Aleksy's Amazing 25th Halloween Birthday Party!

The Birthday festivities were at a peak this Saturday the 29th. It took quite a bit of preparation but the party was a HUGE success: the best time I have had in forever!!

The prep work started the day previous to the party. I took the day off work for the important tasks of grocery shopping for all the party foods, making jello shooters, making Aleksy's birthday cake, making my baguette creation with sundreid tomatoes, artichokes, pesto, spinach, and cream cheese (which I got the recipe from a coworker and it was delic!), and making mexi dip. Most of the prep was actually done on Friday to relieve stress on the day of the party!

Because it was done the day before, it made it difficult for surprises. So I blocked off the aprt of the fridge with the jello shooters, cupcakes, and cake so that there would be some surprises! When Aleksy got home on Friday night, he took this picture and texted it to me (and the "surprise party" I had originally planned was no longer).

I wanted to make something that would be low maintenance, so I wouldn't have to go into the oven in the evening hours, so I decided on pulled pork. I crockpotted it and it turned out really well (and it was first time!), it was actually really simple, and it went incredibly fast: best party food idea... who doesn't love pulled pork. But I get very distracted at parties and I didn't get one. And to go along with pulled pork, I made coleslaw and beans!

Once Aleksy learned that there officially was going to be a birthday bash, he decided that he wanted to make a game for the party (after I told him beer pong sounded like a crappy idea because I already know we would be dominated by Craig and Zac who play beer pong as often as they game). So Aleksy made the drinking version of the game Battleship. It took him a couple hours,but it looked really good! We used poker chips to mark the "misses" and when someone hit a spot on the battleship, the person had to take a shot of whatever was in the glass!

 The first few pictures of the night are good, because costumes are still in tact! It seems parts of costumes tend to fall off as the night progresses. Here is one of my personal favorites, and not just because Jon made a fantastic baby!!

 Our 'tool time' friends!! So basically, if anyone knows Al at all, he pretty much went as himself with a "tool time" label on his back, but Steph looked cute as Heidi from Home Improvement!

And some girly love!! Heidi, a nerd, and Robin hanging out in the kitchen (which is by fat the smallest room in the house but still that is where we decided to congregate: note to self, next time put food in living room so we'll have more space to hang out - everyone always surrounds the drinks and food!).

I love how by the end of the night, everyone LOVED each other so much, Steph and Sam (Heidi and nerd!) were the "same person", Nikki told me about 100 times that she "loved my friends!!" and everyone exchanged contact information!!

This is the confirmation picture that you can indeed fit 7 people (including the picture taker) into our kitchen!! This is an earlier on picture too (I think its 11pm). Note as the night progresses, pictures are a little less organized!! At this point, there's probably still food on the table. I was having way too much fun to be a good hostess and I didn't bring out any extra food other than the food I brought out when people first started arriving at 9pm (although I did prepare for new midnight snacks: just didn't get to it!!).

 The battleship game in progress!! It took a lot of attention span, so I only lasted for abut 15 minutes, but it seems that others picked up from where I left off!

 This is a "girls" photo, which is absolutely impossible to take when theres boys all around  they all want to be in the pic too! There's Jon (with possibly the best face EVER in a photo), Al, and a little Craig lurking in the shadows behind us all.

 This is later in the night when we were outside "getting some fresh air" on the front porch and our neighbours from 3 doors down decided to come to the front door to greet us (I was actually in the garage at the time). When I came up to the porch, they were singing. Then they somehow thought it was a good idea to come into the house (the other one had to use the washroom), and there was quite a lot of anger from the boys for them to leave (Aleksy pounding on the door, Craig showing them where the door is). But before they left, we got a picture with one of them!

 When I was on the front porch, I heard people in the garage so I went to explore. Someone apparently decided it was a great idea to smoke cigars in the garage (and it really stunk for a couple days!)... I guess perhaps because it was a little chilly outside. For some reason, no one went outside to the backyard: it was either in the garage or the front yard.

Yet another one of the kitchen pictures of the evening! There is pure happiness in this picture, which makes is a goody and Aleksy may be falling over. I also don't really know whose hand is holding the beverage, its just kind of sitting in the middle there.

 This is the cake that I made for Aleksy. I was given the idea by someone at work. It is a graveyard scene (note the tombstones), with the skeleton in the center breaking through the ground, the oreo cookie crumbs being the dirt, and there's another skeleton and other characters breaking out from the ground as well! The cake shape is also a pumpkin (a clever purchase from the good ol' dollar store!).

It was about 1:30am when Al and Steph called their cab, and I realized that we didn't bring out the birthday cake yet! So as they were waiting for the cab, I brought out the cake, and conveniently realized that there already were candles on it (served 2 purposes!) so we sang Happy Birthday to Aleksy and had some cake! I am quite impressed that I was able to coordinate this at this hour (must be because I lost all my beverages throughout the night and my full drinks were found all over the house the next day!).

After Al & Steph left, Sam & Zac left not long after and we decided that we wanted to "keep the party going" so Andzelika, Nikki, Craig and I decided to pull out the jagerbombs (minus the redbull) at 2:30am. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but the next day not so much! Good thing we absorbed it all with some breakfast the next morning at Angel's Diner... the best time to go out for breakfast!

This was a fantastic birthday party, with just the right amount of close friends, and hopefully we can have a re-do next year!