Happy {belated} Halloween!

There's a lot going on around here right now, especially with M's entire family descending upon us for Thanksgiving. It seems like there is never enough time in the day and my never-ending "to do" list is... well... never-ending! I have a turkey dinner to plan, guest bedrooms to set up, a basement to clean and organize, winter preparations to make, fall bulbs to plant asap, over a dozen centerpieces to make for a 50th anniversary party, a pool to close, blogs to post... all before Thanksgiving! You know, just to name a few. Want a sneak peek at one of my upcoming projects?

Add all those to the never-ending "to do" list, coupled with potty-training a puppy, raising a toddler, and trying to spend quality time with the hubby, and I guess you could say my days are pretty full. I guess that's why I have no desire to go back to work, I'm just too busy! It doesn't help that I can't say "no" to anyone that asks for something, apparently I have this need to help as much as I can, which is usually more than I should. Even my 30th birthday "day off" last week was full of errands and crazy running around busyness. I can't remember the last time I had a day to myself. No, that's not true. It was about 29 months ago, before C was born.

Now all this isn't to complain, I absolutely love my life and the busy insanity that comes with it. I'm thrilled to be able to stay home with C, and I know some people who are a million times busier than I am. I don't envy them. This random tangent into my everyday life is simply to say, I don't have a new project for you. Things are just way to crazy right now, but I've got plenty of projects planned over the next 10 days. I DO, however, have some great pics from our Halloween party to share!

We invited all the kids from C's playgroup over for some fun and games, and I think they had a blast. It was our first ever kiddo party, so it was definitely a learning experience! Mental note: if you have a bunch of kids under 5 years old, you don't need organized party games or special food. The kids just want to run around playing with new toys and eat whatever fits in their mouths!

Our food spread that the kids pretty much ignored. 

Check out the homemade guacamole one of our moms whipped up!

She also made this yummy Halloween chex mix. It was sooo good.

Another momma brought these adorable pumpkin shaped grilled cheese sandwiches.

In keeping with her pumpkin theme, she made these pumpkin rice crispy treats, 

complete with chocolate licorice stems and a ~surprise~ Hershey's kiss in the middle!

She even brought these delightfully spooky monster juice boxes!

Of course the kids had to have cupcakes and sugar cookies to decorate.
I finished up these cookies literally as guests were walking in the door!

An adorable pirate enjoying her cupcake.

My little superhero-in-training was definitely a fan of the snacks.

Batman has a little bit of everything, too! Guess those snacks weren't a waste after all...

This guy made a pretty cool pirate, I'm loving the facial hair!

Cutest. Parrot. Ever.

I put up a crepe paper "maze" for the kids to climb through. 

One of the kids decided it was more fun to run right through them, though, so it didn't stay up long!

C was thrilled about all the fun arts and crafts supplies, 

thanks again to the momma's who helped out with the supplies for this project!

We let the kids make their own goody bags, 

they definitely had fun with this part! C was a big fan of the googly eyes.

I love how different they all look; some of the kids were into stickers while others got a kick out of the jewels or pom poms. Some of the kids even thought to glue their pumpkins to their bags, 

something I hadn't had in mind at all. Check out how great they all are!

I didn't get these milk jug jack-o-lanterns out in time for the party, but they WERE out for the trick-or-treaters on Halloween! And we were happy that M's parents decided to stop by for the evening...

C was very curious about these. Basically I gave the milk jugs a super good cleaning (thanks again to the mommas who donated some) and then drew various faces on them. The blogger I got this idea from suggested using strands of Christmas lights to light them up, but I definitely don't have any of those sitting around and new ones are pricey. I had M gather up all the LED candles we have scattered around the house instead. I cut an opening in the bottom of the jugs, slid the candles inside, and voila! Easy homemade jack-o-lanterns.

Well, that was our Halloween. We had crazy fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again next year. What was your Halloween like? Did you have a party or just a lot of trick-or-treaters? Or did you shut off all the lights and pretend you weren't home? No judging, sometimes I wish we could do that!