Photo by DMC43

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My family traditionally makes the rounds to decorate graves around this time of year. We most recently lost my Dad last August and my Mom didn’t have it in the budget to get a headstone up this year. (Let me take this opportunity to get on my soapbox and encourage everyone to get some sort of life insurance policy, no matter how small, believe me, every little bit helps!) I felt bad he’s in an unmarked grave not knowing how long it will be before the headstone will be put up (hoping by this time next year) so I made a temporary grave marker for him but didn’t have a solid frame or anything to keep it from just being set on the ground.

I scoured the internet looking for some sort of sign frame, thinking there MUST be something out there. Well, a couple hours of searching resulted in nothing that would suit my needs. I mentioned this to my handy husband who promptly said, “No big deal…I can make you one.” Have I told you how much I love this guy?! So we took a trip to Lowe’s, bought some steel, and here is our creation:

Hopefully that will suffice until we get a real headstone up.

My thoughts go out to everyone who is remembering lost loved ones this weekend.

It’s another edition of Kim’s Dare to DIY Blog Party and this week is about DIY gifts, which I :::heart::: tremendously. I’ve got a few things in the works this year but I realized I had better not post them yet so I won’t spoil the surprise. I will try to post on this year’s gifts after Christmas though. I will, however, share a couple things I did last year, hope you enjoy!

 Rice Krispy Treat Bags

Gifts in a Jar: Sand Art Brownies and Smores

We decided to put it up the other night and I must admit, it does look pretty nice!

Even the boys were pretty tired by the time we got it up and running.

Happy Halloween!!

Only a few of us dressed in costume, but it was a fun night anyhow. I told Andy you know you’re getting old when everyone tells you that you threw an awesome party, you feel like you threw a good party, when everyone leaves you get things picked up and then get settled into bed and when look over at the clock you see that it’s not even midnight! Oh well, we all had a good time and I prefer that to our previous knock-down-drag-out-nights followed by a 2-day hangover. The party pretty much died down quickly after watching the Hawkeyes add another notch to their helmets after the nail-biting game against the Spartans. (Yay Iowa!)

Here’s a little run down of our menu and other fun photos:

Caramel Peanut Butter Apple Dip

A bag of caramels
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Splash of milk
Splash of vanilla creamer

Cheese & Fruit for the wine

Cheese Dip
1 box of Velveeta cheese
2 lbs. of browned breakfast sausage

Everyone’s favorite Buffalo Chicken Dip

Apple & Pear Crisp Fake Out
Thanks to Kimba’s recipe
on A Soft Place to Land
Sadly, I don’t think anyone ate any of it! I had a bite later but need to
make it again because I know it’s super delicious.

Harvest Snack Mix
I adapted a recipe I found somewhere online. (Sorry, can’t remember
where!)
This is what I *think* I did:
Mix 4 tablespoons melted butter with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves. (P.S. Note to self, DO NOT try to ground your own whole cloves in your Magic Bullet. You will ruin the plastic cup. Those suckers must be pretty rough or something. Not sure how or why, but I really messed up the cup and I had to toss it.) Then add a bag of popped microwave popcorn and 2 cups of pretzel sticks. Mix well, put in cake pan and toss in oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool, then add in however much you want of candy corn (or pumpkins as you can see), chocolate stars, I threw in some kind of Ritz mini-bites that had frosting, and a cup of Banana Nut Cheerios because I knew they’d never get eaten otherwise. Then again, nobody but me ate this mix. I kinda like it. 

And, last but not least on the menu, my favorite food item of
the night:

This was really fun. Not really easy to eat, and no one really ate much, but it was a great addition. Find a plastic (or in this case styrofoam) skull. Wash well. You could add plastic wrap as someone mentioned at the party but I did not. Mix 2 blocks of cream cheese with whatever seasonings, I used garlic salt & onion powder. Spread on skull and cover with torn pieces of
lunchmeat. I left the eye sockets, nose, and teeth uncovered and popped two
large olives in the eye sockets. Dave decided the head needed a little more so
he added a festive knife:

Andy added dry ice to the punch:

And to drinks (P.S. we learned you should not add to beer!)

I forced my tall blonde babe to dress up like Fred so I could
be Daphne. I pretended for a moment Tiger was Scrappy. Our wigs were terrible, looked nothing like the photo on the front of the package, but oh well, you get the idea, right?!

Of course I had to dress up the boys:

The Willetts were super cute all dressed up. Karen even made
Lena’s costume!

 The Duitsmans were great sports. They came from a wedding and
added accessories to their outfits to be in costume, though Tom almost
immediately took off all his cop gear. Amber made a great Flapper girl.

Demitrios decided to don my wig:

 And The Elliotts and I had a good time hogging Andy’s remote later in the night so we could kick some old school tunes and reminisce back to our Junior High and High School days. :::singing::: One, Two, Three and To Tha Four…Because I’m Real…Meet Met at the Alter in Your White Dress…

And speaking of back in the day, Schmeed even brought us a
bottle of Mad Dog. Funny! That brought back some memories. I never knew it was a form of wine!

All in all, a great night with great friends – some old, some new…Love you all!