Tonight was our annual Fall Festival at our church. I painted faces like I do every year. It’s just basic simple shapes, but the kids love it. I always try to dress up just to be fun, and well FUNNY.  One year I was a clown in full clown make-up and a rainbow wig with a pink feather boa neck on my polka dot clown costume, complete with shoes. A lot of children were scared to sit down and have me paint their faces, some even ran away crying. That was the last year I was a clown. One year I was a “rock chick”, another year I was a housewife in curlers and a green face mask painted all over my face. I even wore a housecoat and slippers. That was fun and comfy too!

Like I said, I enjoy dressing up. This year I tried to go subtle. NOT! I put on gobs of makeup and bright lipstick and teased my hair and spray painted it pink and purple. The picture above is kind of dark, and it’s after I took it down.

Here is what it looked like before:

This was yesterday’s “hair” raising adventure, thanks to a wig and some fun hair accessories! I wore this ensemble to the company Trick or Treat that NICE held in the offices. It was missing the famous haunted house, but the boys got a bag full of candy, so there’s that AND I had an excuse to drive around town all dressed up. Funny thing was, no one even batted an eyelash at me. I guess pink and black hair isn’t that shocking these days.

All and all, this Halloween was very stress free. Brenna went to a sleepover/party, Lauren and Dan were a part of the Fall Festival “Bible Maze” and that left MJ with both of our attention and freedom to roam and run and play all he wanted tonight. It was not too long ago that poor Jon was carrying around babies and toddlers while chasing two little girls all over the place while Mommy the Clown was painting faces. Good times…  Jon was pelted in the face all night with wet sponges at the Goliath Booth. I got one good smack in while I was there. MJ went as a Fire Fighter and when Jon wasn’t playing Goliath, he was impersonating Hugo “Hurley” Reyes from LOST. Uncanny isn’t it? Only thing he was missing was his DharmlaLars and his big jar of Dharma Mayonnaise. So much fun!! I love it!

I hope your Halloween was safe and fun! Next year I want our whole family to dress up as a group of something, if I can talk the kids into it. I shouldn’t hold my breath. I also would like to go trick or treating around our neighborhood as well, since we haven’t done that in 10 years. How old is too old to Trick or Treat??

I’m not normally the Halloweenie type that really gets into the decorations and such, but this year I found some really cute stuff at my favorite place, the Dollar Tree. Cute plates and serving bowls. Skeletons and Frankensteins, so fun! One wouldn’t think those things fall into the cute category, but these do! They have candy corn that ring the rim of the plate and are black and white. I mean, come on, you can’t go wrong for a buck! I plan on picking up some more plates for next year, one can never have too many ghoulish plates and cups!

So I was looking through a magazine last week and I was inspired to make the kids a Halloween dinner and then carve our pumpkin afterward. Like I said, I don’t normally go all out for them except I gather and purchase their costumes every year. This year I decided it would be fun for us all to have a haunted Halloween feast!

Here is what I picked up at the dollar store:

• a purple table cloth
• 6 spooky plates
• 2 spooky serving bowls
• clear plastic short stemmed glasses
• black plastic utensils

I asked the boys what they would like to eat for dinner; either Boo Burgers and Frankentots or Spooky Spaghetti and Monster Meatballs. Spooky monster won them over. Spaghetti is one of their favorite meals.
I would love to show you how the bloody finger breadsticks turned out, or the oozy alfredo sauce looked, or even the spooky spaghetti and pumpkin juice turned out, but my blog is telling me that those files are too big. Not sure how to make them smaller, but trust me, they were awesome!

Ok, well……I figured it out.
How fun is that??? I drew faces on the cups and made “Pumpkin Juice” out of orange juice, orange pineapple, and sprite. I added a few drops of red and yellow food color to darken it up and the kids loved it! I tinted the alfredo with black food color paste and even though it tasted as good as it always does, the color threw everyone off and dare I say even gave Jon a bit of a stomach ache! LOL!! I love it! The meatballs were a hit as well. Dan loved calling them monster meatball brains and at the end of the night, all but three were gone! The breadsticks with almond sliver nails and bloody marks…tasty!! Brenna joked around and said, “Yummm, I always knew chewing on my nails tasted good!”

All in all, it was a fun night and I enjoyed making a spooky, not so scary dinner for my family. I think next year will be even more frightening…we might actually carve a pumpkin!! Muuuuaahahahahaha!!