Happy Halloween

This morning we headed over to The Home Depot for a special Halloween kid's workshop. They were making cute little pumpkin baskets and being that it was Halloween, the kids were encouraged to come in costume. So that he did. (Hey, anything to get another use out of his costume).

But I think all those feathers were getting in the way a little bit because his nails kept going in crookedly. So he took off his hood and had a much better time finishing the project.

And there's his finished basket. Easy Peasy. Instead of getting a pin to put on his apron, they gave him a handful of candy for the basket. Yum. Bite sized candy bars.

Back at the house we started to get ready for the Trick-or-Treaters.

In the bottom basket we had mini tubs of play-doh for the younger kids.

And regular candy  in the top basket. Lots of chocolate this year.

Rick never got into the carving mood today, so I was all alone in that department. I made a tiki pumpkin....you like it?

As usual Rick stayed home to pass out candy while I took Tyler trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. He got a lot of praise for his costume, but did get confused several times for a chicken. What can I say....it was dark! 

Carving Pumpkins

Yesterday we started carving some of the pumpkins we've had sitting out on our front porch. We have a total of eight, but most of the them are smaller ones, so we probably won't carve them all. Last year Tyler carved his own pumpkin and of course this year he wanted to do the same.

He started with the pumpkin he got last week from his school field trip. At first he tried to draw his design on a piece of paper so he could use the new (super lame as it turns out) transfer tool, but since he kept drawing designs that were too big, he finally decided to draw a face directly on the pumpkin.

Then he got down to business. Is it just me, or does he kind of look like Dexter here? Uh, maybe I watch too much TV, plus that pumpkin was hard to cut through.

Then it was my turn. Seriously, could those little carving saws be any smaller?

So here's what we have so far. I carved the two large ones. We'll have to wait until later today to see what Rick comes up with.

The Pirate and Her Parrot

Today was the Fall Carnival at Tyler's school, so we were finally able to unveil our Halloween costumes. The kids were dismissed from school at noon, which gave us enough time to eat lunch, put on our costumes and head over to 'the ranch' for the party.

So there you have it....Tyler is a parrot this year. I finished his costume a few days ago, which gave me enough time to make a beige pair of pants to go with it. And in case you're wondering, it took a total of 7-1/2 boas to cover that poor child. I'll tell you one thing....he stayed nice and warm! Me on the other hand. Not so much.

Tyler made his rounds playing all the carnival games until his little goody bag was bursting with loot.

 And he said hi to all his friends.

He did the cake walk and won his choice of a cupcake or a cookie. I would have gone with the these cool eyeball cupcakes, but Tyler chose one with sprinkles instead. I guess he didn't want anything interfering with the frosting, since that's his favorite part.

These skeleton cupcakes are pretty neat too. Why can't I think of clever things like that? I'll try to remember it for next year.

As for our plans for this evening, hopefully we can get started on the pumpkin carving. Let's see how Tyler does with the pumpkin guts this time.

After School Work

This afternoon when I went to pick up Tyler from school I found that he had decided to stay and finish his work while the other kids were lining up for recess. I've never watched him do his school work, so while I hadn't intended on staying late today, I did enjoy watching the process.

A lot of the work at his school is done on the floor with tactile objects, making the learning process a little more fun. This activity is called movable alphabet. See that little box with the green lid at the top of the carpet? It's filled with pictures of 'dge' words. Using the blue and red letters, he's supposed to spell out the words that the pictures depict. After he's done that, he takes the yellow letter stamps and stamps the words out on paper (red ink for consonants, blue for vowels).

He's done the movable alphabet many times before using different words, so by now he has a method for stamping. He collects all the letters he needs to spell the word and then inks them all up at the same time. Ahhh, so that's why he's always coming home with red ink down the side of the palm of his hand.

Also this week he's been working on homophones or do they call them homonyms? You know, words that sound the same but are spelled differently. He has the choice of writing the words out or copying sentences that use the words. Here he used both methods.

Frankenstein Cookies

For the past several years I've made some sort of frosted cut-out cookie around Halloween and this year was no different. I didn't feel like making the normal pumpkins and yet I still wanted something festive. That's when I was inspired by a Betty Crocker newsletter that came in my email.

