Ghoulish Halloween Dinner Party...

Every year me, my sis and our mom put together a fun Halloween themed dinner party.  Here a few pix from this years party:

I made place cards with each guests name on it and one for each food item..

                                                 
Up close of one of the place cards...

                                                                       

I made a menu...

We always have fun names for the food...

The "bloody eyeballs", precooked...

"Infected Eyeballs", precooked...

After we pulled them out of the oven...

The rest of the food:

The Food buffet:

 The place settings.  I didn't have enough place mats, so I found a roll of wrapping paper that had raised velvet designs, I bought that and then just hand cut out the number that I needed...

A couple of the food placards up close:

It was a really fun day.  After eating, we did our annual pumpkin carve.  I love our family traditions, we look forward to this event every year!

Valentines Dinner...

We do a family "candlelight dinner" for Valentines every year and invite my parents to join us.  This year was no exception other than it's always a bummer with Valentines falls of a week night.  I work full time outside my home so on years like this one, I tend to simplify and don't go as overboard as I do when it falls on the weekend.

The Menu.

The beverage "Cupids Love Potion"  it was so cute and festive and tastes delish.  I found it here.

The dinner.  I made Olive Gardens Fettuccine Alfredo, heart fruit kaboobs, spinach strawberry salad and  Olive Garden Breadsticks.  This is my plate, Hubs also made breaded chicken strips for the meat eaters in the fam, which is basically everyone except for me :)  

For dessert, I made the brownie trifle. It was so delish!!!

 

After dinner, we exchanged gifts and everyone got a goodie bag filled with lots of chocolates and cinnamon hot lips. I found the cute bag toppers here.

It was such a fun night!

Easy Brownie Valentine Treats...

I love to do fun holiday related dinners and treats but because I am a full time working mom, I really have to try and simplify everything. We had a going away dinner for our daughter the other night (she is moving across the country to do an internship at Walt Disney World in Florida!) and so for dessert, I made these heart shaped frosted brownies:

I love chocolate fudge brownies, but you can make whatever your families favorite recipe is or just use a boxed mix.  Cook them like normal and then let cool.  When they have completely cooled, use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the hearts out.  I frosted mine with strawberry flavored pink frosting, and then sprinkled the cute valentines sprinkles on them.

We served them with the girl scout Thin Mint chocolate ice cream and Dreyers French Silk ice cream (that's our families latest favorite ice cream flavor, it is soooo good).

Anyways, they were quick, easy, cute and delicious!

Scarecrow Cookies...

We have a Thanksgiving tradition of doing a treat/craft with the kiddo's after we eat our Thanksgiving dinner. My sister and I always demonstrate while the kids make their own:

This year, I saw these cute Scarecrow Cookies on Familyfun.com:

They turned out darling:

It's a lot more fun than taking a nap after eating Thanksgiving dinner!

Moon Pie Turkeys....

Every year, my fun sis and I come up with a craft/treat for the kiddo's to make after we eat Thanksgiving dinner. Last year, we made "Moon Pie Turkeys":

They are super cute and easy!
What you need:
popsicle sticks
Candy Corns for the nose and tail feathers
M&M's or other round candies for the eyes
Chocolate Frosting for the glue
Nutter butters for the body
Hot Tamales for the gobbler thingy.

Just use your frosting to glue everything in place!

Frightening Feast...

Yay! I remembered to take pix of our Halloween dinner. They aren't the greatest, but I had to do it quick before the hungry mob attacked, LOL! We go for the grosser the better theory here :)

I made cards to go by each dish, I downloaded the digital paper from .photocardboutique

Bloody Eyeballs.  How fun are these?  The recipe can be found HERE.

For the moldy salad, I just used my regular potato salad recipe and mixed in some of the green gel food coloring and let it sit in the fridge over night.

The furry spiders.  So yeah, I should have removed the tin foil balls from their legs before I  took the pix, but hey, we are just proud that I actually did take any right?  The recipe can be found HERE   They were really tasty, I just left the ham out of mine but it would have been easy to add a few veggies to them.

Pre-Cooked:

After they were done:

The food tables completely set up.

To drink, we enjoyed "Curdled Blood"  It's a terrific drink for any holiday.  I just mix a 48 oz bottle of chilled cranberry cocktail juice with a chilled bottle of sparkling mineral water and a can of frozen apple juice with 2 cans of water.  Slice a lemon thinly and let float on top.  I didn't get pix of our "Snot Cubes" but I just pour lemon lime kool-aid in ice cube trays, add gummy bugs and freeze over night.  Add one or two to each glass of "curdled blood"  as the ice cube melts, the gummy bug will sink to the bottom of the glass and is a nice "surprise" as one finishes their drink!

It really was such a fun night.

 My parents and Miss Cherish also joined us. I hate when Halloween is on a school day/night because it feels so rushed and I just don't have the time to make fun Halloween breakfast and lunch. I'm glad we were able to do dinner together though we missed Mel and Brett and their families. These things just aren't the same without them!I hope you all had a fun, safe and happy Halloween as well!

Halloween Menu...

Here is what my little Goblins will be feasting on Monday night:

I found this darling digital paper at photocardboutique and just used my photo shop to make the menu.  Squeeeeeee!!!  I can't wait!  Pictures & recipes to follow.  Hope you all have as much fun as we are going to!

Mummy Cakes....

A fun easy treat for the Halloween season is Mummy Cakes:

All you need are Hostess Ding Dongs, a bag of Reese's Pieces, white frosting, and black frosting ( I used the decorating kind in the tubes).  Just unwrap your ding dongs and place them on a plate. Use the white frosting and zig zag across the top of the Ding Dong to create the bandage look, then use the black frosting to separate it, place two eyes on each and dot with black frosting.  Easy Sneezy!!!!

Linking to:   somedaycrafts-whatever-goes-wednesday
& mybackyardeden-make-it-yours-day
& thetrendytreehouse-create-and-share-features-too
& sassysites-halloween-treats-for-kids-link-up
& momscrazycooking-this-weeks-cravings-52
& theartsygirlconnection-pininspirational-thursdays