At the Water's Edge

Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts

This is what my sink looked like Thursday night when I was
almost done with my cooking!

It's hard to believe but we just had our 9th Annual Halloween party! Due to some other conflicts we had to have the party on a Friday night this year, which was a little chaotic. Wednesday was my cleaning day. Thursday was my cooking day. And Friday, was rush around to do the last minute prep after work before people started coming over. I made another giant pot of chili, cooked in the turkey roaster which can also be used as a ginormous crock pot. There were lots of leftovers, so I have lots of freezer meals :)

Giant pot of chili!!

Another cute idea I stole -- a pumpkin-shaped cheese ball!

Tom and I both had "cartoon-ish" costumes this year. I was Velma from Scooby Doo, and Tom was Cap'n Crunch!

Jinkies! You want a Scooby Snack??

Crunchatize me, Cap'n!

Oh yes, it's a home-made mustache, too!

I actually found the majority of our costumes at Goodwill. I could not believe my luck when I found an orange turtle neck sweater, red shoes, a red skirt AND a wig for my Velma costume! I had the glasses already and the socks I borrowed from a friend. I made a box of Scooby Snacks by snagging some images of the "Snausages" brand Scooby Snacks.

I found Tom's blue jacket at Goodwill, too. It was actually a ladies blazer....shhh!! We didn't realize until looking at a picture of Cap'n Crunch how ridiculously high his collar comes up. I had to attach some foam to the blazer to make that, and used a combination of foam and felt for the rest of the jacket decorations. The hat I made out of foam padding; I don't know what it's actually called but I found it at Jo-Ann Fabrics. We just had to spray paint it so it was the right color! Also, the Captian's eyebrows are kind of floating up above his hat. Not sure why. Cartoons are funny like that. Tom won our costume contest...kind of not fair, being hosts and all...but I also feel like his winning should be my winning since I made almost the entire costime :)

And now, for the pumpkins. The first one I modeled after "Mutant Enemy" productions, since we've been watching a lot of Joss Whedon stuff this fall - including going through the Firefly series with some friends and now getting addicted to Dollhouse.

The second one I saw on Pinterest and one of my friends carved it for me! She did a good job. He looks so worried. I have more spiders now...but haven't gotten an updated photo.

We had a discussion about how if you had spiders crawling all over you, you would probably DO something about it rather than just sitting there and looking worried. However, Tom pointed out: "Well, what if you were just a head, without a neck? What would you do?" Touche. I guess all you can do is sit there and look worried!

And, finally, we have Halloween, the actual day, on Wednesday. I may have to dress up as Velma again just so I can offer Scooby Snacks to our trick-or-treaters that stop by. We're employing the same methods as last year to try to lure kids to our end of the neighborhood by giving away full sized candy bars! This will be year number two, so we'll find out if last year was successful in training the kids to come this way or not!

Saturday was our annual Halloween party! We had a great time with friends, playing games and eating food. I decided after last year to do another giant pot of chili as the main food dish. It worked out great, and anything left over I’ll freeze and use over the next few months.

As for the rest of the food…I tried a couple of new recipes. The first one was a recipe for pumpkin cookies with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. They were pretty good, and did not have an overpowering pumpkin flavor at all. The recipe came from a magazine I got at work. The second new recipe I tried was a version of white chocolate bark, made with crushed Oreos and candy corn – very sweet, but good! I also made an old family favorite that has become a tradition for me every Halloween – Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts. They don’t really have a name, so I guess that’s what I’ll call them. Normally, I just say those “bacon water chestnut things” – but somehow that doesn’t seem appropriate for a recipe title. At any rate, here’s what you do:

Ingredients:

- 1 package of bacon

- 1-2 cans of whole water chestnuts

- Barbeque sauce

Directions:

Cut the slab of bacon into thirds. Cut water chestnuts in half. Roll a piece of bacon around each water chestnut half and place in a glass baking dish. Cover with barbeque sauce. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until bacon is cooked and sauce is bubbly. Insert a toothpick into each bacon-wrapped water chestnut and serve immediately (although, be careful, these guys come out piping hot!).

Now, on to the costumes. I had my costume planned a while back, and I thought Tom did, too. I was a female version of the old McDonald’s character – The Hamburglar!

Rubble, Rubble!

Tom had originally planned on being The Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, the helmet proved troublesome to replicate. So, we found ourselves rushing to put together a new costume for him just a few hours before the party started! I think it turned out pretty well…we turned Tom into a Chia Pet!

Cha, Cha, Cha, Chia!

And, of course, we can't forget about The Cheat. He was dressed up this year as a pirate...and I would say it suits him well.

MEH! ARRR!

I had my painted pumpkins all around the house, as well as a few other fall decorations.

Perhaps the best décor was a recent, more permanent change, however. Tom recently decided to paint a “screen” on the wall where our projector shines. I was not convinced that his was a good idea, but I think it turned out great! Tom built a frame around it and we painted the wall around that. He finished it just in time for the party! Check it out:

Now it really looks like a home theater!