I decided to make the Ginger Frankenstein Cookies. The best part about the whole thing (or so it seemed to me) was that you don't even need cookie cutters.  You just roll the dough into a large rectangle and then cut that into 18 smaller pieces. Easy. No Waste. My kind of cookie.

But you know me and my problem with flat cookies. Well mine came out flat....it wasn't cute. Until Tyler and I put on the decorations, then they started to look better.

We halved the recipe, only making 18 cookies, but then we only frosted 10 of them. I think we'll save the thinnest cookies for ice cream sandwiches or something else. Tyler loves anything with frosting so of course they were a hit. And we made our own frosting instead of using the canned stuff, so that made them even tastier.

Today

Today I finished disk 30 of STS. That's 30 out of 36. That means I'm halfway through the third mesocycle and almost done with the entire program. Only two weeks to go. Yay!

Today was shoulders, biceps, and triceps. Not my favorite grouping, but slightly easier than the others, so it's nice to have on a Friday. Now that I'm nearing the end of the program, for the third time, I have noticed a marked increase in my strength. Today I was easily able to lift 50 lbs on the standing barbell front press as well as the barbell curl. I also had to bump up my weights on tricep extensions and incline curls. For me that's a welcome sign of improvement.

Tyler's Halloween party is next Friday, so that's the deadline for finishing his costume. Actually I should probably have it done by Thursday just to be safe. Today I spent a good portion of the afternoon sewing on the feathers.  

Coco Bear thought we were playing a game.

And since I can't trust the cats around feathers, I have to hide my work in progress in the closet...behind closed doors. Today I sewed on the third boa in case you're keeping track.

I wasn't going to, but I stopped at McDonald's.

Not so much for the coffee, but for the Monopoly game pieces. And guess what? I didn't get any game pieces. Apparently they 'ran out' of medium cups with game pieces.

For dinner we had Broiled Salmon with Marmalade-Dijon Glaze.

Good, but not as good as the salmon Rick got last weekend at The Depot restaurant. That stuff was crazy good and super tender. Mine just doesn't compare. And do you see that Pasta Roni in the background?

It's over two years expired. The date on the package says Sep 12, 2008. Huh, I guess that goes to show you how little I cook with that sort of thing. Well, anyway, I'm glad to get it out of the cupboard.

For dessert we had Mini Nutella Fudge Brownies.

This amount will last about 2 days in our house, which is a good thing. I'm always ready to move on to the next dessert. I'm thinking something a little more festive. Maybe something with pumpkin? Or something with apple? I'd better browse through some cookbooks and figure it out.

But that will have to wait until tomorrow. For now it's time for bed.

The Home Stretch

With only 10 days left of the Monopoly game at McDonald's, I'm pretty sure our chances of winning big are slim to none, but that was never our plan anyway. Tyler loves Monopoly and this was a  fun and different way for him to play. But after 3 visits to the golden arches, we have yet to get any of the important game pieces. The rare ones. The ones you need to win the decent prizes.

Oh, but we have plenty of the other pieces. Rick took one for the team and ate a Big Mac, Large Fries and a drink, garnering 8 game pieces. My contribution was a filet-o-fish and a latte, while Tyler came through with the chicken nuggets. Our best prize so far.....a free redbox movie rental.

Even Susan is pitching in from two states away. She sent Tyler her game pieces in the mail. One was a repeat, but the other one, Marvin Gardens, was one that we needed.

So this is what our game board looks like now. No Park Place or Boardwalk, but plenty of the other color groups. I think we'll head back one more time this weekend for smoothies, or maybe a latte, but that's it! So Tyler's got one more chance to find his winning game piece.

C'mon.....big bucks......no whammies!

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

It's field trip week at Tyler's school. Each day a different class gets to visit the pumpkin patch at the ranch and today was his day. The temperature was in the upper 60's, so it was the perfect weather for picking pumpkins. Much better than the rain we had last year. Besides picking pumpkins, the kids also went for a tractor ride and decorated caramel apples.

Here's the pumpkin Tyler picked to bring home. Isn't it a good one? Now once we add it to the ones already on our front porch, we'll have a total of 8 pumpkins of various sizes. Phew, I don't who's going to be in charge of carving all of them!

And here is his caramel apple, decorated with all kinds of stuff. He used a little bit of everything....marshmallows, Trix cereal, candy corn, white chocolate chips, M&M's. Even the bottom is coated with cocoa krispies. Appetizing, right? Well, at least Tyler thought so.

While Tyler was away at school, I continued working on his costume. Actually I had to run over to Joann's to buy the necessary snap closures for the hood and shirt. After I sew those guys in place, I can start on the fun part.

Sewing on the feathers. So.....how many feather boas does it take to cover a 5 year old child? Let's find out.

What's Left

Over the weekend, I spent a little time in the garden clearing out some more plants. The irrigation water was turned off last week, so that makes it a done deal. I pulled out the bell pepper plants and one of the two tomato plants. The other one I stripped down to bare branches, giving the remaining tomatoes one last chance to ripen up.

Here's what the garden looks like now....nothing but one sad tomato plant and a ton of carrots.

I don't know how long I've got before it starts freezing overnight. Maybe a week? So that's how long the tomatoes have to either ripen or say goodbye.

I have more carrots than I know what to do with, so hopefully these guys can stay in the ground a little bit longer. Or maybe I should pull them all up and make multiple carrot cakes. I'm sure Rick wouldn't mind that at all.

And this is what I brought back into the kitchen. A bowl of ripe tomatoes and a few bell peppers. That's a lot of tomatoes to have all at once, but I already used a couple of them and a bell pepper in the spaghetti pie I made for dinner last night. I'll use a few more in salads this week and the rest.....?

No Santa Here

It looks like I need to give a better hint about Tyler's Halloween costume, since the guesses were not even a tiny bit close. While I have to admit that Santa was a good guess considering all the red fleece going on, it still wasn't right. I'm probably 3/4 of the way through making the costume, so if you can't figure it out yet, I'm not doing something right.

.

This is the main part of the costume. It's just a top, so I'm not sure what he's going to wear with it. Jeans, sweat pants.....I don't know. Rick thinks I should make a pair of fuzzy pants to go with it, but that sounds like more work for me.

And here is the head gear, a work in progress.

So have I made it perfectly obvious, or should I add sound effects?

Corn Maze

It's been a few years, but we finally made it back to Schell's Giant Corn Maze. Last time we got lost and I mean LOST! After spending a few hours in the maze, apparently going in circles, we finally gave up and came back out the entrance. Not the best memory ever. Maybe that's why we skipped it last year. But this weekend, we were ready to give that pesky maze another try.

 

 Here we are at the entrance.

 So far so good.

Then the boys started acting like what else....boys! Running through the maze, hiding in the corn just to jump out and scare each other. They were having fun, but I was worried about getting lost again. It didn't matter because we found our way out in no time flat. Huh!? If it was really that easy, I don't know what our problem was last time. Turns out the maze isn't so scary after all.

In fact, we were done so early that we actually had time for some of the other activities....like pumpkin chucking. While waiting for our turn on the tractor ride, Rick and Tyler saw how far they could sling-shot some mini pumpkins.

It doesn't look like that pumpkin is going too far, but it actually landed way back near that football goal post looking thing. Not bad!

After our turn on the tractor ride we headed over to the kiddy section. Tyler had some fun going through the hay maze as well as a separate kiddy corn maze.

A few hours later we were ready to go home, but not before choosing a complimentary pumpkin to bring home. Now with the three large pumpkins we already had at home and the three new small ones, we'll really have some serious carving to do.

Pears By The Pound

I was browsing through one of my Cooking Light annuals earlier this week and came across a whole section of pear recipes...mostly desserts. So I asked the boys what they preferred, something like a pear pie or crisp, or more of a pear cake. We narrowed it down to a pear crisp and I even had all of the ingredients on hand, except for the pears of course, but I knew just where to get some of those.

Johnson Orchards. It's one of our favorites.

They had all kinds of good looking pumpkins for sale, but that's not what we were looking for.

We needed 12 pears for the recipe, or about 5 pounds and as you can see, there was plenty to go around. I went with the Packham pear, which was recommended by one of the owners. I'd never heard of that variety before, but it turns out it's pretty good.

Tyler and I brought our bounty home and got right to work on the dessert. Well, actually he's been fighting a sore throat and cough, so he kind of fell asleep and missed most of the action. That's okay. Once you get past peeling all those pears, the rest is pretty simple. I put it in the oven at 5:00 and an hour later it was ready just as we were sitting down to eat dinner. So it was still nice and warm when we were ready for dessert. Mmmmm Mmmm Mmmm.