Party, Party, Party

Friday was the school Halloween carnival.

I was a goth witch.

I had a minion.

The party was fun, especially the Hall of Horrors, wherein I was the Swamp Witch and made kids cry. But my favorite part of the evening was when I went outside to yell at all the kids who were too cool to be inside at the carnival. I adore yelling at other people's kids. I really do.

Saturday was all about The Spouse's 50th birthday party, which was a Rat Pack theme. The food was plates full of retro yumminess like Chex mix, relish tray (huzzah for baby gherkins), mixed nuts (which could also apply to the guests), and the things I took pictures of:

Cheese Ball with Triscuits

Stuffed Mushrooms

Devilled Ham Pinwheels (the Neighbor made these).

Pigs in a BlanketRumaki (the kind with water chestnuts because I'm not a fan of the chicken liver unless someone else has reduced it to a nice little pate with good mouth feel). Credit where credit is due, this was The Child's contribution.We had apple pie because The Spouse is not a huge fan of the cake and he does love him some apple pie.I made 3 pies. What a shame. There was 1 1/2 left over. Shame, shame. Or as I like to call it, "breakfast".

Because it was a Rat Pack-y theme, The Neighbor and I wore lacquered do's:

Sometimes I think we are just the cutest things on God's green earth.

Also, as history has long borne out, an upswept do is the perfect perch for a tiara.

There were gifts. Mostly single malt scotch, because when in doubt with The Spouse, that's the way to go. The key exception to this gift-giving theme came from The Boys, who are now The Spouse's favorite people in the world EVER. They gave him an iPod nano. He almost cried.

You know what stinks? Aside from the fact that he is now using possession of same to torture The Child? The stinkiest part of the stench is that I had been desperately casting about from some grand gesture, like the one he'd pulled off for my birthday, and I couldn't come up with anything. So when The Boys asked me if he'd like an iPod I should have said, "Oh, darn, I'm already giving him one. Get him some scotch" and stolen the idea but I am apparently not that devious as I only figured this out last night. Dammit.

I gave him scotch.

Anyway, a pleasant time was had by all. There was the requisite blowing out of candles

and midnight toasting

and now I'm just very thankful that we don't have to have 2 big back-to-back blow out celebrations for another 10 years.