It is always a wonderful experience when you walk into a home where someone has just baked a pumpkin pie—all those intoxicating smells of nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin, and crisp piecrust. This piece is dedicated to all you pie-lovers out there, as well as all you non-bakers. I’ve put together some recommendations for where you can get delicious pumpkin pies. These pies are perfect for family get-togethers, Halloween costume parties, or as gifts to your friends and loved ones. In no particular order, here are five places where you can get fabulous pumpkin pie.

1. Try out Achatz Handmade Pie Company. The company makes two superb pumpkin pies, perfect for Halloween costume parties or for anytime of the year! There is the traditional pumpkin pie, with freshly made crust and filling with only the highest quality ingredients. But my personal favorite is their Pumpkin Crumb Pie. It’s almost like Crumb Cake mixed with Pumpkin Pie, and the flavors are amazing together. The Pumpkin Crumb Pie is essentially the traditional pumpkin pie with a layer of Achatz’ secret recipe crumb topping. This is great for a fancier Halloween costume party.

2. Bonerts Slice of Pie Company also has two delicious pumpkin pies. Like Achatz, Bonerts has a classic pumpkin pie and then a specialty pumpkin pie. Next time you’re planning a Halloween costume party, don’t forget to order a few of Bonerts’ Pumpkin Cream Cheese pies. It’s a great take on a classic pie, and the cream cheese gives the pie a rich, velvety texture that is incredible with the pumpkin flavor. Your Halloween costume party guests will be singing its praises!

3. In the spirit of the ghoulish Halloween, why not buy a Black Raspberry Pie from Garden Harvest Supply? The black, gooey filling and the flaky crust provide a nice alternative to pumpkin pie. With the Black Raspberry Pie, you can add creepy-crawly decorations like fake spiders, gummy worms, or plastic eyeballs. The deep, red-black color of the pie is a great addition to any Halloween costume party or Halloween costume get-together.

4. I can’t help mentioning Ms. Hill’s Pies. She’s a nice lady in Iowa who has been making delicious, handmade pies for over 30 years. That’s a lot of pies! For a nice “bloody” pie, why not buy the Cherry Pie? It tastes incredible, and it’s a great texture and color for Halloween costume parties and haunted houses. You could even hand out slices of pie to your trick-or-treaters in their Halloween costumes.

5. And last but not least, there are the delectable gourmet pies at Underhill Farms Gourmet & Specialty Pies. As the company states, “Each pie is made to order from the freshest ingredients, back to perfection, and delivered to your door.” Try the Single Crust Pumpkin Pie. They also sell a Sugar Free Pumpkin Pie, which is perfect if any of your Halloween costume party guests have trouble processing sugar. Plus, with all that Halloween candy, all that extra sugar in a pie is a bit unnecessary!

Scary Halloween Classroom Games

Most children love all things Halloween. As adults, we assume it's because Halloween means candy and children generally love candy. But many children love more than just the abundance of candy at Halloween time. They really get into the ghoulish aspect of the holiday and delight in the displays of goopy brains and squishy body parts.

Halloween games, therefore, can be really fun and goopy, if you wish. The kids will go with it, don't worry.

First up, a brain game. There's a fun game on store shelves where you pick through a rubber "brain" to figure out what's in it. You can create this easily yourself. Make some jello and fill it with a variety of items, like gummy worms and other gummy candies, some small candy and trinkets and other items. Tell the children to root around in the bowl of jello (call it a "brain" if this will get the kids more interested) to figure out what's in it. It's goopy and messy and kids love it. Best yet, color the jello black so it's too dark to see what's inside and it looks more like goopy brain matter (the way kids see it, anyway).

In that same, or similar vein, kids love the spaghetti game. Be sure they are wearing a smock over their clothes or are wearing play clothes before playing this game. Make a big bowl of spaghetti and fill it with all kinds of items, like plastic bugs, gummy worms and other items that might feel a bit strange. Make the children feel around in the bowl of spaghetti and identify the items they feel. Once they are done and cleaned up, have them list as many items as they can remember. Whoever gets the most items listed (and right) gets a prize. Spaghetti, anyone?