Tonight, actually Halloween night, we have some fun stuff in store for our trick-or-treaters. We have a big trick-or-treating neighborhood, but it seems that most kids don’t actually make it all the way down to our end of the street. We’re basically off the back entrance. So, in an effort to lure kids, we have purchased the big, full-sized candy bars—AND we have a bonus bin of miscellaneous items they can choose from (most of which contains freebies from my brother—like the millions of yellow stress balls Tom got from him in our white elephant Christmas exchange last year!). If we succeed, word will spread, and we will get lots of trick-or-treaters next year! Wish us luck :)

It’s that time of year again: time to start planning for our annual Halloween costume party! It’s hard to believe, but this will be the 8th annual Halloween Party that Tom and I have hosted. The first year, 2004, barely counts, but we put on a last-minute costume party at the guys’ college apartment for essentially us and the neighbors. Since then, it has changed venues 4 times, as we’ve moved and/or not had space for all the people! I think we are set in our tradition now, however: there will be a costume party at our house each year on “Halloween Saturday” – the Saturday before (or on) Halloween. It’s usually just a laid back evening of eating, playing games and catching up with friends—in goofy costumes of course. We have tried our best to make costumes mandatory, but not wanting to leave out our few stubborn friends who refuse to dress up (party poopers!), we came up with the following rule: If you come without a costume, you must bring a pie to share. That way, it’s a win/win! Unless, of course, you’re like me…and don’t really care for pie. But, that’s beside the point.

With the party only a month away, I decided last week that I had better figure out my costume and start putting things together. I have had some pretty creative costumes the past few years, which, unfortunately, means that I have set the standard high and people might be disappointed if I dress up in something sub-par. So, I though through a few options to try to come up with something unique, fun, and hopefully not too hard to move around in—I’ve had a history of coming up with very restricting costumes. Ultimately, here’s what I came up with. This year, for Halloween, I will dress up as what I am calling the “Hamburglar-ess”. Do you remember the Hamburglar from McDonald’s? Remember the old school commercials? The Hamburglar would sneak up, mumble “Rubble Rubble” and attempt to run off with Ronald's hamburgers!

I already had a jailbird costume/dress and a large hamburger, so I decided that I could be the female version of the Hamburglar. All I needed to do was get a hat, bandit mask, tie and cape! I spent the weekend putting this together (and made my own cape!), and all I have left now is to add the hamburgers to my tie.

I will not be posting pictures of this year’s costume until after the event, so as not to spoil too much fun. However, I will post some fun pictures of my costumes over the past few years. If you’re looking for some ideas, let this be some inspiration to you:

2005 - 80s Prom Queen - with a lovely old bridemaid's dress from Salvation Army!
I am pretty sure somebody hand sewed that puppy out of old curtains!

2006 - Zelda & Link

2007 - I was the answer to the game Clue: Miss Scarlet, in the Library, with the candlestick.
It just so happens that the Grim Reaper was around, too!

2008 - this was possibly my most hilarious costume. I was a pinata & Tom was the birthday boy.
He would "hit" me with the stick, and I would throw candy! Only problem: very flammable.
Stay away from candles in that sucker!

2009 - Princess Lolly...from Candyland...remember??

2010: Dead Bride - looking slightly more pale than usual!

And, last but not least, I must tell you that we also sometimes dress up The Cheat. Below you will see him in his Phantom of the Opera costume. However, my favorite costume we ever had for the Cheat was the first year. He was Istanbul. Of course! (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to stop everything and go watch this right now. Do it.)

2005: The Cheat as the Phantom of the Opera

We had a Halloween party last night, so today didn’t feel so much like Halloween. Especially because nobody wanted to trick-or-treat at our house. Seriously. We live in a popular trick or treating neighborhood, but kids just kept walking right past our house! Perhaps because our house is at the far end of the street? Or perhaps because our house was unoccupied for several years before we moved in? At any rate, I was vastly disappointed. If you’d like some candy, let me know – I’ve got lots left over!

However, our party was quite fun! It’s been an annual tradition for Tom and I to host a party since 2004 – our first year in West Michigan. We had lots of good costumes, good food, fun and games! I dressed up as a dead bride, looking slightly more pale than usual. Tom was Dr. Horrible. If you don’t know who that is, look it up. You’ll be glad you did :)

Typically, Tom will grill up some burgers and brats during the party, but this year I decided to make a giant pot of chili instead. I think it worked out well! I forgot to take picture of it in the roaster oven that we were using as a giant crock pot, but here’s what went into it:

8lbs of ground beef

2 40oz cans of white beans

10 cans of diced tomatoes (some w/ chiles, onions, etc.)

2 large white onions, diced

Several cups of water

Chili powder

Garlic powder
Ground Cumin

Ground black pepper

I cooked the meat first (that was actually the only challenging part…well, that and trying not to cry while dicing the onions). Then, I just dumped everything in to a big roaster oven and set it at 250-300 degrees. I ended up partitioning some of the chili off at the beginning for use at another event this week. The rest turned out to be a pretty perfect amount for the party! The last of the chili was eaten around 1am (and nobody should be eating chili later at night than that…). I think next time I have a large group over, I will be doing something like this again!

Oh, and I can’t forget to post our jack o’ lanterns, either. Tom and I decided to go very different routes when carving this year. I’ll let you guess who did what!

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at the Water's Edge

Halloween Party - 2012

Painting Pumpkins

Happy Halloween - 2011

Fall Decorating

Halloween Costume Planning

Happy Halloween!

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