Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween celebration started on October 25 when we went to Sam's Grandma's retirement home to visit her and attend their Halloween party.  (Well, actually it began on October 7th when I let the boys put up the Halloween decorations and start wearing costumes, but it would have begun in August if I would have given in to their constant pleading.)  Here are the boys, great grandma and some of their other cousins:

Henry was a pirate, Miles was an elephant and Kincaid was a power ranger.  Their cousin Colby was also dressed up as a pirate and him and Henry happily played pirate sword fights most of the party. 

Kincaid found the cupcakes and that's what he did most of the party.

Saturday night our friends Sammy and Rodney (below as Jesse and Buzz Lightyear) threw a Halloween party.  It was a blast.  I didn't get pictures of everyone there, but here are some of the costumes:  (FYI: Rodney made the Buzz costume.  It was very impressive. Kincaid was jealous.)

This "Mulch" and "JoDeen."  It was their wedding day, don't they look  fabulous?

Wes and Amber decided to take a quick hike that afternoon and got lost along the way.  


We went as Popeye and Olive Oyl.  It's a shame I didn't get a close-up on my fake eyelashes, those were serious business.  It took me most of the evening to figure out how to blink.  I thought we looked great, but Sam said he felt like he looked like a member of The Village People.



Here are the boys and their pumpkins.  Notice Kincaid's costume has now been 'morphed' into a No Stall race car driver.  No Stall is one of the lesser (or un) known race cars from the movie Cars and Kincaid wanted to be No Stall's driver for Halloween. Lucky for me it turned out to be easier to create than I thought.  And even Luckier for me, Kincaid was happy with how it turned out.

On Friday Kincaid's 1st grade class had a fall festival and I volunteered to help and brought along my mom and Henry to join in on the fun.

After helping Kincaid's class my mom took Henry Miles and I out to lunch.    Then we went home and she made some baked donuts with us.  It was a fun day.

That afternoon I finally finished the last 2 pumpkins (the third times a charm I guess. Come busy week, come unfinished Halloween costumes, come power outages- I was determined to carve all 4 pumpkins.)  Then we got dinner at the taco truck and spent a half an hour wrestling Miles into his costume and arguing with Henry about which costume and accessories he was going to wear ("I want to wear the (too small) Woody costume, or the (even smaller) fireman costume.") We finally got him into the (right size) pirate costume and happy (no small feat).  We didn't have quite as good of luck with Miles. (And seriously, can we just once have a normal picture of the boys, or even just Kincaid?  I guess this is just how they are going to record themselves in history.)

Although, once Miles was outside he was fine. And once we got home and he saw loads of candy and figured out how to unwrap a sucker all by himself I think he decided Halloween was really alright after all. 

I love Halloween, but I am looking forward to putting the costumes back in the trunk and having my children go out in public looking normal again.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Happy National CUPS Day!

Henry has announced today as a new national holiday.  This morning he said "today is a howiday."  "Oh?"  I said, "what day is it? Is it National Tapioca Pudding Day?" (They have been watching a lot of Garfield and Friends DVD's lately, and that is one of the episodes.) 
"No, it's National Cean Up Peopo's Messes Day."
I'm not sure how that makes today any different than the rest of the year, unless that means that those who normally don't clean up messes, do.  So far no one in my house (except me, of course) has decided to celebrate the occasion.  But I do love getting into holidays...  Maybe Henry's smarter than he appears; maybe that's his way of getting me to clean up messes happily.  So to all you moms, dads, and everyone else who is cleaning up someone's mess today, Happy National Clean-Up People's Messes Day to you!  May you celebrate it to the max!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Pumpkin Fever

I have been going crazy cooking pumpkin things lately. I know that's pretty common in the fall, and I'm sure that's because that is when pumpkins are in season; but I find it a little amusing since all my pumpkin comes from a can that's been sitting on shelves for months.  Oh well... In the past week or two I've made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin muffins, and I have my eyes on 3 more recipes:  a pumpkin roll, pumpkin chicken (yes, I said chicken, I'll let you know how that goes), and a pumpkin cake that starts with a "crust" of crushed Nilla wafers and melted butter - how can it not be good.  I am in baking heaven.