this is in response to aunt sandy’s FRANTIC PLEA for photos. it would be nice to have a long, uninterrupted time to put up lots and lots of photos. for example, some people think that we’re still in austria, or we just came back. seeing as how i’ve only managed to post photos from the first couple of days.

anyway, i took lots of pictures before the party started, to give you an idea of the depth and breadth of the extreme halloween decorating.

first, here are the cupcakes that i spent three hours decorating.

cupcakes!

they were quite delicious, by the way. still are, as a matter of fact – i think there are about five left. plus maybe four spider cupcakes, which i have no desire to eat because of all the licorice. i’m thinking of giving them away to a neighbor child.

here’s the table loaded with most of the food.

food!

because more people showed up that i anticipated, i spent too much of the party time trying to replenish the food. next year, i’m going to pile gobs of it out at the beginning. it was a struggle just to get from the fridge to the table because of the many many people standing around in the kitchen.

i have to figure out a way to make the party less about serving stuff.

here’s a good shot of the living room.

living room

and this is all the stuff piled on top of the turntable.

turntable

this is my favorite table; it used to be my grandmother’s. last year i covered it with a round piece of wood and covered that with a table cloth, but i really didn’t want to cover it this time. so instead i spent the night FREAKING OUT every time somebody set their drink RIGHT DOWN ON THE TABLE WITH NO COASTER. the table has lots of incredible inlay on it, and next year i guess i’ll have to cover it up again in order to have one less thing to be frazzled about.

favorite table

i hung these ghosts all down the hall after kevin bought them on one of our many trips to buy yet more halloween stuff.

ghosts

we have a whole house fan, and when you turn it on it blows REALLY HARD, sucking all the air in from outside and sucking the hot air from the house up into the roof or something. so anyway, when it’s on, it sucks air up right there in the hall so when we first turned it on it sucked one of the ghosts right up. then it just looked funny, like the ghosts were flying around.

another table

ok, here are your charming party hosts.

halloween us

YOU’RE RIGHT, KEVIN HAS NO MOUSTACHE.

maybe you didn’t notice. i don’t think anybody at the party noticed, i guess because he did, indeed, look like quite a geek. and i was a prom queen, in case you can’t read the sash.

and here’s us with our beautiful dog. she wore a purple cape, but it doesn’t show up so much.

with mollie

i only have time for ONE MORE PHOTO. randy and roger ruth. randy wasn’t JUST a banana…he carried a can of foster’s beer.

BANANAS FOSTER, GET IT?

apparently, people at the party did get it because he won the GRAND PRIZE in the people’s choice awards.

roger was a nun. one of two nuns at the party.

randy and roger

ok that’s all i have time for now.

MANY MANY MORE PHOTOS TO COME. I PROMISE.

grace.