Act 6; Scene 8: This is Halloween!!!

What a fun couple of days it has been!

Here's what we've been up to.

Last night we had a royal night-before-Halloween feast. 

Taco soup in pumpkin bread bowls and witch finger cheesy bread sticks were the main attraction.

Then we set to work carving our pumpkins

 

This picture looks vicious! I caught the right angle!

 

This morning we started our Halloween festivities with pumpkin pancakes, in the shape of ghosts and bats. Tommy really wanted bat-shaped pancakes (you try figuring out how to make that work!!!)

Thomas LOVES pancakes. He asks for them every day. I think he would eat them for every meal if he could. He has, sometimes. 

 

This was after he had already eaten his bat pancakes. He was having a pancake for his morning snack. At least these ones are made with some pumpkin and whole wheat flour. Next I need to make spinach-zucchini-carrot pancakes, ha!

 

Scarlet loves the witch finger bread sticks. She chowed that thing!

 

This year I waited until Halloween day to buy candy, because I thought I might be able to get it on sale, or a good deal on it. 

Waiting for a deal apparently doesn't work until after Halloween, but we did manage to get to the Macey's Halloween festivities since we had to buy some candy. And while we were there, we were the first winners of their cake-walk game! Tommy and I won a giant Halloween donut!

 

Tommy wanted to wear the witch hat headband, although I did offer him the skeleton. He loves whipping the braids around.

And then, after all of that, we were almost ready for the big event of the holiday! Trick or Treating!

Did you guess our costumes from my last, GIANT hint? (Heather already guessed weeks ago!)

Here we are:

The three little pigs and the big bad wolf!

And boy, oh boy, has Tommy LOVED this Halloween costume and character. At every house he would tell the people handing out candy "I am the big, bad, wolf!" At one house, he told our neighbor three times while he was at her door that he was the big, bad wolf. 

Oh man I love that kid.

And have you ever seen a cute little pig than this???

Of course, the big bad wolf had to chase the pigs to try and gobble us up.

 

Really, I could post a million pictures, because I am finding them all so cute right now!

But I think I'll stop with one last classic, candid picture.

I mean, just look at that tail! Perfection in a word.

Love you, Robert :-)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Act 6: Scene 7: Surrounded by Beauty

The other day we took an afternoon walk on the path behind our house. I was astounded by the beauty around us--as I always am when we look out over the lake or up to the mountains.

I'm so happy we live in such a beautiful place!

Act 6: Scene 6: Autumn it Up

We have been having a great time living up the autumn air around here!

This week, our big project was making a scarecrow for Thanksgiving Point's first annual Scarecrow Festival. That was also a great excuse for me to go through all of my drama room costumes and clean out old stuff I don't want anymore. 

We created the scarecrow out of some old costume/clothes, and one of the white pumpkins that we grew. I thought she looked pretty neat at home! But when we staked her up, she seemed to be a little lacking....especially compared to some of the other amazing scarecrow contraptions people came up with! But we got our free tickets to the festival, which was the main reason I wanted to do it :-)

Here I am with our lovely (?!) little scarecrow!

That same night we had our traditional pumpkin and ghost pizzas! Tommy has been really into helping me in the kitchen lately, and pizzas are perfect for him to decorate. 

The next day we headed back to enjoy the Scarecrow Festival! We were lucky enough to have Uncle Sam join us. It was the PERFECT autumn evening.

One of the scarecrows

Now just imagine how much straw he had in his shoes...

Gorgeous!

We of course topped the evening off with ice cream at the Deli, a favorite of ours. Sam and I split a giant brownie Sunday. Glad I had my brother around to share it with me!

Today was our big ward Halloween Carnival, which I have been looking forward to forever! I can't wait to get our family costumes ready for this event! Last night I sewed the final touches on our costumes, and then....

Tommy threw up all.night.long.

I was so sad. Yes, I was sad because there is pretty much nothing sadder than watching your 3 year old vomit and dry heave (TMI?!?!) literally every 30 minutes to an hour for six hours straight.

But I was even more sad, because it most likely meant that we would not be attending the ward Halloween party as a family. 

And yes, he did throw up a few more times today, which meant a definite no to the ward party for him.

I was planning on revealing our Halloween costumes today. But because of this incident, I will postpone. But I will give one last, one very BIG hint. 

This year's last Halloween Costume Hint:

Scarlet and I dressed up for the ward carnival today. It was girls' day out, helping at a booth and bringing treats. If you can't guess it after this, you really don't know your fairy tales!

(Yes, Heather, you win!)

And I wanted to show off the treats I worked on this afternoon for the ward's spooky treat contest.

Creepy, huh?!

They didn't win a prize. But Scarlet and I managed to win second place in the costume contest! Even without the rest of our crew! Probably because she is so stinkin' cute.

And that's all for now, folks! 

Happy Haunting!

Act 6; Scene 5: Dinner in a Pumpkin

I have been wanting to try this particular dinner idea for a long time.

And since we've been doing so many garden fresh dishes, it seemed perfect to use a pumpkin from our garden! It was the perfect size for our little dinner.

First, you have to cook the pumpkin in the oven for an hour. I brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled some salt, pepper, and garlic powder inside. 

The filling mixture was made of:

1 medium onion

2 big stalks of celery

1 red bell pepper

 3 cloves garlic

(saute all of this in olive oil for about 5 minutes or so before adding the rest)

1 can stewed or rotel tomatoes (though I did 3 fresh tomatoes from the garden)

1 8 oz can water chestnuts

2 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 cups (or more!) cooked, cubed chicken 

salt, pepper, and garlic powder (dashes)

(at this point let all the ingredients simmer about 5 minutes)

 then add

2 cups (I did about 3) cooked rice

Here's the pumpkin after being cooked for an hour, and the filling about to go in!

Put the pumpkin with filling and top in for about another hour, depending on pumpkin size. Just poke it with a fork to see if it's soft. But be careful not too cook it too long, or the pumpkin might collapse!

Doesn't this finished product look so lovely?! 

Scoop out some pumpkin along with the inside mixture. So yummy!

 

Meal of packed pumpkin, spinach salad, apple slices, and artisan bread.

The dinner in a pumpkin was so much better than I expected! I thought it might be "interesting" tasting, if you know what I mean...but the pumpkin blended perfectly! And it was amazingly delicious, and packed with healthy foods!

Keeping with the pumpkin trend, we had pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting for dessert.

 

Dinner guests of honor!

 

 And the worn-out chef. This picture is funny because I have a lazy/twitchy eye! Sort of how I feel after making a big meal like this! Ha! But you can see I licked my platter clean (disregard Scarlet's half-chewed apple slice resting on my plate...)

And of course, our Halloween costume HINT!!

Costume Hint #3: Today we made part of Tommy's costume, and there is faux fur everywhere!

Any guesses?!?!?

Happy Haunting!