Boo!Bash

We are in the process of planning our first, hopefully annual, Boo!Bash fall festival type party. It will be held the Saturday before Halloween, in our back yard.

We are asking each family to bring their favorite fall dessert. I am making a pumpkin ooey gooey cake, a tray of brownie bites, a yellow sheet cake with chocolate icing, and an apple cobbler. I am sure we'll have a wonderful assortment of cookies, cakes, pies and cobblers, not to mention quick breads and muffins.

Drinks will include warm apple cider, cold lemon cider (a great mixture of apple juice, lemonade and ice. I slice up apples and lemons and add fresh mint from my herb garden to garnish. It's so good!), punch, iced tea and coffee with assorted stir ins. The coffee bar will include favored creamers, coffee syrups and toppings, such as cinnamon and nutmeg.

Games will be carnival type games that the kids can enjoy-bobbing for apples, clothespin drop (drop a clothespin from shoulder height into a quart canning jar sitting on the ground), horseshoes, and sack races.

Other activities will be pumpkin painting and/or carving and, the highlight of the evening-a costume contest for all ages. We'll have little goblins (under 12); teenage weirwolves (13-18); groan-ups (over 18) and mummies and daddies (couple costumes, although the wearers don't have to be "a couple"-the costume needs to be a couple)! Prizes will be awarded in each category.

I plan to decorate with mums, ferns, haybales and lots of pumpkins! Let's hope the weather cooperates!