The Monster Mash

This weekend we held our 2nd Annual Halloween Bash. The 1st Annual party was actually in 2005 (we skipped last year) but we really do hope to make it a yearly event. The first time we held the party, we invited whole families. All of our friends have at least 2 kids, so you can probably imagine the chaos! We did a pinata and donut-on-a-string to keep them busy while the parents visited and we all ate. It was fun, but it was a ton of work, the kids were kind of wild and the house was trashed when it was all over. We vowed then and there that the next party we did would be adults only!

And so it was--a grown-up party and I have to say that I think we all appreciated being able to visit and have fun without having to keep an eye on the kiddos or worry that they were spilling punch on the carpet. I very nearly canceled the whole thing when I found out that DH would possibly not be there, as he'd be working at the World Series game that night. I contemplated doing it by myself anyway, but in the end he was able to be there and it's a good thing--no way could I have done all that on my own!

We used a Mad Scientist theme for the party, both for the invitations and the decor. DH was able to borrow some lab items from work and set up a bubbling, steaming "experiment" in the living room--something we probably couldn't have done if there had been kiddos with curious fingers in attendance. On the table you can also see a collection of bottles I filled with various strange-looking spices (from the dollar store). I had hoped to make labels for all of the jars with spooky ingredient names but I just ran out of time. Maybe next year!

For food we had various appetizers, like spinach-artichoke dip and guacamole. I made the brain cupcakes from my previous post, and they were a hit! They were really quite easy and they looked great. I used both homemade buttercream and canned frosting and I found that the canned frosting gave me better results because of the consistency. I frosted the cupcakes first before piping on the squiggles so that the cake wouldn't show through--just in case any of you want to make them someday.

I also made a favorite recipe from our 2005 party: Sweet and Spicy Spider Eggs. These were also a hit--we didn't have any left over! The recipe calls for heating the sauce in a skillet, but I just mix it together and dump it all into a slow cooker with the frozen meatballs. The recipe says it makes 48 but I had plenty of sauce for the entire bag of 80 meatballs.

We asked our guests to come in costume and almost everyone obliged. There were some really funny, clever costumes! One lady was a tornado--she dressed in black pants and a black sweater. She used black thread to sew through the sweater and left 4-5 inch lengths hanging out the front, which she tied to toy farm animals, fence pieces and tractors. When she stood up, she spun around and all of the toys flew out on the ends of the threads--it was hilarious! :) We also had a guy come as this kid. Here is a photo of DH and I all dressed up; he was Dog the Bounty Hunter and I was June Cleaver. I had really hoped to find one of those cleaver things on a headband but I looked at several stores with no luck. I would like to have been a Mad Scientist to go with our theme but I just didn't have time to look for a lab coat. I also considered dressing as Beth Chapman (Dog's buxom blonde wife) but couldn't figure out how to suitably stuff my bra. :)

One last recipe: I wanted a green punch to serve in my big cauldron and found this "Green Grog" recipe. It was really yummy and it looked great with dry ice making it bubble and steam. If you omit the bottle of rum (like we did) you'll want to have another bottle of soda on hand or you'll run out of liquid too soon.

I think all of our guests had fun, it was a manageable amount of work for us, and we hope to do it again next year!