Operation! You're the doctor!

I'm such a nut for Halloween. I love everything about it, and usually spend tons of time getting ready. This year we did pretty minimal decorating, so the majority of my time could be spent making E's Halloween costume. Now, those of you who know my husband may know that he has worn some pretty embarrassing things on Halloween's past. He was once a huge, fuzzy, mascot-style Pink Panther, which was really impressive even if he was dressed head to toe in Pepto Bismol fur. He was also a cute little mouse one year, which he claims I made him do. Not true. Yes, I provided the makeup and mouse ears, but it wasn't my idea and I didn't even go out that night. Besides, he's the one who got hit on by every lady at the bar, calling him "adorable." He complains about it still, but personally, I think he loves the attention.

I didn't take much to convince him to let me dress him up this year, thanks to the support of a couple of our friends. Once the girls exclaimed that it was an awesome idea, he totally caved. Thus, I present you with the Operation Game Guy. While it did take a while to make, it was relatively easy. It was also completely worth the effort to see this puppy in motion: nose flashing, buzzers zapping, and dogs chasing tiny body parts around for hours. E was a big hit, and I think it's pretty obvious that he's very comfortable being party guy. (p.s. You can vote for us in Craftster.org's costume contest here starting November 6th!)

We also spent Halloween day carving our not-so-original pumpkins. I think everyone and their mother has done a vomiting pumpkin and a baby being eaten by a monster pumpkin. Depite that, I needed help with all of the scraping, and the only way to get E to lend a hand was to let him make something gross. They ended up looking great, and I kept hearing "Whoa!" and "Awesome" through the door as trick or treaters came up the steps. It was always the dads. What is it with guys?

My last little Halloween project was the cupcakes for the party. I've been dying to make them since I bought Martha Stewart's new cupcake book. I used her recipe for Devil's Food Cake and used a basic vanilla butter cream for the frosting. The mummy eyes are mini chocolate chips, and all of the monster bits are marshmallows, gel icing, gumballs, and caramel candy corn (which, by the way, is the greatest candy ever! I must figure out what to do with the rest of that bag!). I love this cake recipe, and will definitely make it agin. The cupcakes were so moist (God, I hate that word!) and chocolatey, and the recipe makes a huge batch! There are so many other recipes that I can't wait to try in the book. I keep flipping through it and marking pages, waiting for someone to invite me to another party. Maybe I should just have my own and serve nothing but cupcakes. Maybe everyone would love it, maybe everyone would get sick, who knows. I've been to a desserts only party before and it blew, but I think I could do it better. Anyone wanna come over for a sugar rush?

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