Another similar game that's always popular is to take a cardboard box and paint it black, both the inside and outside. Carve a small hole in the top, really just large enough for the children to get their hands into, and fill the box with a variety of items. They can be related to Halloween (like a small pumpkin) or not (wrapped Tootsie rolls or a tiny toy Hummer car). Have the children guess what's inside the box and award the box itself to the child who guesses the most number of items correctly. To make this goopy and silly, be sure to include some items that might feel like body parts or brain matter.

Kids love creating silly fictional stories, often with absurd plotlines. Halloween is the optimum time to let them run wild with their imaginations. Have them spend a bit of time writing out the scariest story they can think of. Some children might need some direction not to make it ridiculously grotesque, so use caution with these children in your clarification of this assignment. Once the stories are written, have the children hand them in and then have a guest reader for each one of them. Each child will come to the front of the class and read the story with as much dramatization as they can muster. Once the story is read, everyone has to guess who wrote the story. The writer should play along, otherwise everyone will know it was their story! The winner is the child who wrote a story so intriguing and unusual that nobody knew it was his or hers!

Kids love the word find games when you give them a word or words relating to a holiday or something else and have them find words within those words. In this case, give them Halloween-related words and ask them to find as many scary words as they can. For example, you might give them the word "Halloween" and see how many scary words they can make from the letters. Or you could give them a series of words and let them rearrange the letters in all of the words to create scary words, or even create a story from the scary words. Put a time limit on this game and award a prize for the child who creates the most words in the least amount of time.

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Word count 698

While adults may be jumping on the Halloween bandwagon, first and foremost Halloween is a kid's holiday. Besides trick-or-treating and costumes, Halloween parties are one of the many activities that kids can look forward to each Halloween. If you are thinking of jumping in and hosting your own kid's party this year, one thing that you will need to think about is the games.

When planning kid's party games, keep in mind that many games will only have one winner. So be sure to play enough games that every child can be a winner, or consider providing second and third place prizes to help avoid hurt feelings. If you don't want to use candy for prizes, Halloween party favors and small toys also make great prize ideas.

Ghostly musical chairs

Almost everyone is familiar with the game of musical chairs, so you probably won't need a detailed expression of the rules. All you need is one chair less than the number of kids attending the party (so 9 chairs for 10 kids, for example). Cover the chairs with white sheets and paint some eyes and mouths on them to make them look like ghosts. Line the chairs up or arrange them in a circle. To play the game, play some music while the children walk around the chairs. When the music stops, the child left without a chair is out. Remove a chair, and keep playing until there is only one child left.

Dress the scarecrow

If you have some of dad's old clothing lying around the house, this is a fun game for kids. Divide the children into small teams, and give all teams some clothes for their scarecrow. Jeans or overalls, flannel shirts, boots, gloves, and a straw hat are typical, though you can use whatever you have on hand. One child in the team is the scarecrow, and has to stand still while the others of the team put the clothes on. The first team to complete a scarecrow is the winner.

Meet my mummy

For this one, you will again want to divide children into small teams and have one child volunteer to be the mummy (preferably a child who was not the scarecrow if you play both games). Give each team a roll of toilet paper, and have them wrap their mummy with it (you can also use rolls of streamers in Halloween colors if you would prefer). The first team done wins.

Pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern

Create a large pumpkin out of cardboard, or make one out of construction paper and pin it to a bulletin board. Paint or glue eyes and a mouth on the jack-o-lantern, leaving the area where the nose should be empty. Cut out several yellow triangles, writing the child's name on the front and placing a small piece of double-sided tape on the back. Blindfold children and have them attempt to pin the nose where it belongs. To make the game more difficult, spin the child in circles several times before having them pin the nose on.

Almost any child's party game can be converted to a Halloween game with a little creativity. Of course, leave plenty of time for snacks and the ever-popular costume contest.

Who says Halloween is just for kids? Halloween is, of course, a time for trick-or-treating, and mom and dad certainly can’t go out begging in the streets for candy, but the holiday can also be a great time for some adult fun.

If you are planning a Halloween party for grown-ups, you will want to have some adult Halloween games on hand. It is all part of the fun.

