Let's Pretend Halloween Party

For those of you that don't know, Halloween is Randall's birthday. Needless to say, it is his favorite holiday. He loves to think up fun costumes and try to carve the best pumpkin and play with dry ice and all that. So for the past two years we have hosted a Halloween party to celebrate his birth and favorite day. But this year we aren't going to be in town... we will be in Cabo Mexico! So he's not too sad that we aren't celebrating in the usual way ;)

The trip was actually given to us by my generous company and we are beyond thrilled to be going! The resort we are staying at is top notch and much nicer than any place we would normally get to stay at! We can't wait! But more about that later.

Since I'm not actually planning a party this year I thought I'd share some good party ideas I came across online that I would use if I were throwing one. 

Of course you would be invited with some handmade invites like these:

(I especially like the owl one!)

And I thought these pumpkin votives would be a quick and festive. I would get lots of them since the little pumpkins are pretty inexpensive and spread them all over the house on tables, mantle, and shelves to fill the house with soft spooky candlelight!

The mice silhouettes might be a little time consuming to cut out but worth the effort- aren't they cute!? I'd just sit down with some black construction paper and scissors while watching an classic Halloween movie like Hocus Pocus and cut away. 

A few crows and cobwebs would do the trick to make a creepy scene:

And of course there would be plenty of yummy treats like these frosted sugar cookies:

So what do you think? Would you come to my imaginary party? Maybe I'll save a few of these ideas for next year!

(all pictures from marthastewart.com)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDALL!

On Halloween night we took a little break from working on the house to celebrate Randall's Birthday! For weeks I had been planning a surprise party for him, and I was so nervous that the surprise would get spoiled either by my big mouth or someone else's! But we did it and he was happily surprised! It was a close one though. Caleb and Jennie had come in town early to hang out with us and Caleb's only job for Friday afternoon was to keep Randall away from our house (the party site) and from his parents house (where his two sisters and there families were arriving from out of town and getting ready for the party). Well, Caleb goes to put Reese down for a nap and what do you know........... falls asleep before Reese. In the meantime, Randall decides to go to his parents house for something. This all happens about an hour before the party is to start. So Jennie calls Randall's sister Jennifer to warn them - no answer. Jennie calls me - no answer. Jennie calls my dad, he answers, gives the phone to me. I then call Jennifer - no answer. I call my mother-in-law, Betty - no answer. I call my brother-in-law Josh - finally an answer! "Randall is on his way to the house."(Me). "JEN WE GOTTA GO!"(Josh). So Jennifer and Josh SOMEHOW loaded up their three children and all of their belongings into their van and drove off. Now this is all pretty amazing because my parent's house where Randall was coming from and his parents house are about 5 minutes away from each other and about 10 phone calls were made before we got ahold of anyone at the Roseberry's house! And just to prove how close of a call it was, Randall later told us that he thought he saw Jen's van in front of the house when he rounded the corner but by the time he got to the house it was gone so he figured it was someone else. We are pretty sneaky! Thanks to all who helped pull it off- I'm very impressed!
Okay now the party was at a skating rink (this is because Randall always brings up the sad story from his childhood when he had a skating party and the neighbor girl and her sister were the only ones to show up!). Since it was on Halloween I thought it would be fun to do an 80s theme!
Check out Randall's costume that Jennie and I whipped up - a Rubiks Cube!






Wouldn't we have made great teenagers in the 80s!?


Girls race...Caleb & I both won the girls and guys races....because we went roller-skating EVERY Friday with daycare. It's like riding a bike- it all comes back the second the skates are laced up!


Three of my four beautiful sisters-in-law, I am so lucky!! The one in the middle, Katie, (with the temporary blue hair) is PREGNANT.....with TWINS! I wasn't sure if I had shared that on here yet. We are super excited for her!


After skating (which is alot more tiring than I remembered and requires a lot more "time outs" to rest than it used to!), we all went back to our unfinished house :) and played Rock Band and other games. Here are some of the guys and Katie rockin' out!