A Few Halloween Ideas

I absolutely love Halloween, love getting dressed up, taking Alyssa trick or treating, carving pumpkins, having parties and everything that there is to do around Halloween especially haunted houses. People know I absolutely love Halloween and I've had a few people ask me different things about what kind of stuff to have at a Halloween party and what kind of activities to do so I thought I would do a blog with a few different Halloween ideas for parties and things to do around Halloween.

What to do Around Halloween

•Pumpkin Carving- Kids and adults both love to carve pumpkins. If you're child is still too young to carve you can always paint pumpkins.

•Haunted Houses- I am one of those weird people that loves to have the life scared out of me so I love haunted houses. There's many around this time of year.

•Hay Rides- Kids absolutely love going on a hay rides.

•Costume parties- It's always fun to have an excuse to play dress up.

•Halloween/Fall festivals- There's always festivals going on with a lot of different things for kids and adults to do at them.

•Trick or Treating- Can't forget the best part for the kids and for the parents who sneak some of their kids candy.

Activities for a Halloween Party

•Costume Contest- You could do the scariest, prettiest, most creative, funniest ect.

•Door Prizes- Give out raffle tickets as guest come in. You could give out one big prize or several smaller ones.

•Bobbing for Apples- I don't care how old you are this game never gets old.

•Guess the body part- You can get spaghetti and peeled grapes, have people put their hand in it and guess what it is (eyeballs and brains). Mash cauliflower to feel like mashed brains or peel a tomato to make it feel like a heart.

•Pumpkin Bowling- use 10, 2 liter bottles filled with water and get 3 or 4 small pumpkins to use as bowling balls. You can decorate the pumpkins and bottles for even more fun.

•Have a Whodunit Party- It's life size Clue. You have one person be the murder, one the victim, one the rich homeowner and so on. Each guest has a role and they spend the night trying to figure out who did it and what they did it with. It takes a lot of time but it's so worth it, murder mystery parties are always fun.

•Have a scavenger hunt- They're not just for kids, adults love them too. If you plan on having alcohol at the party then don't make things too hard to find.

Halloween Party Foods

•Frankenstein Finger Dip- Make your favorite dip for chips and then add carrot "fingers" to it. Cut 4 long carrots and one short carrot (the thumb) and place a dab of cream cheese on the end of each. Then place an almond sliver on the end making it look like fingernails. Place in dip so it looks like a hand.

•Mummy pizzas- Make small individual sized pizzas, spread sauce on them and arrange the cheese so it looks like a mummy wrap then add two sliced olives for the eyes.

•Jello Brain- Get a brain mold from your local superstore and fill it with whatever type of Jello you prefer. You can dress up the plate to make it look like blood and guts that the brain is sitting on.

•Caramel Apples- Always a favorite among people

•Witches Brew- Mix up your favorite punch and then add things like gummy worms and peeled grapes that like eyeballs to the punch. You can also serve it a plastic witches caldron.

•Halloween Cupcakes- You can decorate however you want. Make them look like pumpkins, witch hats, spiders, whatever fits your party theme.

Decorations

No Halloween party is complete without some spooky decorations.

•Spider web- Get the fake spider web at a local store and string it across chairs, cabinets, lights and so on.

• Fake skulls and body parts- Have them hanging from different places and laying around.

•Music- It's essential to any successful party. Whether its a live band or a cd, you have to have music.

•Caution Tape- They always have caution tape with creative Halloween sayings on them in any store.

•Get creative and make whatever you think would make your party a success. You don't have to have a ton of decorations but some are the key to a Halloween party. After all, without the decorations it's just a party with adults playing dress up.


Make it a fun party and just have a good time at it. After all, you don't get the chance to dress up and act like someone else every day.

Bye, Bye Carson

It's been reported by ESPN that Carson Palmer will be traded by the Bengals go the Oakland Raiders. It seems as if Mike Brown has finally made a wise decision. Carson was only bringing unwanted drama that the team didn't need. The Bengals have proven that they don't need Carson to win a game and they're headed in a more positive direction without him and definitely without Ochocinco. Ocho is finally seeing that it's not always greener on the other side because he hasn't been doing very well there at all, it's been speculated that the Patriots are looking around for someone to trade him to.

