Halloween 2012 Edition

Last year was truly amazing, maybe a little too amazing. This year fell short in a few ways. Most notably our pumpkin never got carved. It ended up being a crazy work week for Mike and we had many social events to attend. Our pumpkin is serving as my beautiful fall centerpiece and I plan to decorate it like a turkey for Thanksgiving.

It was also a rough year for Isaac's costume which caused Mike some stress and eventually broke my sewing machine. He did get it finished enough for Isaac to wear it for a round of trick-or-treating though. Speaking of, where were all the kids this year? I have left over candy coming out of my ears here. I shouldn't complain it was far more than our old neighborhood, but it was still a bummer. Is it because it was a Wednesday?

Riley, as decreed, was Alice. She looked wonderful. I know I sound like a broken record, but what a difference a year makes! Last year she rode in my lap and had trouble getting her bag open to receive candy. This year she was a pro. She marched up to every door. She proclaimed, "Trick-or-Treat" in a clear voice and held up her bag every time. She thanked everyone and wished them all a "Happy Halloween!" It was a sight to behold. She insisted on walking and carrying her increasingly heavy bag and never complained.

It was up to me to take Riley out since Mike was still working on Isaac's costume. It was rough for me trying to keep up with her in our sidewalk-less neighborhood. Up and down driveways really wears you out. I was Riley's Cheshire Cat for the night so it was a small sacrifice.

Here's the king of difficult costume requests in his Squid costume.

Mike cut a Nerf football in half, hollowed the center and spray painted a plastic Easter egg for the eggs. The tentacles (best seen in the picture where he's covering his face) are strips of cut up bathmat. He cut holes it the fabric and poked them through. The body was basically a tunic. The other arms were supposed to be stiffened with foam and the hood was supposed to have another half football to make the correct head shape. I think he looked darn good though.

Enjoy all that candy.

Halloween House Party: Rice Krispies Treats

I got picked to host Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Halloween House Party. I was thrilled! They sent me a party pack with boxes of Rice Krispies, a mixing bowl, a child's size chef hat, and thirteen "bowl scrapers". At first I was dubious, but by the end of multiple batches of treats, I was completely in love with my bowl scraper! I bought a special brownie bunt pan to make pumpkins similar to these.

I used the original treat recipe and added red and yellow food coloring. Than I used my handy bowl scraper to press them into the cups of the greased pan. No need to refrigerate or anything. You just pop them out and smoosh the halves together.

Once you have nice round pumpkin, add tootsie roll stems. My bundt pan left an indentation on the top for them. Next we cut green gumdrop leaves and added chocolate chip eyes. We used black icing to finish their cute little faces. I have to say they were the biggest hit of the party, for sure.

In addition to pumpkins, I did devil heads. I ran out of yellow so I just pressed red treats into my pan. Then I elongated them by hand. I cut tootsie rolls on a diagonal and then rolled them into horn shapes. I'm sure this technique would work great for reindeer antlers too. I used mini M&Ms for eyes. Then I drew a line of black icing for the mouth. In a stroke of genius, I broke the white tips off candy corn to make perfect fangs. I was very proud of them.

The simplest of our creations were the bats. We just pressed this batch into a square pan without any food coloring. Then we put the large square of treat on foil and used my bat cookie cutter to press the shape. Don't forget to grease your pan and cookie cutter. For decoration I only added red icing eyes. They were the first to disappear.

I added extra marshmallow to one batch as well as red and blue food coloring. Mike sculpted it into the telltale heart. Super creepy. We used flavored tootsie rolls for arteries. Thump, thump...thump, thump...

During the party some mad scientists cooked up this lovely masterpiece of a Frankenstein bust too. Hand sculpted, by my talented new brother-in-law. It's green food coloring for skin tone. Rolled out tootsie roll hair, flattened vanilla tootsie rolls with icing pupils for eyes, marshmallow neck bolts and a gumdrop mouth. It's Alive!! Good thing there was no lightening that night.

I also had a decorate your own monster face station for the kiddos. In hindsight perhaps it would have been more appealing with multiple color face options. The kids had fun with it though.

I'm so excited to make some pretty Christmas treats now!

Riley's Fancy Haunted Gingerbread House

Tonight was Riley's Halloween party at school. I can't get over what a difference a year has made! They seemed so grown up, eating pizza and watching a Halloween movie (Igor) while we prepped gingerbread haunted houses for decorating. We started with a kit from Target. They give you enough cookie wall and roof pieces to break apart and assemble for 3 houses.

We beefed it up with extra candy and icing. You pretty much have to. It came with like 6 pieces of each candy. We added candy corn, mini M&Ms and orange icing. The kids did a great job decorating.

Mike and I took turns helping Miss Roo. This was the kick off of 3 parties in a row for us, it's a very festive weekend. There can never be too much Halloween. I think Riley's house would have made Fancy Nancy proud. She worked really hard and then immediately wanted to eat it. She did a lot of the work herself. Icing as glue was an exciting discovery. I don't know how spooky the final product was, but was very pretty.

Pumpkin Patch Picnic

We have a yearly tradition of gathering our Mommy group friends together for a picnic in the pumpkin patch every October. This was our 3rd annual pumpkin patch picnic. I made pb&j's and cut them into pumpkin shapes for the occasion. Cute and delicious (if you like peanut butter). Last year I was only up to bringing fruit snacks so I felt really good about my sandwiches. I can't believe they're all 3! We met when we still gave these kids ages in weeks and now...well they're growing up.

I think traditions are important. Many of my fondest childhood memories are centered around our annual adventures and goings on. When I met these ladies and their then very tiny babies we saw each other once a week at least. Usually more frequently since everyone was still "home with the baby." As they've got older we still all keep in touch, but it's harder now that the kids have busy schedules as well as the moms. This is the event every year where all the kids are together at the same time. It's a wonderful and simple little event.

This year was really special for me just as a benchmark in my healing process. I shopped in the morning, then made sandwiches and then successfully enjoyed the picnic. It was a vast improvement from last year. Don't get me wrong at the end of the day I was feeling it, but it is progress. I just love my friends so much and being around their kids makes me happy. They really are a sweet, smart little bunch. I hope they stay in touch when they're too old for pumpkin patch picnics.

We even learned a song this year. We happened to be there on a day when classes were visiting and in between groups the nice lady came over and taught us "I'm A Little Pumpkin." It goes like this:
I'm a little pumpkin (point to yourself)
Look at me (point to your eyes)
I am as happy as can be! (smile big and sway with your elbows bent and hands bent at the wrist facing up)
Put a candle in me (hold an imaginary candle)
Light my light (light your imaginary candle)
But don't be afraid on Halloween night (shake your finger)

Boo!

At that point the audience says "AAAAAHHHH!" and everyone claps. It's great fun. They had sandwiches, cheese, fruit, crackers and then cupcakes in cones. They explored and even measured pumpkins. They gave each other wagon rides and sang. It was an amazing time. It was totally worth a late nap. Until next year, pumpkin patch.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette

Many thoughts march through my delighted brain when I look at this picture. It's not a silhouette caused by the dim lighting provided by a string of Christmas lights as much as it's a boy transformed to shadow by of all the wonder surrounding him. I know it sounds cheesy, but that's what it feels like to me. I try to savor those moments as much as I can. To pause as he is doing and reflect. In the rare moments when the wonder around you overtakes crisp lines, details and good lighting. Magic...

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All Our Pretty Pumpkins

I'd like to begin by confessing, despite a lifelong love affair with anything pumpkin, to being the world's worst pumpkin carver. It is simply not my thing. Here's one I carved myself in 2007:

Fortunately for me my husband's carving talents match my ridiculously high expectations. He always draws freehand on the pumpkins, which is necessary since our combined nerdiness usually makes for some interesting carving choices.

On our first Halloween (2008)we decided on Thor (the alien from Stargate) and a spooky tree. We always decide on what to carve before we pick the pumpkins. The only picture I have of the finished pumpkins they happen to be in the background of a picture of Isaac.

The next year, 2009, we had a new little pumpkin. We decided Magneto was the way to go carving-wise. Don't worry we put that one on a plastic chair.

The following Halloween, 2010, we did a Cheshire Cat with color changing led inside. I was Alice that year. Riley decided to be Alice this year, like mother like daughter I suppose. Curiouser and curiouser...

Last year was the most detailed carving job I'd ever since Mike do. We did Dementors descending on a terrified jack-o-lantern. Wonderful. Trick-or-Treaters were in awe.

As for this year, my lips are sealed. I will tell you it's Sci-Fi in origin and we'll be making used of the color change light again. Yay, Halloween!