A Fall Party

Some of the Indian corn from our garden

 Last Sunday my younger sister Keren came over after church to eat lunch with us and we were talking about the season and she and the kids and I decided it would be a lot of fun to have a fall party. We came up with all sorts of ideas of things that could be done. When we sat down to lunch we asked Ken what he thought and though parties are not so much his thing he thought that would be all right if we wanted to do that. So we quickly started doing some more planning.

We choose Friday evening for the time and decided to start at 5:30 so we would at least have an hour or so of daylight.

  The weather was supposed to be around 53 degrees, a bit chilly but still warm enough to have some outdoor activities.

  We invited everybody at church that night and on Wednesday night (we are in a fairly small congregation) as well as quite a few homeschooling friends and some other friends. It was fairly short notice and so quite a few already had other things scheduled but we did end up with a nice group of around 40 people that came to our party.

We planned a few games.....

We had a relay race where each person had to stick a squash between their knees and then hold it there while they walked or jumped across to the other end up the line and then give it to the next person. It was rather fun and humorous.

 Other games that were played were:
- A fall scavenger hunt where the teams had to find things like 3 different types of leaves, a flower (dead or alive) something beautiful, something blue, some string, a glove, etc. That ended up being pretty fun.
-Hide and seek after dark. Originally we adults had wanted to play too but the temperature never did actually reach 53 degrees that day and by dark time it was quite a bit cooler than that so the majority of the adults chickened out and the kids didn't play all that long either.

Aaron and Megan did also make a nice beanbag toss games (a scarecrow drawn on a box with holes cut out and then they sewed cute little beanbags) but I am afraid it didn't end up getting played at the party but it did get used quite a bit ahead of the party so at least their work wasn't completely in vain. We had also thought we might try a "Ring the Squash with a hoop" game but didn't and the boys set up the horseshoes but they didn't get used either.

 For the eating part of the party we set up a "buffet" table on the deck. I made a big pot of chili and cornbread, Ken grilled hot dogs and brats, Keren brought Hot chocolate and veggies and we had a lot of s'more stuff (and other odds and ends) and then we said everybody could bring a dish to share if they liked. We had oodles of food!

 Some ate around the campfire,

 some ate on the deck,

 Some at down in the yard and a bunch ate in the warm comfort of the house but I didn't take their picture.

 We put all the s'more stuff in a basket down by the campfire. It was handy to have it all ready to go.

 Aaron's pumpkin looking pretty on the deck. One of the few candles that stayed lit outside. I put a bunch of them around but most of them blew out even though I tried to put them in something so they would be protected from the wind.

 Some of the small ones had fun playing with Megan in her room.

 Some of the bigger ones played a game in the dining room.

I had a lot of fun having everybody here. I hope others were blessed by the time as well.

The kids and I did have fun adding some extra decorations to the house before the party. Here are some photos....

 Some of my different candle centerpieces. I am loving having all this Indian corn to decorate with!

 On top of my cupboard. Some of the extra squashes and honey are being stored up there while they look pretty too.

 More dried corn- the misfits- but I still think they look pretty.

Extra toilet paper disguised as a pumpkin in our bathroom. It is pretty easy to wrap it up in fabric, tuck the excess in the tube and then stuff in a stem from a squash that I cooked.

  I am so thankful that God gave us the wonderful season of Autumn - It was pretty fun to celebrate it!

I am linking this to Funky Junk Interiors Saturday Night Special