Hey everyone, & Happy Halloween! We had a family Halloween dinner party on Sunday. It started out much bigger, but life happens & we dwindled from 12 to 6 attending. Missed the rest of the gang, but we had a fantastic "family-time" anyway.
Our weather has finally gotten a "wee-bit" cooler, so now we can start to enjoy our patio. It's still quite a blank slate out there & landscaping that area is not a priority right now. I did do some cleaning up yesterday and decided to "Fall it Up" a little . Here are some daytime shots, & maybe one of these days I'll remember to take some in the evening......LOL!
I prefer to use the vinyl tablecloths on this table because the little ones like to color and all kinds of other activities out here......makes cleanup much easier.
I know, we need some more furniture :(!
This patio is huge!
Ya'll are gonna laugh about this. I had a couple of containers of plants that just didn't survive the move, mainly because I was so busy inside that I kept forgetting to water them. I pulled out a few of the dead branches, but left some to use as the base for my pumpkins, gourds, & pinecones.
How's that for creating on-the-fly? Heehee!
If you want to see how our previous patio looked for a Halloween Dinner Party last year, go HERE.
Inside got a few tweaks here and there. Yeah, I know, hard to believe......LOL! Actually, it was mainly just adding some little extras for the kidlets.
Made these for the "Grands."
Trick-or-Treating has to be special at Nana's, so I took some scrapbook paper,
made little closure tops for some cello bags I found at Walmart, and
filled them with little Halloween toys (& candy, of course) & presto, cute treat bags
for my little sweeties!
Made a couple of extras for my neighbors little 4 year old twin boys, too.
Bats, bats, & more bats along with.......
Ghosts (but not too spooky) are what's adorning my.......
Kitchen chandy. What I won't do for those "Grands!"
Now what? Tootsie Pops, plus kleenex, some string & a marking pen =
Oh no, more ghosts! I added a bunch of these to a little glass container & it became part of my tablescape. You'll see that in just a bit!
My menu plan for our dinner was:
Hummus with veggies
Do ya'll like Hummus? It's a favorite around here.
For the veggie holders, I took some clear glass votive cups ($Store) and......
Covered them with some more scrapbook paper for instant CUTE! Ooops, forgot to take a pic with the veggies -- oh well!
French Bread -- Can you smell it?
Spinach & Baby Greens Salad
And the STAR of our meal -- Dinner in a Pumpkin
If you have more than will fit in the pumpkin, just pop it in a casserole & cook it along side the pumpkin.
And for dessert -- Berry Cobbler
This is a Pioneer Woman Recipe which you can find HERE
With everything that was going on, I forgot to take a pic until we had started serving this, but you can see all the deliciousness just oozing out! We topped each slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
Now, on to my table.
Since we were just a small, intimate group, I chose to serve our meal family-style at the kitchen table.
I've had this tablecloth for years & just love the beautiful colors.
I kept the centerpiece very small and compact so there would be room for food -- the most important thing, right?
You can see how I made this pumpkin HERE.
I added my little Fall cream & sugar set and my 3 year old "Grand" thought we were having a tea party!
There's the little container of ghosts that I talked about earlier.
I love all these colors together! The chargers are from Walmart, last year, as are the salad plates. The large plate is part of my Fiesta collection - this one is "Sunflower."
Just had to show another place setting. I just recently found these napkins at Tuesday Morning & love how well they look with the tablecloth and the dishes.
Now, the most important part of the party plan!
3 year old Flynn, aka: Super Girl! I keep lots of toys & art supplies in those large baskets you can see in the background, & she goes to those immediately -- well after lots of hugs & kisses, of course!
9-month old Avery, aka: Just plain cute, front or.......
back! I could just eat those little toes, oh, and that sweet little neck!
We just had the best time with our son, dil, & the little kidlets!
I thought I would wrap up with just a few shots of our Halloween night experience here in our new neighborhood.
Do you think this is enough? We were told to plan for at least 200 Trick-or-Treaters.
Everyone here in our neighborhood seems to plant themselves in front of their homes, so we decided to do the same. I don't know what fashion look The Man was going for, but I do believe the rolled up jeans are a subtle hint to me that I need to do some hemming....LOL!
Made some luminaries.
The adults & children liked these.
The neighbors across the street had so many Jack-o-Lanterns going that it totally illuminated their house.
At about 6:30, our street came alive with children and adults. At times it was hard to know who was having the most fun. This particular group were all 3 year olds & it literally looked like the moms were trying to "herd cats!" They were all just adorable.
It was such a fun evening for us, & we are seriously thinking of setting up a "Spiced Wine Bar" for the adults next year. We met lots of our neighbors who made a special point of introducing themselves & welcoming us to the community. And the "grand total" of treats handed out was just shy of 200!
We truly loved the evening. Hope all of you had a great Halloween, too! Thank you for stopping by & please come again soon!
CAS
Happily linking to:
