Seventh Annual Donut Party!

Last Saturday was the seventh annual Madsen Halloween Donut Party!

This year we had some very special guests: Grandpa ElRay (my father), Grandma Susie (my step-mother), and Great Grandma Roper (my grandmother)!  It was very exciting and very handy to have these extra-special guests.  They helped out sooooo much!  Plus, I really just like having them around.

(Side note: while Susie, Dad, and Grandma are as dedicated to this event as anyone, please know that they did not come out just for it.  Susie was lucky enough to have a conference in Indy the next week, and Dad and Grandma came along for fun.)

Once again I failed to take any pictures of the event.  I have decided that this is just the way it is with donut parties.  Perhaps I'll have to hire a real photographer some year to document the event.  Do you think I could pay them in donuts?  Fortunately, my dad was around to take a bunch of pictures.

Here I am, making a batch of donuts with my perfected, ultra-secret recipe.  No, you may not have a copy.  Do we have to go through this every year?  Apparently so.  Every girl has to have one awesome secret recipe: this one's mine.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think this year's batch was extra-super-delicioso.  Seriously, they were good.  I think I'm getting better at my batter making skills.  The secret?  Don't pay so much attention to what you're doing.  No really - I kept getting distracted by all the grandparents and this cutie.  I plan on passing down the secret recipe to Tess some day, should she prove worthy.

Grandma Roper helped me cut out the donuts.  (Actually, they're spudnuts because they have potatoes in them.  But whatever.)  Grandma is an excellent cutter, probably because she has so many years of experience!  (That's a compliment, Grandma, not a joke about your age!)

A random action shot of some of the donut eaters.  Apparently Addi (the curly-haired cutie held by Misty) was obsessed with the donuts and kept escaping back to them to steal more.  Who can blame her?

The Culver kiddos take a break from running around to eat. Yum.  (The donuts, not the kids.)

Grandma Susie, the fry cook.  This is the first year I didn't fry a single donut. It felt weird.  And great!  (Thank you thank you thank you, Susie!)

Grandma Roper, the fry cook.  Did you know that my Grandpa, Voit Roper (grandma's husband), owned a spudnut shop in Vernal, UT way back in the day?  True story.  Making donuts must be in the genes.  (Thank you thank you thank you, Grandma Roper!)

See Don and Heidi Fry in the middle there?  This will probably be their last donut party with us.  *sob!!*  But don't worry, Fry family - you will always be fondly remembered as the family who was so excited for the donut party that they came an entire day early one year.  Now that's dedication, people.

As you could see from the invite, the theme was witches this year.   In this game you had to name as many of the witches pictured as you could.  I thought it would be the easier of the games, but I was wrong.

In this game you had to match the spell to what the spell did.  I think someone got every single one of them right, which amazes me!  (I guess you could do it through process of elimination, but still...)  Yes, that's a lot of spells.  But at the Madsen home you have to really work for it.  (Remember, our theme for the year is "I can do hard things".)

Here I am giving out the answers and awarding our super-awesome Dollar Store prizes.  Don't you wish you had won?

It was a great year, and I'm glad I got to spend time with so many of my friends.  Maybe next year we won't be wicked and hold it on the same night as the adult session of stake conference.  I'm pretty sure that's why we ran out of donuts.  (That, or those Polmateer boys who were eating them by the plate full!)