Queen for a day-te

Carly's school scheduled their Sadie Hawkins dance on Saturday the 30th. We were a little bummed it would interrupt our yearly family tradition of being together for Hocus Pocus and trick-or-treating but I also think it's a great idea to give teenagers something to do on Halloween or in our case the day most of the community would celebrate the day.

After Carly acquired a date they put their heads together to find a cool couple costume. They tossed around the idea of "thing 1 and thing 2" from Dr. Seuss but Andrew came up with "Burger King & Dairy Queen"

after a little web surfing. I thought it was cute and then I started wondering how I was going to pull off a Dairy Queen costume. For 2 frightful days I thought I was going to have to sew a whole dress out of cowprint fabric. I started searching on the internet for ideas and came up with not a cowprint dress but a cowprint cloak (much easier) with a plain black or white dress. She had a floor length black dress from choir last year that she can't sell back because they changed dresses this year (GRRRRRR!!!! it was $80 for one year! can you tell I'm still perturbed?) My friend helped me by hemming the dress, bless her!

We went to the fabric store and, after looking all over the store a couple of times, asking employees for direction, finding Mason's dragon fabric and just about giving up.....

we found 1 yard of low-pile fur cowprint in the remnant bin. It was all they had in the whole store. We lucked out. I was grateful not to have to hit another fabric store. My beautiful, gracious, talented friend helped me again by sewing it into a cape and instead of having it clasp or tie in the front we thought it would look better, more regal if you will....

if it was attached to the shoulders. The cloak had little loops sewed to the ends and buttons were sewed to the shoulders. We bought a cheap little tiara at Partyland and a wide pink ribbon at the fabric store and 3D silver glitter paint.

Carly wrote "Dairy Queen" on the sash, we attached a little circle of velcro and voila! it was complete.

Mark and I agreed to cook and host dinner for 4 Sadie Hawkins couples at our house the night of the big dance. I had the girls over after school about a week before to toss around ideas and come up with a menu. We talked about a mummy meatloaf.......

or possibly meatball eyeballs.....

spider cupcakes, frankenstein jello-cups, witch finger breadsticks and the like but the girls finally decided on a few ghoulish sidedishes but just really good food for the main course.

Mark had agreed to cook something in the dutch oven and that won out over spooky food.

The menu they decided on was Dutch oven Chicken Cordon Bleu, Dutch oven potatoes, salad, rolls, dip w/witch finger carrots sticking up out of them with a plate of cucumbers and carrots for dipping and cake-ball eyeballs w/ ice-cream for dessert.

The 4 girls came over Friday the 29th to make the cakeballs with me.

One girl brought a red velvet cake already baked and we set to work making the cake balls and decorating them.

It was fun

and afterwards they all decided to stay and watch Poltergeist with Mark.

Saturday about Noonish the girls set off for their day date. They picked up the boys and headed out to a corn maze. They had brought snacks with them and expected the corn maze to take quite a bit of time.

Which it didn't.

So they decided to go to Cabelas. As Carly put it "all boys like Cabelas- We knew we'd be fine if we went there!"

After dropping off the boys they had about an hour before it was time to get together to go pick them up. They got costumed up and set off about 6ish. The plan was to be back for dinner at 7.

The tourist would be picking up a devil

The cop left to nab a robber

Dairy Queen set out to crown her Burger King

& Pocahontas to save John Smith from an evening of boredom

Mark and I were busy setting the table and cooking the food. I was happy with the way the table had turned out. I thought it looked pretty good.

We picked up the black tablecloth, plates, napkins and glasses at the dollar store so it was pretty inexpensive. Mark and I bought everything for the main course which the girls planned to divide by 4 and pay us back. They also each contributed by helping bring parts of the dinner which made it easier. One girl brought the salad and dressing. Another brought all the punch ingredients. Another brought the baked cake and ingredients for the cakeballs Friday night. Carly was supposed to make rolls...

(but we all know how that turned out right? yup! I was making rolls at 5 o'clock Saturday evening)

We found this bucket at the dollar store too to put our punch in. Carly got out her trusty bottle of silver 3D paint and wrote "Toxic Waste" on the side. We had dry ice in it but by the time I took a picture it wasn't smoking anymore. Mark kept worrying that the dry ice would crack the bucket but all was well.

The punch was one of the girls favorite holiday punch. It was very yummy. We'll make it again I'm sure& we'll call it:

Kallie's Holiday Punch

3 liters cranberry juice

2 liter bottle lemon lime soda

1 large can pineapple juice.

so good.

The girls did get back with their dates around 7ish and we served them and answered the doors for the few trick or treaters that came our way. They seemed to have a great time, talking and laughing and eating. They stayed until 9:30. The dance started at 8 but they didn't want to be nerdy and get their right on time!