The Haunted Yard: All Settled/2006 Re-Cap

It's been a busy spring/summer with our recent move, but we are finally unpacked and settled in nicely. Of course, now I have a brand new house for this coming Halloween. I have so many ideas, and I just know that I won't even begin to get them all accomplished this year. I guess I have a few years to get them done.

Of course, now that the weather is BLAZING, I am gearing up for this season. The Halloween catalogs are already starting to trickle in, and I am excited to get started. But, before I get into this year's plans, I'm going to get caught up from last year.

As part of my mad scientist corner, I added "potions" to the test tubes, which were a spice rack found at a thrift store. I experimented with a few different mixes to see what worked best under a black light.

From left to right: The first three are green, orange and blue glow-in-the-dark tempura paints mixed with water, the next is water with a little Tide, tonic water and the final tube is colored with yellow highlighter. I wish they had glowed with a little more variety of color, but I was please overall.

Our boss also held his annual Halloween party. I'm expected to bring something creepy, but delicious. In years past, I've made abnormal brain dip, which is just a shrimp spread colored grey and piped into the shape of a brain.

This past year, I decided to up the gross factor. I first covered a skull with Glad Press and Seal. I spread a thin layer of cream cheese over the wrapped skull. Next, I layered on prosciutto and added mozzarella ball and kalamata olive eyes. The result was a very gruesome but tasty, appetizer. It was a HUGE hit!

Of course, I was also required to bring my witch's finger cookies from Britt.com

The party, of course, was costume party. I pulled out a bride's maid dress from my cousin's wedding, donned a blond wig and Miss Piggy was ready to party!

Halloween night was FREEZING cold, but the house was fully lit and ready for trick-or-treaters.

Unfortunately, the weather made for a slow night. We probably hs around 30 kids as opposed to the 75-100 the year before. Most of the kids were nieces, nephews and friends who love to walk around the graveyard at night.