Costume Party 2014

There are a lot of October birthdays in our family so usually they are celebrated in a joint even at some point during the month. This year I volunteered to host the party since my house is extremely festive right now. The birthday party is one of two big Halloween bashes we are having this year, the other of course being on Halloween night, but Aunt Kari and Uncle Able will be out of town for that so we will be going all out, twice. This party was obviously Halloween themed, as is our entire house. Costumes were optional, but everyone wore one for at least some period of time during the night.

 Here are the boys under our new party tent. Of course we had to decorate the tent with some Halloween goodies!!

Here was our creepy menu:
-Jack o Lantern cheese burgers which I think ended up not actually looking like Jack-O-Lanterns, failure on the grillers part
-Jack-O-Lantern Butternut squash
-Pumpkin deviled eggs
-Carmel corn served out of caldron with skeleton hands
-Vampire Donuts (donuts with vampire teeth in the middle chocolate chips for eyes)
-Scary Halloween cupcakes with all sorts of spooky things on top
-Carrots in the shape of a jack-o-lantern with cucumber eyes with dip
-Spooky punch with an ice cube hand, floating eye balls, and dry ice to make is smoke/extra creepy
-Ice cubes with worms, snakes, or flies frozen in them
-Spooky little wienies
-And chips and dip which wasn't really that spooky

Who was in attendance:
-Elsa: played my Aunt Abbey, not Maggie
-Two pumpkins: Maggie and Grandma
-Boba Fett: Brendan
-Batman: Everett
-Curious George/Dracula/Spiderman(ever so briefly): Zane
-Man in the Yellow Hat: Zach, who wore his costume for all of five minutes, claiming it was "too hot" that cannot happen on Halloween night.
-Spooky Chef: Uncle Able
-Scarecrow in a tie: Uncle Brent
-Lady Liberty: Aunt Kari
-Witch: Yours truly
-Purple Penguin a la Uncle Able's childhood costume: Rowan

 The Korenaks

 The Ladies

 The Newly Weds

 The pumpkins

 Rowan in the Purple Penguin costume that Grandma made for Uncle Able back in the day.

 I apparently don't have the full Richard clan, but here are Mr. & Mrs. Richards

We were quite the amazing crew and most of us rocked our costumes all evening. I loved my tutu, even though I'm sure it made me look huge, it was comfy and sparkly, and left a trail of glitter everywhere I went.There was a party game, of course, Bat in the Cave, which is like pin the tail on the donkey only you're trying to put the bats in the cave. There is apparently a tent at the fair in the Curious George Halloween movie called Bat in the Cave, but I adapted it to this into a party game and made our very own cave. There were requests to bob for apples, which I guess we'll have to do at the next party.

 A literal bat in the cave!

 While other people were putting bats in a cave, Rowan was hitting the party punch a little too hard. If you left your cup unattended, Ro was downing it!

Grandma got her present, which was a huge hammock, that was tons of fun to lay in and to fall out of. Yes, the eventually ended in tears, but I think there was much more fun had in it than injury. I think at the end of the night all the grandkids were in the hammock, with Uncle Able, star gazing with blankets, pillows, and party drinks.

 After dinner there was a mass pumpkin carving that I happily enjoyed watching and photographing without having to be elbow deep in pumpkin guts. Rowan chose to draw on his belly instead, which was great. Somehow the pumpkin carving ended with everyone in their underwear, I think so as not to get costumes dirty, but made it difficult to take internet appropriate pictures.

 Korenak boys with Zane's scary ghost pumpkin

 Ro wasn't carving so he just chewed on a knife, excellent parenting on my part!

 Take a good look at those awesome socks!

I think a good time was had by all and I'm so glad everyone got to enjoy all the Halloween fun here at the Korenak casa. We'll be ready to do it all over again on Halloween night!