Some great adult Halloween games include:

About the Town – This is a scavenger hunt. All you need to do is create a list of Halloween-related items, pass out the list to each team, and send them on their way to collect the items. Some great objects to put on the list include:

A Hangman’s noose A black veil An obituary

You get the idea. Just include items that have to do with being scared, ghosts, Halloween, or whatever.

You might try a variation on the hunt, too. One great one is to make the hunt a video scavenger hunt. Each team goes off with video camera in hand (or cell phone with a camera or whatever) and films the items rather than actually bringing the items back with them. This is really cool because you can make the list of items include really big stuff and potentially scary things like tombstones. For a further variation, you can have the list be only things like: Superman, a clown, a pirate, a fairy princess, a werewolf, a vampire, and so on. That would mean the adult Halloween games would include the kids via taking video of trick-or-treaters who are all dressed up.

Halloween Fortune Telling – In this game, your guests put their knowledge of one another to the test and get to know each other better.

Simply hand out slips of paper and a pencil to each guest. Each person then chooses a person at the party (maybe even himself or herself), but doesn’t tell anyone who it is. Then, everyone write a “fortune” for that person, folds it, and puts it into the fishbowl. You can have everyone write one or several; that’s up to you.

Then, each guest pulls out a slip of paper and reads the fortune. He then tries to guess which person wrote the fortune and which person the fortune is about.

Some examples of fortunes might be:

“This person will get caught doing something illegal and spend the night in jail.” “This person will marry someone from a foreign country.” ”This person will quit his job and buy a Corvette when he turns fifty.” “This person will adopt a child.” “This person will become President of the PTA.”

You get the idea. Each person who correctly guesses wins a small prize, and this game is a delightful way to get conversations started at your Halloween bash.

A really cool variation of this game is to have each guest put their name on a piece of paper and drop into the bowl. Then have each guest draw a name from the bowl and have the one who drew the name make up a scary story about the name drawn. Then have the other guest guess who the scary story is about.

As you can see adult games can be a lot of fun and the types of games can be endless. It just takes a little planning to come up with adult Halloween games.

Of course birthdays and Christmas are the biggest times to give and receive presents, but there is no reason to wait for the joy of giving – and getting, of course. This year, why not break with the old habits and give a Halloween gift?

A Halloween gift that is always a big hit around my house is a basket filled with orange and black cool stuff. It is easy to put together this kind of Halloween gift, too. All you have to do is stop by your local dollar store and pick up a basket of any color and size. Just be sure to get a basket that will hold whatever you want to put inside of it.

You can find some orange and black crepe paper and line the basket with that, and you may decide to decorate the basket with some orange and/or black and/or yellow curling ribbon as well. You can make some wild curls out of the ribbon and have them snaking all over the place. If you don’t really want to get crepe paper, you can just line the basket with some Halloween napkins that you unfold.

That’s all it takes to make a great presentation, and then you are ready to fill that basket with anything that would make a great Halloween gift for your kids, your spouse, your boss, your sister, or whomever you wish to make really happy this year.

You can stick with the Halloween theme and include only orange and black items, if you like. Or, as an alternative way of sticking with the Halloween gift theme, you can get whatever items you want and simply wrap them in orange and black paper or with Halloween napkins.

If you do not care quite as much about the items fitting into the Halloween gift theme, you can put anything you want inside the basket and let the basket itself represent the holiday. Some of my favorite items to include are:

CDs of the person’s favorite music Candles Bookmarks Some delicious treats – homemade or store bought, whichever suits your fancy Soaps Fruits—especially oranges for obvious reasons Socks or pantyhose Halloween-related objects that could be used for decorating the house – like miniature statues and so forth Mittens or gloves for the upcoming colder weather

Of course, the above are just a few ideas to get you started; you know the Halloween gift recipient better than I do, so you know best what to put inside that gorgeous basket you made for a couple of bucks.

Halloween Pregnancy Costume Ideas

The minute you begin your pregnancy everything is changing, your body, your clothes sizes, even your looks. But that doesn't mean you have to skip out on your favorite holidays, like Halloween. Being pregnant doesn’t mean you can’t dress up. Whether you are buying your costume or making them yourself, you can have fun. There are many costumes you can buy for couples or just for yourself. The Pregnancy couple may want to go as a baker and an oven, or an egg and bacon bit. Both outfits are really cute and creative, you can even make them at home if you chose too.

