Parties and Pumpkins

One of the greatest things about having a large family (or large-ish, I suppose... depending on whether you live in a place where being pregnant with your fourth child is considered irresponsible and/or crazy...ahem) is that parties are always well attended.  If I spend a ton of time decorating for a Halloween party and making delicious, fun foods, I don't even need to invite anyone over to have a full table of conversation and giggles to enjoy it.  (Fighting?  Food throwing?  On-the-table-climbing?  Spills (resulting from previous on-the-table-climbing question)?  Not important.) 

Prepping for the big Halloween party was so much of the fun.  Amber and McKenzie were in charge of making the hot chocolate (deliciously homemade), and Carson was in charge of making the hot apple cider (dumping the store-bought stuff in a pot and stirring until warmed.  Placing the lid on top of the pot once warmed was also taken seriously).  Next, we focused our attention onto making a pumpkin cheese ball (which had nothing more to do with 'pumpkin' than it's shape), monster mouths, witches fingers, and mummies.
 

After our tummies were filled with a most delicious and unhealthy dinner (minus the apples... but c'mon... do you really think anyone wanted apple slices when there were hot-dogs wrapped in cheese and buttery biscuit rolls staring them in the face?), we moved on to the pumpkin carving portion of the evening.

Or, in Miles's case, the pumpkin draw-with-sharpie-ing portion of the night.  Which he took quite seriously.

McKenzie was pretty proud of her anti-squeamishness when it came to gutting the pumpkin.  Go McKenzie!

Amber pulled a chair into the kitchen and worked on her doll head.  She's redone the makeup and is now re-hairing the thing, turning her from a creepy i-can't-remember-the-name doll into Alice from Alice in Wonderland.  Did you even know you could do that?  Miles is most concerned about the lack of a body.  Actually, he's most concerned when he sees the body with the lack of a head, but now we're just mincing words.  It's kind of creepy either way.

Hooray for me, I even jumped into a couple of pictures to prove that I exist during these parties. 

But, too bad we got a late start to the night and had to cut it short after the kiddo's were done.  I love carving pumpkins... but not enough to stay up till the wee hours of the morning, apparently.  Sigh.  Next year I will plan better.  It will be easy because I will have a 7-month-old... and planning things is always easier with a 7-month-old.

Anyway.

The night ended with happy kids, happy parents, and a happy Amber (who is really neither a kid nor a parent, so she gets her own category).  A success, I'd say.

Since Miles's pumpkin couldn't be lit from within, we stuck a candle on top of it because fire always makes things more fun.  He seemed quite pleased with the final result... even though you can't see his pumpkin in the following picture because his head is blocking it, you can tell he couldn't keep his eyes off of it.  Love it when the kids feel proud of themselves.

Now... can you believe it's almost time to start defrosting the turkey?