two parties! what a weekend!

Carina and I spent Friday night cleaning our house and removing as much clutter as possible from our first floor in preparation for our parties on Saturday. We put up some minor Halloween decorations and prepared the snack foods we’d be serving. I woke early on Saturday (thanks to the girls) and got right to work building the Maze of Madness in the backyard. Carina had been poo-pooing this idea of mine for several weeks, and I must admit that her criticism was starting to wear on me. I had originally wanted to paint the whole thing grey to make it look like stone; and I had wanted to make some cardboard tombstones in front of it to give it that right touch of ambiance. As construction proved harder than I anticipated, I began to despair that the kids wouldn’t enjoy it at all. The final product turned out very well, indeed, I must say! The kids had a lot of fun romping through it. The poor construction worked to their advantage as they shifted and moved a few of the panels to create small rooms and hidey-holes for each other. Quite a bit of time was spent chasing each other through the maze screaming as loud as possible. I forgot to take any still pictures of the activities, but we did video tape it, so maybe I’ll be able to tease out a few frames from that.

The girls enjoyed their party for the most part. Tayler was a little despondent that none of her invitees showed up, and there were several incidents where a child felt left out from the activities. Minor interventions from the adults helped smooth things over, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Carina and I were absolutely exhausted afterwards, and totally unmotivated to clean and prepare for the adult party scheduled just a few hours later! But prepare we did, and the party was a lot of fun. We watched Gremlins, and there was much hilarity lampooning the film, despite Amie’s objection that Gremlins is a Christmas movie, not a Halloween movie. Elfboy earned the coveted “Most Number of Unique Drug Jokes”, as well as “Most Repeated Drug Joke” for his claim that the entire city was covered in cocaine and not snow. Many other jokes were made, and most of us were laughing pretty hard for the duration of the show.

There were some some great costumes, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s party!

Sunday we woke early and took the girls and Brannon to Nancy’s Kitchen for a greasy breakfast. The twins were in great moods before we walked in, and slowly tapered off as we left. Exhaustion struck me afterwards, forcing me to sleep for a bit (thanks Carina, for letting me!). After a trip to the Library, and dinner, we sat down to watch the bonus disc in Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie. The kids generally enjoy the VeggieTales stories, and they really liked the music in this one. The second disc has a karaoke version of the title song, and the four of us had an absolutel ball singing our guts out to it! Carina and I quite enjoyed the bonus audio commentary provided by Larry the Cucumber and Mr. Lunt - it was downright hysterical! The twins didn’t get it as much, but Carina and I were in stitches. Kudos to BigIdea for providing something the adults can enjoy.