If you want to get really creative you can make your own costumes, here are a few costumes that you can make just using your belly and normal clothes are:

The eyeball- This is something my husband created, all you need is a little facial paint and black clothes. This is something even a person that can't draw can have a little bit of fun with. Wear all black clothes on Halloween and paint your belly white, make the center of the eye whatever color you desire and don't forget the red veins. Make it scary or cute, whatever fits your desire. Have a bit of fun and show off that tummy by keeping the shirt up or wear a shirt that shows your tummy. My husband got a kick out of this one and was so excited that he got to do the artwork.

If you want to dress up completely but not stand out, try going as a human pumpkin. Wear a tiny green cap or make one out of felt and all orange, if you can cut a slit in your shirt for your belly to stick out. Now, paint it orange and decorate your pumpkin.

A pea is another simple costume you can make and stay warm. Go find some green jeans or sweats and a green sweatshirt. Keep the shirt up or cut a hole in it to make your little pod stick out and paint it all green.

If you aren't feeling up to having a full body costume, you could always just paint the belly and proudly show it off. After all, how often will you be pregnant? Think of anything that is round: basketball, volleyball, soccer ball, a bowling ball, etc

Don't forget witches were mothers too, so if you've always dressed as a witch for Halloween you don't have to stop the tradition. This year go as a pregnant witch or maybe a witch holding a pumpkin. Use that belly!

A Bun in the oven- Get a medium or small box, cut it out so that you can wear it over your shoulders. Make room for your head to slide through. Decorate it with paints like an oven. Cut open the front of the box so that it will open and close. On the outside of the box write, “Bun in the Oven.” Paint your belly a light beige for all to see the little baby bun.

Halloween Games for Kids and Adults

Whether you decide to take the kids out for an hour of trick-or-treating and then come back for the party, or just forego the neighborhood wanderings this year, it is an absolute must that you have a fiendishly good time by playing Halloween games. This holiday is usually considered a kid’s day, but I like to think of Halloween as a time to become a kid again, and Halloween games – even if they are really designed to please the kiddies – can really be Halloween games for both kids and adults.

Here are some great ideas for Halloween games to make everyone giggle and have a good time:

• Pass the Pumpkin – This game is great fun and all you need are three pumpkins and some people. Just group up the players into groups of pretty even ability levels, or make it kids against the adults or boys against the girls if you like. Each group starts with a pumpkin and the first player passes it to another in the group. Then that person passes it on to someone else, and so on. The winning team is the team that does not drop the pumpkin. Ohhh…did I forget to mention, you should put some Crisco on the pumpkins first? Howling good fun! This is an outside game of course!

• Mummy Maniacs – This game is way cool and all you need is some white crepe paper or rolls of toilet paper. First, divide up the kids (or adults) into teams of two players each. One takes the paper and makes the other one into the mummy, being sure to wrap the legs together, not separately. Then, the non-mummies run around in a roped-off area, and it is the job of the mummies to “capture” an enemy partner. The first one to hug the enemy is the winner.

• Witches Broom Dancing – This is a variation on follow-the-leader, and all you need is a broom. Put all players in a circle. The first person takes the witch’s broom and dances around the circle with it. Then, she hands it to whatever player she chooses, and that person must imitate her dance exactly. If she doesn’t she sits down and another person takes a turn. The last player standing wins.

• Spider Sack Relay Race – This game makes players into spiders and requires just a little forethought and before-the-party preparation. All you need are three old pairs of panty hose and some old rags to stuff inside them. Put the rags in the legs of the pantyhose. Then, divide the players into three teams. The first player ties the pantyhose around his waist so that the legs dangle on his sides. He bends over and crawls on his hands and feet (or hands and knees, whichever) and goes to the finish line, where a teammate waits for him. Then, the teammate takes off the dangly pantyhose spider legs, and puts them on herself and crawls back to the beginning. Play continues until all players have crawled. First team to get everyone across a finish line wins.

It’s easy to become a kid again on Halloween night and make it a special night with your friends and the kids. All you to do is put your thinking cap on and introduce everyone to one of the above games or another Halloween game you come up with.