Day 79 - Family Fun

Whether you agree or disagree with celebrating Halloween, you have to admit that spending time together as a family is always a win/win situation.

We celebrated Halloween yesterday with a house filled with about 30 guests, adults and children, a buffet table filled with food and dessert, hot apple cider, fun music, and time spent with friends and family.

We all dressed up: I was an Olympic snowboarder with my snowboarding helmet/goggles, snowpants and turtleneck. My eldest daughter was Tigger, from Winne-the-Pooh, my middle daughter was a prom queen in my former high school prom dress, a tiara and long, curly blonde wig. My youngest was a lady bug...although she'd changed costumes about three times before finally deciding. And my husband even dressed up in a pink wig, a pink feather boa, and bright pink lipstick with large, movie-star sunglasses.

We had a blast preparing our home with festive autumn decor, pumpkins and spider webs and spiders across the front doorway. We made caramel apples, popcorn balls -- although the the popcorn balls had to be thrown away because they didn't turn out correctly -- and had hot apple cider with cinnamon steaming on the stove top.

Our guests each brought a dish to pass, were also dressed up for the fun night ahead, and chatted away beside the large fire we'd built in our livingroom's 100-year-old fireplace.

It really was a special and fun-filled evening together!

After all of our guests had their share of candies and pie and lasagna, and after we spent an hour picking up the leftover mess from our gathering, my girls excitedly told me of all their fun that evening. And when it was time for bed and I was tucking them each into their warm beds, each child hugged me and repeated over and over, "Thank you, Mama, that was SO much fun!"

My husband even enjoyed conversing with all of the guests and laughing at silly costumes.

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Thank you, Father, for our fun-filled evening as family...sharing our home and making memories together. Amen.