I hope Carson goes to the Raiders and is happy there because the Bengals have shown that they're just fine without him and I see even more positive things coming with them not halving to worry about what's going on with Carson. Good luck to him at the Raiders.

Was It Worth it?

After eight tries and over five hours of trying to get iOS 5 downloaded and updated onto my phone it finally worked. If it hadn't worked on the last time I tried it I was going to give up and try it tomorrow. It finally did download though and then it took another hour to restore everything back on my phone to like it was, well almost like it was. At one point my phone even locked up and I could do nothing with it, I had a mini meltdown at that point. I have never had such trouble trying to get my phone to update, granted I've never had one that's went smoothly but never one that's taken this long. It was one hellacious process to go through and if you have an iPhone that hasn't been updated, I recommend waiting to do so. It will save you a lot of time and stress. I lost count at the number of times that I said I was going to throw my freaking phone out the window. So, after all of that trouble and waiting was it worth it?

Yes and no. I like the update but it's not worth all the time and anger I spent trying to get it to download. I'm an i impatient person who wanted it now but it would have benefited me if I would have just waited a day and downloaded it then when Apple's servers weren't in complete meltdown. I definitely advise downloading it but wait until at least tomorrow afternoon to try to. The update has some good features but I lost most of my ringtones I had downloaded and I haven't been able to figure out how to get them back on my phone yet. I like how you can take a picture without having to unlock the phone and the iMessage feature is pretty neat. You also get the iCloud with the update so you don't have to connect your phone anymore to transfer files and you can now sync your phone with your computer and still be able to use it too. There are over 200 new features with iOS 5 and I have yet to have time to discover all of them but so far I like the update. I just advise waiting a little bit to get it, you'll be saving a lot of time and stress if you do.

Main News Source?

Lately I've been noticing that I get almost all of my news updates from Twitter. All of the major news stories lately I've found out first on Twitter. When Steve Jobs died, I knew because of Twitter, when the earthquakes happened, I found out everything from Twitter. I even find out local news from Twitter because I follow local news stations on it. I know Twitter is my main news source, I still watch my local news at night but only for a little bit because I know most everything that they're going to talk about anyways. I'll only watch the mainstream news stations like Fox when I've seen a post on Twitter and I want to see actual video of it. Twitter is the fastest way for me to get my news because I always have my phone with me and my phone has Twitter on it. I know there's a lot of people who don't use Twitter but for the ones that do it seems as if most find out the latest new stories from it. It use to be the newspaper that was the main way to find out news stories, then radio, followed by televisions and then it was the regular internet, now I see things progressing to not only Twitter but other social media websites as being the way to get the news first. What about you? Do you use Twitter and is it your main source for finding out the latest news stories first?

Freedom of Speech?

It says Freedom of Speech but what it really should say is Freedom of Speech unless it goes against being politically correct or against others views.

I say this because tonight on Twitter Brian Scott, driver of the number 11 Toyota in the Nationwide Series for Joe Gibbs Racing, tweeted how he felt about Aric Almirola's comments about him only being in the Nationwide Series because of his family having money. Brian tweeted, "Hmm if I'm lucky that my family has money then he is lucky for having the Drive 4 Diversity program. Doesn't matter to me how you get your break." I found it not to be a big deal at all but many other people did not. They started calling Brian Scott racist and even tweeted Steve O'Donnell, Senior VP NASCAR, that they thought Brian should be punished for the tweet because they found it offensive. The tweet by Brian Scott was soon deleted.

It amazes me how people will get so offended over absolutely nothing, Brian was just trying to make a point that Aric was able to get into NASCAR because of the program and Brian had help getting in because of money, the only thing that mattered was that they both were able to make it into NASCAR. No where in his tweet did I see anything racist and if he gets punished for that then I'll be beyond shocked. You can add Brian Scott to the list of drivers who will no longer speak their mind on Twitter for fear of getting punished just like Denny Hamlin is. I miss how Denny use to tweet whatever was on his mind, now he hardly ever tweets at all after getting in trouble for a comment he made on twitter last year. I love knowing how the drivers feel and Twitter is a way for them to express that because they can't on national television, soon it'll be they won't be able to at all on Twitter either. Lighten up people before you ruin the wonderful interaction that Twitter gives us with the drivers. Stop being so sensitive and just be happy that those drivers take time to talk to you, if you keep criticizing their every viewpoint then they'll stop interacting.

