cider, Vampire Juice, Toxic Elixir, and Green Witches Brew–complete with floating eyeballs!

Check out our appetizers of… ear wax (mini marshmallows dipped in melted butterscotch chips), scabs and pus (frosted flakes and mini marshmallows), or rat droppings (mini chocolate chips)…

My own personal favorite was…used band aids (graham crackers/frosting)!  Yum Yum!  There were also a few ghoulish eyeballs and some gummy worms thrown in for more variety!

The rest of the menu consisted of taco soup, chili, hot dogs, hamburger dip, chips, deviled eggs with “eyes”, pumpkin rice krispie treats,”white trash”, “cow patties”, and various other goodies.  Many thanks to my girls for their help in preparing the goodies.

Once the meal was finished, it was time for a few games! The games were a real challenge this year because they had to be suitable for children and adults. Fortunately, even the simplest of the games turned out to be challenging for all.

We began the evening with a little cometition of bean bag toss.  Our oldest son, Brett, is pictured here with his little son, Cade.  Cade liked the bean bag toss.  Youngest son,  Brad,  blew everyone out of the water with his 40 points!  He took home a tin of popcorn for his winning efforts.

Here’s a photo of me trying hard to ring the legs of the spider during the ring toss game.  I wasn’t successful.  This game is a lot more difficult than it looks!

Here’s a photo of Brad trying his hand at “ghost darts”.  We put a little twist on the game of darts.  You had to throw while wearing sunglasses–covered in aluminum foil!  Leave it to us to make things “interesting”  It’s hard to aim at a dart board when you can’t see it!

Perhaps the most interesting game of the evening was the “candy corn relay”! The object of the game was to work as a couple to see who could get the most candy corn into the middle bowl within a minute–using only a spoon in your mouth. No hands allowed!

The final game of the evening was to guess how many candy corns were in a jar.  Daughter Brandy was great at this game, and only missed the correct amount by one!  The correct amount was 299, and she guessed 300.  Now that’s a great guess!

Following the games, Ed took the kids (and “kids at heart”) on a little hayride in a hay wagon that he built especially for this occasion. ( He simply put sides on an old pallet which he placed on his tractor lift.) Brandy’s family even decorated the little wagon for Halloween!  When our granddaughter saw Ed’s little hayride wagon, she asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”

The day following the party, someone reminded me that I neglected to award a prize for “best costume”. Oops! It completely slipped my mind. If I had chosen a winner, it would have been daughter-in-law, Christina’s, pregnant skeleton costume!  It was adorable.  She hand painted the baby on her shirt, in addition to the skeleton bones on her slacks!

I think that’s the best-looking family of skeletons I’ve ever seen!  What do you think?

It’s Party Time…

I’ve been as busy as a little bee getting ready for our family Halloween costume party tomorrow night.  Most of the  Halloween decorations are out, the costumes are ready, and the games are planned.  All that’s left is shopping for and then cooking the food.

I spent the greater part of yesterday hanging fake spider webs…There’s just something so wrong about doing that!  I actually noticed a few real spider webs while hanging the fake ones…

There’s also something not quite right about putting fake rats, spiders, and roaches in your house!  Those rats and roaches just look nasty–even if they are plastic!  Ha!  Did I mention that I have a few bats hanging from the ceiling, too?

It’s become quite a challenge to plan a family party.  I wanted to find games and activities suitable for all ages, so I chose several “carnival type” games.  There’s a little kid in all of us, right?  If not, we can always pretend!  Everyone is usually a  good sport.  I’ve got one funny activity planned for the adults that I hope will be good for a laugh or two.  I’m afraid I can’t top the “mummy wrapping” contest of a couple of years ago, though.

I’m excited about seeing everyone’s costumes.  I think I know what everyone is dressing as, but you never know when someone might pull a last-minute surprise!  The last time I threw a party,   my son swore he wasn’t dressing up, then he showed up dressed as President Obama!  He won the prize for best costume, rightfully so.

I mentioned earlier in this post that I still need to do some shopping and cooking.  Time is passing, so I’d better get busy.  Tomorrow night I’ll have several hungry mouths to feed…and I’ve still got to decorate the haunted cookie house!

Have a great weekend, y’all.  I’ll be around to visit as soon as I can…

Flashback Friday… More Halloween Memories

Wouldn’t you know that I’d write about my favorite Halloween memories yesterday? That’s usually how things go for me. However, I will not be outdone! I’m joining with Linda at http://www.mochawithlinda for MORE Halloween memories today!  At my age, I’ve experienced a lot of Halloweens, so I still have more than a few memories to share!

When I was growing up, I don’t remember Halloween being as big of a deal as it has become today–but then nothing used to be comercialized like it is these days!  I knew nothing about the original meaning behind Halloween back then, we just called it Trick-or-Treat night.  It was simply a night to dress up in whatever we could find, and go around town and ask for candy.

Mr. Jack O'Lantern

I don’t remember anything negative ever being said about Halloween while I was growing up.  In fact, it wasn’t until my own children were older, and we were out trick-or-treating, that I discovered the other reason some people celebrate Halloween.  We went up to a house, and the family was on their porch handing out religious tracts.  Later, when I read the tract, I was very surprised.  Yes, I know, it may be hard to believe,  but I really had no idea!   

While growing up, I never remember having a costume of any kind.  We would dress up in our parents old clothes, perhaps add a hat and a tie, put smut on our faces and go as “Hobos” or else we’d get one of our parent’s old white sheets, cut eye holes, and pretend to be ghosts.  If you were very lucky, you might get your parents to buy a mask for you to wear.  Nobody I knew had costumes–I guess we were the “less fortunate” ones, or maybe people didn’t do costumes back then. 

