a bushel and a peck. volume 2: Family Fall Party!

All of us look forward to our Family Fall Party each year. I think this is the fifth year we have had a big fall family night and October just would not be the same without it! We have a campfire, tell ghost stories, eat some great treats, reminisce about past Halloweens, and carve pumpkins. The last few years I have even been a little crafty. We have made spooky spiders, spooky trees and this year-

thanks to Pinterest, Jett and I made spooky bats!

You grab some empty toilet paper rolls- who doesn't have plenty of those lying around?

I don't think boys even know they are disposable. It seems like I am always the one finding an empty or near empty roll. So, naturally when I saw this was the main supply-

I knew this was a craft for us!

Anyway, Paint your toilet paper rolls black.

We used spray paint- and of course added glitter.

I want some sparkle on my Halloween.

Then you cut out black paper in the shape of wings and fold it back and forth

to give the soon to be wings some character, some battiness.

Then you have to figure out how to smush the wings through the toilet paper holder. I think these holes might be beneficial to address first and then paint and glitter them all up because sticking black construction paper that had been glittered through a spray painted and glittered roll was very messy and tougher than necessary...

But, in the end it worked out and we made four bat friends that hung in our "spooky trees" we made a couple of years ago. That yes, I kept and yes, I moved and yes, I do really like.

Thanks Martha Stewart for the Spooky Trees:)

And, now to the Great Pumpkin Carving!

Thanks to the Lingos we were overloaded with beautiful, unique, and gigantic pumpkins. I don't think its possible to have too many pumpkins and gourds. I love pumpkins. I put them everywhere. I could go broke each fall buying pumpkins. I had already loaded up on great pumpkins at Ruby's by early in September. But the Lingos had so many pumpkins they graciously invited our family out to the patch to help themselves to orange pumpkins, cinderella pumpkins, white pumpkins, green warty pumpkins, ghost pumpkins, mini gourds, massive gourds, even Maize- which was beautiful.

Three pumpkins from our gluttonous collection were, of course, just perfect for carving. Jett was so excited and so proud of himself because this year he was able to carve his own pumpkin nearly completely by himself. The gooey part he wanted some assistance with- but he took charge of the designs and made a couple of pretty great jack-o-lanterns.