What Brian Scott said didn't seem to be intended to be racist against Aric at all. I don't get why some people have to turn the slightest thing into something that's racist.

Here's Brian's tweet

Apple Letdown

Today Apple announced their latest smartphone, the iPhone 4S. It's essentially an iPhone 4 with some different insides. It was a bit of a letdown to some though because there has been so much hype and talk about a totally new and redesigned iPhone 5 but that will have to wait until at least next year for that.

There had been hype about an all new iPhone for almost a year now with even leaked cases for the new iPhone 5 and talk of how much different it would look than the 4 but that's not going to happen right now. The 4S will not look any different but it will have an extremely fast processor, 8 megapixel camera, a battery that is suppose to last 8 hours of talk time on 3G and a new feature called Siri- a built in, voice activated virtual assistant.

What people were most hoping to get in the iPhone 5, didn't happen. No 4G capabilities, no bigger screen display and no change in the look of the phone at all. For those who had been expecting the iPhone 5 to be announced today, we can only think about what could have been. I had been so excited to be one of the first to have the iPhone 5, the 4S however is one that I more than likely won't be buying. I'm still holding out hope that they announce the iPhone 5 sometime in the summer of 2012.

Top Halloween Costume Ideas

It's officially October which means it's officially Halloween season. To me that began about a month ago, I love Halloween so expect to be getting a few blogs from me about all things that have to do with it. I thought I would start off with some of the most popular Halloween costumes for 2011. HalloweenCostumes.com revealed the list of the most popular costumes.

Most Popular Halloween Costumes for 2011:


Angry Birds including the infamous green pig - Popular for everyone and they’re also a favorite for group costume. (If you go as this you have to make the awesome wahoo sounds that they make going through the air)


Harry Potter (Harry, Ron, and Hermoine) - Popular among the books and movie lovers of all ages


Captain America costumes - A favorite for boys and adult males


Pirates (all types) - Popular by all: boys, girls, women, and men


The Smurfs - Loved by toddlers, young children, and their nostalgic parents


Star Wars (multiple characters) - A hit for fans of all ages: boys and young teens choose Clone Wars costumes; adult males and females choose classic Star Wars costumes


Mario - In demand for boys and young adult males. (I've also seen many young adult females dressing up as them too)


Celebrity idols - A hot seller for both teen and sexy adult versions. Some popular ones are: Charlie Sheen (Duh you'll be winning if you dress up as him), Anthony Weiner (Oh so many things I could say about that one), and of course Lady Gaga (I suggest going in the meat dress just for giggles, make sure to avoid dogs)


Monster High characters - Trending for girls, tweens, and teens (This made me made me feel old because I have absolutely no idea what Monster High is)

I love most of the popular ones but the ones that are at the top of my list to go as didn't make the most popular. I'm ok with that though because I like to be a little different.

Bengals Win!

The Bengals got their second win of the season beating the Buffalo Bills 23-20, giving the Bills their first loss of the season. As a Bengals fan I am beyond excited about this, especially after the the Bengals had lost the two previous games.

It wasn't an easy win for the Bengals by any means. Going into halftime the Bills had a 17-3 lead over the Bengals. Not until the middle of the third quarter did the Bengals start to show some life with a touchdown pass from Dalton to Gresham, leaving the Bengals trailing by 4. The Bengals defense did an awesome job in the red zone and forced the Bills to only get a field goal on the next play making it 20-13. The defense was vital in not allowing the Bills to score anymore points after that. On a crucial 2nd and goal, Andy Dalton took the ball in for a quarterback touchdown and Nugent getting the extra point allowed the Bengals to tie the game. The defense didn't allow the Bills to even get within field goal range again. Brian Leonard played a key role in rushing for a total of 29 yards on the last two plays to get the Bengals within field goal range. With 1 second to go, Mike Nugent made the 43 yard field goal giving the Bengals the lead and the win over the Buffalo Bills.

The Bengals so needed this win after almost winning against the Broncos two weeks ago and then having a not so spectacular game against the 49ers last week. Hopefully this win will show people that the Bengals aren't the worst team in the league and they do deserve to be given credit for their performance. I hope Carson was watching and saw that the Bengals don't have to have him in order to win a game against an undefeated team. Many people jumped off the Bengals bandwagon last week, wonder if they'll jump back on this week?