An occasional Halloween or Fall Party was held during my youth, but I can’t remember ever going to one.  I do remember this from my childhood though– the thought of bobbing for apples terrified me.  There is no way I’d ever stick my face in the water!  It’s funny the things we remember sometimes!  I don’t remember ever going on a hayride, carving a pumpkin,  or visiting a haunted house as a child either.  I experienced all of those things for the first time with my own children.

a page from an old scrapbook shows my children's costumes of the past

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, I loved to sew my daughter’s Halloween costumes.  I’d begin to plan what she would be at least a couple of months before Halloween.  I loved watching the costume “come together”.  I made almost all of her costumes when she was little.  I loved them all so much, that I still have most of them packed away–over thirty years later!

Our family didn’t carve very many jack-o-lanterns.  My husband carved two or three in our early years.  I found it to be messy and sort of disgusting–and the jack-o-lanterns didn’t stay fresh for very long.  I found a ceramic jack-o-lantern while my children were still young, and that ended the pumpkin carving at our house!  (I’ve used old Jack O’Lantern for many years.)  Last year, my daughter began the tradition of “painting pumpkins”at her house, and I really like that.  It’s not nearly as messy as carving.  Each family member gets to paint their own pumpkin–even four-year-old Madison gets in on the fun! (her pumpkin is wearing sunglasses)

My daughter's painted pumpkins

Our own children attended their share of school carnivals while growing up, with the traditional games and costume contests.  I’ve baked several cakes to give away in my day, but I don’t remember ever winning one!  I remember a time, when our oldest son was about eleven, he toured the school’s haunted house.  I believe the seniors were in charge of it that year, and apparently things got a bit rowdy.  Someone tackled my son and stole his shirt right off his back–while he was in the haunted house!

While I was co-youth director at our church, we began having “Fall Fun Night” at church.  We had several different games to play, we all dressed up as Bible characters and had a costume contest, and one year we even had a wiener roast.  Of course, we had the traditional hayride, too.  One year, I remember dressing up our youngest as “Samson”.  He wore a set of fake muscles and my long, curly wig–along with a long outfit that I made for him!  Oh the things we do to our children when they are small…

I saved the best memories for last…the candy!  We were just laughing about this the other night.  My children all hated those peanut butter kisses that are wrapped in black and orange papers, while my husband and I loved them!  Those were the first pieces of candy to get thrown out of the pile by the kids.  I can’t remember if they liked candy corn back then or not, but I think they eat it now.  Both of the grandchildren love candy corn–I usually keep some in a little jar, year round.  I love how you don’t have to wait until fall to find candy corn anymore!

Thanks to Linda, for giving me another opportunity to “flashback” and remember some good times.  I am also linking up with Java over at http://www.nevergrowingold.blogspot.com for Friday Follow–Bloggers Over 40, as well as a new hop at http://www.designitchic.blogspot.com  I’m always looking for new blogging friends, to add to my old ones.   Have a great weekend, everyone…and thanks for stopping by!

Fall Is In The Air…

 

Fall has officially arrived in Gooseneck –I turned on the heat in the house yesterday morning!  For me, that’s amazing, because I never get cold!  The outside temperature was in the forties…  I love this time of the year!

I’ve been doing a bit of decorating around the house–getting into the “harvest” and “Halloween” mode.  I began by placing a pair of scarecrows on my porch.  They remind me of my grandchildren…probably because they are a little boy and a little girl.  I thought they needed a little “something”, so I got a small pumpkin to go in front of them.  Notice the size of the stem on that thing!  It’s half as big as the pumpkin!

My little scarecrow buddies...

I am having a hard time keeping my scarecrows standing upright–thanks to the dogs and cats rubbing on them and knocking them over with their tails…I just love country living–with all of my pets…It’s difficult to have anything outside–as you will see later in this post.

On the other side of my front door sits “Jack”.  He’s a ceramic jack-o-lantern that I bought many years ago when my children were growing up.  “Jack”  is like me–he’s getting old, and he has a few bumps and scratches from years past…We’ve experienced more than a few Halloweens together!  I light “Jack” up every night with a tealight.

My old friend "Jack"

We hosted a Halloween Party last year, and had some decorations left over.  I decided to make a cemetery under the tree in the  front yard.  Yea, I know–it’s kind of creepy–but it’s Halloween.  I’m definitely not into the occult or anything like that–it just reminds me of when I was a kid.  When we were kids, we dressed up as ghosts and witches–and thought nothing of it–it was all in good fun, and nothing was more fun than telling scarey ghost stories at night. 

Just hanging around...

The most interesting part about having this fake cemetery in the front yard is watching all of my cats explore it.  If you look closely in the cemetery, you will see a really ugly fake black cat, with his back arched.  I bought him for 1/2 price after Halloween last year.  He is truly ugly!  At first, the cats thought he was a real cat, and every one of them walked up to him and hissed and smelled of him.  One of the cats even sprayed him with urine–and I got a picture of him doing it!  Speaking of those pesky cats…

Those pesky cats are at it again...

“Mr. Big” thought my inflatable pumpkin made a nice blanket to rest on…”Mr. Big”, haven’t you caused enough trouble for one day??? (he was also the “sprayer”!)  That’s Bobs in the background…Oh, no!  Double trouble!  It will be interesting to see if these decorations survive until the end of the month…Have a “bootiful” day!

I’m linking up with http://www.mrsmamadrama.com  and http://www.bellycharms.blogspot for Think of Me Thursday.