6th annual halloween party

every year, we try to rise to new heights of creativity with our halloween party. i do my part in the area of refreshments and husband does things like moving the target shooting indoors (yes, upstairs above the new kitchen, they shot at cans) and building a pulley system so they could hoist one another up to look at a selection of items that were up high and try to remember as many of them as possible. the girls put together creepy candy bags in rubber gloves.

inspired, as always, by pinterest, i sent karoline out to cut me some sticks for my caramel apples.

we don't have kraft caramels here, so i had to make homemade (thank goodness). it took time, but it is out-of-this-world delicious. besides, it takes time to unwrap all those kraft caramels from their plastic wrappers too and at least this way, i knew went into them.

i had a bit of the 7-minute frosting left from the cupcakes and dipped the last apples in that when i ran out of caramel. it's funny, those four were the ones that went first.

a vampire came by and bit into each of our cupcakes. the cupcakes were chocolate, into which i threw a big bowlful of freshly-picked raspberries (our unseasonably warm temperatures mean the raspberries are still going strong). with cream cheese frosting, they were delicious.

cookie cutters and ready-made puff pastry sprinkled with poppy seeds and a spicy seasoning made for light little airy critter snacks.

and coolest of all chicken wing "bats." we told the kids that we'd gotten lucky out at the butcher in farre and were able to source some fresh bats for the party. a number of them believed it and wouldn't eat them. bwah-ha-ha.  a good time was had by all, even tho' they're in 7th grade now and some have to pretend to be bored. they weren't.

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this will make you want to fix breakfast for dinner.

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laura's piece on the politics of food will get you thinking about what you put on your table.
it's worth the time it takes to read it thoroughly.

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just when you thought sarah palin couldn't get any dumber, she says this.
and i link to it even tho' snopes says it's a hoax.
it's still pretty plausible for her.