Treating on Almost Halloween

I have a hot coffee sitting next to me, real smart at six-thirty on a Sunday night but I needed a something and I knew it would set the mood for a night of getting business done.  I am all about creating an atmosphere.  Also if I'm being honest, when I went through the drive through the pumpkin muffin called my name.  My name!  So...I have a pumpkin muffin split in half on a plate plate next to me as well.  And here I am, sipping and eating that fall goodness with a fork.  I like to eat treats with a fork.  I used to eat peanut butter honey bread every single morning with a fork, but we won't go into that routine I used to inhabit just this second.

All that to say, sometimes you just need a treat.  A treat of the pumpkin muffin variety on a crisp chilly October Sunday night.  Because it makes your heart happy to have it while your glasses are on your face and you are at your dining room table writing.

Other times, you need a treat like a Halloween party on a vacation Friday morning with twenty some little ones in costumes and a few of their mommas visiting while holding steaming coffee mugs.  Danae's annual Halloween party for her children and their friends was once again a hit.  I mean really, how could it not be when there's duck taped water bottles, themed goodies galore, pizza, games, and a vegetable pumpkin?  It's a guaranteed set up for hilarity and fun while in costume.

 
I arrived early to assist with finishing touches and to make the vegetable pumpkin.  It's my thing.  Although, this year I wasn't nearly as perfectionistic with it and you know what...the kids still ate it.  Soon I'll be a regular old laid back soul.

Pause for a heck no.

After everything was a go, I put each of Danae's kids on the table to take a picture.  They know the drill.

As does my nieces and nephews because after also arriving a tad early, they knew the first thing to do was stand in front of a closet door so their aunt could snap a memory.

Danae and I put Sil right to work topping off the fruit cups whose fluff had been deflated because that girl can be trusted with a whipped cream can.  She can really be trusted with anything.  She raises four little people, that's no joke.  

Then the entire party arrived and were fed.  Fed like kings and queens.  Danae could throw parties for a living.  

And let me tell you this, twenty some kids in one house is a riot.  A riot.  At one point I walked downstairs and the girls were jumping on the bed while singing praise music at the top of their lungs as the boys were having a round of wrestle mania in the next room.  

What is it with boys and wrestling?  It's like they have a magnetic pull to push and grab and say arghhhhhh.  It took me a solid seven minutes to wrangle the boys for a tiny moment of still.  Then, I told the few girls who were watching me dumbfounded to join in too.  At that point, I wanted a guaranteed smile on at least one face or two. 

I suppose a man in my position would say the same about the girls dancing and singing their hearts out...but the tutus and lip gloss and high kicks and claps and sitting?  Those make sense to me. 

The kindergarten teacher shined through with Danae and she soon had every single little sitting quietly working on decorating a bag.  

And then she had everyone play pin the nose on the pumpkin or something like that and it took a lot of noses being placed exactly on the pumpkin for someone to finally say, "I can see through this mask Mommy!"  Have to love Emma for her honesty.  

Who is ready for next year's party?  

And who is jittery from drinking night coffee.  And who is really not laid back at all, nor non-perfectionistic because now it's seven-forty on a Sunday night and this took me entirely too long because of a pesky few pictures which would not stay aligned with the others.  I can let vegetable pumpkins go, but apparently I'm not all the way there yet.  

I'm off to see the Wizard...the wonderful Wizard of Oz...