Halloween

On Halloween at work every year there is a costume contest. Not very many people dress up unfortunately. I think most of the people at my work are too self-conscious to dress up (i.e. afraid of looking silly). I am not at all afraid to look silly so of course I dressed up (as I have done in years past).

I even found a co-worker willing to join me!

For those of you that weren't children of the 90s, there was a magnificent kid's TV show on Nickelodeon called Legends of the Hidden Temple. It was an awesome game show that my sister and I used to watch. My co-worker loved the show just as much as me so we dressed up as 2 contestants. It was great fun, but unfortunately there weren't a lot of people that knew who we were.

After work I visited my family and got to hang out with London! :)

 She was wearing her pumpkin outfit for Halloween, but kept moving so I couldn't get a good picture.

On October 20, my friends Bobby and Kelly got married. :) It was a really fun day and I was so happy to be a part of it. The reception was one big party and it's always fun to see old friends.

Love my BFF! :)

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!

Halloween Decorating

Want to see all the Halloween decorating I've done so far?

Check it out!

Yep, I managed to throw a Halloween-themed dishtowel over the oven handle and put out some candy corn. I am Halloween decorating fiend!!

In other news, I finally bought a rug pad for my living room rug. It was interesting to see the floors with the rug out of the way temporarily.

The rug feels more comfortable now that I put the rug pad under it and it doesn't slide around. Yay!

Party Decorating/Food

I thought I would share a little more about our decorations and food for our Halloween party. Our menu for the party was:

Fresh Apple Cider
Tomato Basil Soup
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
French Bread for dipping
Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

And of course, plenty of candy corn.
 

For decorations I had several mini pumpkins and for a table runner I used a scrap of fabric I had intended for a project, but didn't end up using.

For the broccoli cheddar soup, I found the recipe on Eighteen25. This soup was pretty quick to make and very tasty. The tomato basil soup recipe was found on allrecipes. I doubled the recipe and really enjoyed making the soup - it made the kitchen smell sooo good!

The apple cider recipe was found at Food.com. Now this took a loooong time to make. You have to boil the apples for one hour and then let them simmer for 2, but the end product is so worth it. We all really enjoyed the cider.

As for the living room, I added a few touches there as well. I mimicked the banner I had made for the dining room and placed another one on the bookshelves as well as adding some mini pumpkins.

You can see all my "new" (well, new to me) Nancy Drew books that I received from my grandmother. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I feel like they kinda fit the theme.

And of course I put my spider web picture back up for the party.

I decorated this little bookshelf too a bit although I suppose it's more fall-like than Halloween-like. =)

So there you have my Halloween/Fall decorations. I guess pretty soon I'll be decorating for Christmas!

This is Halloween, This is Halloween

Friday night we threw a Halloween costume party at my house with food, games and fun. Good buddies came over as well as my sister McKenna and my mom who helped me prepare most of the food. I love a good party and I love hosting so I was pretty excited to have some people over for the first Halloween party in my house. Last year I was on a plane to Orlando on Halloween so I missed being home for it, but it was cool to see all the people at the airport dressed up in costumes. =)

This was the table setup early on. I got the plates at Hobby Lobby on sale and the napkins were leftover from the Halloween swap I did last year with Susan. =)

Our friends Kelly and Bobby brought us chips to snack on while we finished the rest of the food.

Curious about my costume? You'll be able to see the whole thing later.

Below is the apple cider we feasted on. I'll admit it looks kinda weird in this picture, but we all really enjoyed it.

My sister McKenna came as a secret agent and I fulfilled my childhood dream of being the pink power ranger! If only 6-year-old Morgan could see me now....

Here's a shot of everyone enjoying their apple cider.

After apple cider, we had some broccoli cheddar soup and tomato basil soup with bread.

When we would put the soup in our bowls it would make the bottom of the bowls suuuuuuuper hot so I put my bowl on top of a plate to keep from searing my hand, haha.

After filling up on soup and pumpkin spice cupcakes, we played one of our favorite games - Mafia. Then we got a group picture of some of us.

 

We also played Just Dance 3. Which is really fun by the way. I got Just Dance 2 for Christmas last year and that's been one of our favorite games, so when Just Dance 3 came out a few weeks ago we were excited to try it out.

It was a really fun night with friends and I'm already looking forward to our next get together.

Are any of you attending a costume party tomorrow for Halloween?

FGK Halloween Swap

Recently, Susan over at Five Great Kiddos hosted a Halloween/Fall Swap and I participated. It was the first swap I have been a part of and I loved it! It was so fun picking out what I was going to give and putting the whole thing together. And then getting the package in the mail was so exciting. Susan and I actually ended up being partners and I thought I'd show you what I sent and what Susan sent me.

Here's the package I made up:

 I added a magnetic to-do list, "Emergency Chocolate", a cute little ghost bowl, some glittery chipboard letters, ribbon, cupcake liners, spider web cards, a tiny ceramic pumpkin and some Halloween magnets that I made.

 When I received Susan's package, I was so excited! So many cute things -- like these adorable Halloween plates and napkins.

My oven got a mini-makeover as it went from this:

To this:

I got the cutest apron ever. =] 

Susan also sent these beautiful fall-themed cards.

How jealous are you over this necklace? I love it.

And she also sent these super cool notebooks.

I got really lucky!

In addition to this swap, Susan has been considering hosting a Christmas swap. If you're interested, you can hop on over to her blog and leave her a comment. =]