Pumpkin Carving Party

We were invited to a pumpkin carving party on Saturday night.  We had never been to such an event before and did not know what to expect.  Normally, we just carve some sort of face into our pumpkin and call it a day.  A party with a contest for the best overall pumpkin made us rethink our carving approach.  Would the party-goers be professional pumpkin carvers?

I decided to find J a little something more detailed to tackle figuring we’d be up against some crazy competition.  I searched high and low for an interesting, free pumpkin stencil pattern online and finally settled on Yoda.  Anyone who knows us knows that Star Wars is huge with our kids so I knew my selection would be a crowd pleaser (at least with our family).

While J was hard a work with a margarita at his side, I cruised the activity stations with the boys.  We hit the cookie decorating table first.  Of course, we did.

The boys each chose a mini pumpkin to paint next.  They both took their time to create a couple of lovely works of art.  The pumpkins now reside on our front porch.

By the time we had finished making the rounds at the bouncy house and swing set, J had finished Yoda.  We went inside to partake in some yummy food.  The hostess made two delicious soups to share: chicken noodle and curry harvest.  I tried the curry one and fell in love.

I brought a batch of monster eyes.  There were none left in my serving bowl at the end of the night so I’m taking that as a testament to their yumminess.  There were lots of other wonderful treats like a Thai noodle salad, cornbread casserole, chili, rolls, brownies, cakes, etc.  It was all so good.  I definitely over did it and was thankful that I had run the causeway earlier that day.

When the sun went down the jack-o-lanterns were set out on some hay bales in front of the house and lit with candles.  Yoda came to life!  J did a wonderful job carving him!

All of the pumpkins that were carved were pretty amazing.  See the one three to the right of Yoda?  That one was my favorite.  It was Lionel Richie!  It says “Hello” at the bottom.  How random and creative!  A couple of us were even inspired to sing a few bars of the song.

Glow sticks were handed out to the children while the parents voted on the pumpkins.  Somehow they came up with the idea to link all of the sticks together to form a giant glow ring.  I thought it looked pretty awesome!

Toward the end of the evening, Cutie Pie finally warmed up to the idea of having his face painted.  He asked for a dragon.  The hostess’ mom is quite the talented face painter, no?  Cutie Pie ended up falling to sleep with the green monster on his face.  Sadly, much of it had rubbed off by the morning.

While Cutie Pie was getting his face done, a very flamboyant guest burst into the Puff the Magic Dragon song.  He knew every single verse.  I was impressed.

The pumpkin carving winners were announced at the end of the night.  One of my friend’s won for the prettiest pumpkin.  Another friend won for the scariest pumpkin.  And J won best overall!  I was so proud of him!  His prize was two adult tickets to SNOW and ICE at the Gaylord Palms resort!

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Fall Festival

Today was Cutie Pie’s preschool Fall Festival.  I was so impressed with kindness, generosity and flexibility of all the volunteers who made this event possible.  We had not only parents show up to help but many grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends as well.  It was the best Fall Festival yet!

Now if I could just figure out how to change the weather…  It was about 90 degrees out today.  After 10 minutes of setting up my shirt was drenched!  But it was totally worth it to see the smiles on the faces of the children.

Big Ol’ Catching Up Post

Oh, good grief!  The holidays are upon us.  I’m supposed to be at a Lab School social this evening but SIX (!) families backed out at the last minute and the party was canceled.  I feel really bad for the hostess who spent her entire day cleaning, chilling beer and making pumpkin mousse.  She called me 40 minutes before it was supposed to start to tell me that she was throwing in the towel.  I had just plugged in my flatiron in preparation for getting sassy.  Alas, no flatiron was required for Plan B which consisted of sitting down in front of the television with Panera take-out.  It’s pretty darn inconsiderate to bail on the day of the event, don’t you think? Looks like I’m freezing my sausage balls for Christmas brunch (that sounds kind of dirty…).  Sausage balls is the appetizer I made to take with us to the social.  Anyway, the cancellation is the only reason that I have time to devote to the blog.

I think I need a list for all the stuff I’m going to unload on you.  Be prepared to be visually stimulated by all the photos as well.

1.  We hosted our family’s December birthday party on the 6th.  Wildman and Auntie Jo were the honorees.

J grilled cheeseburgers.  We talked, we ate, presents were opened, candles were extinguished…  It was a good time.

Wildman now has a ton of Hot Wheels cars and play sets.  His actual birthday isn’t until December 21st.  I can only imagine what his true birthday and Christmas will bring.  I think I need to start donating toys and stocking up on plastic storage totes now!

2. 

This is the newest addition to the family exterior Christmas display.  Wildman and Cutie Pie were drooling over this thing in Lowe’s.  J happened to find it for 50% off a couple of weeks ago and quickly purchased it.  The boys LOVE it!!!  Wildman quickly discovered that he could not ride on the tractor.  Darn inflatables and their lack of rigidity.

3.  This is our house.  Kindly ignore the strand of lights that are out on the top of the house…

This is Dude’s house.

Dude is Auntie Jo’s boyfriend.  He begins set up around Halloween!  Not too bad for a Jewish kid, eh?

We took the boys to Dude’s house to drop off their letters to Santa last week.  Santa (Dude) personally writes a letter back to each child who puts a letter in the mailbox.  How sweet is that?!  Auntie Jo definitely has a keeper.

Cutie Pie was mesmerized by the animatronic display in the garage.

4.

Okay, so, I did get that margarita on the rocks after all.  We just took the kids with us.  It turns out that our babysitters who are always at the ready, i.e. J’s parents, actually had plans last Saturday night.  We didn’t realize that they were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary until Sunday, however.  What?!  Why didn’t they tell us?!  That’s a whole other post…

Anyway, we took the kids out for Mexican and then to the Melbourne Light Parade.  Ahhhh, the spinach enchiladas were amazing!

5. 

I made a batch of green play dough for Wildman’s classmates.  They had their book exchange and cookie decorating party today.  I slipped these little treats into their cubbies when no one was looking 🙂

6.  Speaking of cookie decorating…

These little elves got together yesterday afternoon to decorate a bunch of sugar cookies.

I invited Steph and Big Red over for homemade pizza and a Christmas flick after the cookies were done.  It made for a nice evening.  We haven’t had just their family over for a dinner party since their youngest was born.  That’s been over two years ago!

7.  I’m a crafting maniac these days…  Check out some of the presents I’ve been working on.

I can’t show Aileen‘s surprise gift because she reads my blog and views my flickr photos.  I supposed she could sneak a peak into the adorable snowman suitcase I gave her to find out what hers looks like.  But I know she’s not that kind of girl and I’m not ruining the surprise for her here either.

I think that’s pretty much all the catching up I need to do.  I feel much better!  If you’ve made it to the end of this post without blurred vision or dizziness, you get a gold star.  Well done!