Halloween

What a great night!! There were so many things that could have gone wrong with this whole haunted maze thing but amazingly enough, it was a lovely evening. I'm still smiling and everyone left over 3 hours ago!! For starters, it's been a really long time since I've had company over to my house. In fact, it was probably last Halloween when a bunch of us got together at my house to go trick-or-treating. I love to have people over but I have a stupid hang-up about the state of my house. When we're busy with the business, which is most of the time, the house winds up dead last on the list of priorities and it makes me crazy. I love when my house is clean and warm and cozy and it just doesn't happen often enough. My friend, Sam, used to say that she was coming to visit me, not my house, but I still get caught up in wanting things to be "company-clean". Thankfully I've had extra time on my hands lately and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. On Tuesday I even cooked a turkey for dinner complete with mashed potatoes and gravy!! I've been really working on deep-cleaning my house all month and I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere. Gloria has been enjoying my recent domesticity as well. We made cookies AND cupcakes today for tonight's party and Gloria informed me that she was planning to be a famous chef. Actually, she said something like this: "Mom, you might expect me to be a famous singer or horse rider, but I'm going to be a famous chef. A famous singing chef." Sounds like a good reality show:

I've been a little concerned about the liability of people walking through this maze and getting hurt. We even had a little neighborhood drama on Tuesday night when a bunch of older kids were running through the maze and wouldn't leave. Rob had been setting up all day at the fairgrounds for the Light in the Night event and I went down to take some pictures. While I was gone, the bigger kids took over the maze and ignored Zach's and Gloria's demands to leave. Long story short, Rob rushed home and let 'em all have it. . . a couple of the kids had banged into the pipes and had goose eggs on their foreheads and there was one unhappy, defensive mom. . . anyway, all of that set me to worrying just a little bit about what might happen tonight. . . I wasn't worried enough to call it off and tried to capture what I could on video. Rob and Zach did such a great job putting all of this together. The video doesn't do it justice at all, but there was plenty of scary music, lots of fog from the fog machine, stringy cobwebs hanging all over the ceiling, loud sound effects, spiders and snakes and scary guys in scary costumes wandering around where you least expected them.


Rob's mom and dad came by with Matt, Marr and McKenna and Jeanie even went through the maze. She was shocked at how scary her grandson was!!!

Andrew was Cousin It and was the last thing kids saw as they exited the maze:

Stephy was a mangled rodeo clown but she's doing a pretty good Vanna White imitation as she shows off my new window coverings:

Megan was a very beautiful witch with long, long eyelashes:

I've been waiting a really long time for the chance to post this picture!! I think it must be 2002 when the girls were 3 and 4:

I tried to get the kids to pose in the same positions as in the old photo, but Elsie wasn't taking any chances being that close to scary Zach!! My, how they've changed:

Here are the rest of the party-goers:

Alyssa was perfect as a creepy skeleton:

Gary brought their fire pit which added great ambiance to the festivities. Here's Quinton enjoying the warmth:

Lori came by for a good scare and I don't think she was disappointed!!

Shawn, Katrina and Scary-Gary:

Vic and Kristin went through the maze together and it was hilarious to hear them scream the entire way!!

I had such a good time hanging out with everyone tonight. It just makes me want to have another party!! I love these people!!

Andrew may not have needed a mask after all!!

Well, the maze was a success. We heard many great comments from parents who went through with their kids. Most of the kids thought it was cool and only 4 of them cried. We had quite a few people go through and several of them came to our neighborhood because they had seen the maze when driving by and were curious. Zach and Rob were pretty proud of themselves!! I was pretty proud of them, too. What a fun evening!!