Happy Halloween

We finished carving up the rest of our pumpkins today. I carved two, Rick carved his mega huge one and I even carved a face on Tyler's teeny tiny little pumpkin.

Here is Tyler putting the finishing touches on the pumpkin....poking little holes all over.

Here are mine, a traditional jack-o-lantern face and a ghost.

These are Rick and Tyler's pumpkins.

I tried to take a few pictures of Tyler dressed up in his costume before we left to go trick-or-treating at the mall, but he was being a super goof ball. We got to the mall around 5:30 and several of the stores had already run out of candy. There were a TON of kids there...it's no wonder the candy ran out so fast. I did, however, get plenty of comments on Tyler's cute costume (pat on the back for me). I think next year we'll just stick to trick-or-treating around our own neighborhood....the mall was a little too chaotic for my taste.

As I said before... super goof ball!

Two Down, Three to Go

So far we've carved two of the five pumpkins we brought home from the pumpkin patch. Usually we use those intricate patterns to try and make fancy looking jack-o-lanterns, but we're over that for the most part (with the exception of Rick's Moon/Bat pumpkin). This year we want to make it easier, so we're sticking with regular faces.

Tyler didn't have a problem with the pumpkins this year....no gagging at the stringy guts or anything. He really wanted to be involved with the carving process, but since he wasn't allowed to use the carving tools, he settled for "decorating" the pumpkin by poking holes all over.

Pumpkin Patch

This afternoon we drove out to a U-Pick pumpkin patch, about 14 miles west of Yakima. It's been a long time since either Rick or I have gotten pumpkins from anywhere besides the front of a grocery store, so we thought this would be a nice change of pace. At first, it seemed like the patch was getting down to its last pickings, but we dug around and found several good pumpkins.

This is the biggest one we found (and the heaviest), but Rick insisted that it had the most perfect shape and therefore we had to buy it. It came in at a whopping 50 lbs, which translated into an even $10.

This one is Tyler's pick.....what, you can't see it? It's so tiny, but we really couldn't find any small pumpkins for him. All that was left out in the field were big, bigger, or super huge pumpkins. Everything else was too heavy for him to hold, so he was real proud of himself when he found this little runt. I thought that they'd probably give it to us for free, I mean who else was going to buy it? But NO, we actually had to pay for it!

Here is our haul, five good sized pumpkins plus Tyler's little bitty. We went kinda crazy out there in the field thinking that the price per pound would be fairly cheap considering that it's the last weekend before Halloween and it's U-Pick after all, which usually means a cheaper price anyway. Well, after scouring the patch and dragging back over 100 lbs of pumpkins, we came to learn that physically picking your own pumpkins from the patch is NO cheaper than just grabbing some of the prepicked pumpkins sitting right next to the register. Good to know. So at .33 cents per pound, the total comes to.....Ummmm, Tyler did you bring any cash?

Wait...I can't forget to tell you about the food! They had the best pumpkin doughnuts. Fresh and piping hot....Mmmmm! We bought a small bag to bring home with us for dessert. Tyler didn't get one for dessert though, as he didn't finish his dinner....AGAIN!! Argh!

Pumpkin Pal

This morning we took Tyler over to Lowes to do the Build and Grow craft. It was a pumpkin pal.... a chipboard pumpkin with changeable wooden face pieces to create different looks (think Mr. PotatoHead). Tyler was much better working with the hammer this week, he was holding the pieces and hammering all by himself.

Wham, Wham, Wham.

Finished!! Now I have another badge to sew onto his apron. I need to find some doublesided iron-on adhesive or something to make the process a little easier.

New Recipes

Thanks to Tyler, we've been a couple of trolls this week....staying home and not going anywhere! I don't know why, but he didn't want to leave the house at all. I couldn't even get him to go with me to the movies. That's why it's been quiet around here for the last few days, there's just nothing going on!

I did try out several new recipes this week, though.

Tonight we had Sloppy Joe Manicotti. The recipe is from the current issue of Rachael Ray's magazine...definitely not one of her 30 minute meals! I thought it tasted good, but it took so long to prepare that I think I'd rather just have regular old sloppy joes.

Then I made Butternut Bowties (or wagonwheels, in my case). This is another of Rachael Ray's recipes, but I saw her make this one on her talk show. It's supposed to taste and look like macaroni and cheese, but with a butternut puree sauce instead of a cheese sauce. I thought the roasted squash tasted great by itself, but it was a little too sweet (almost like sweet potatoes) to go with pasta. It was a strange combination in my opinion....and it didn't go over well with Rick and Tyler either.

Then I made Zippy Chicken Coleslaw, a recipe from Light & Tasty Annual 2006. I loved it....I can't believe I've had this recipe sitting around for a few years and just now finally got around to making it. The best part is that it was super easy to make, but it still received a few strange looks from Tyler.

Halloween Cookies

I love making festive sugar cookies for any holiday, so of course, I had to make some Halloween cookies. I got my big tub of cookies cutters out and was shocked to discover that the only related shape I had was a pumpkin. What....no bat, ghost, or spider web? I couldn't believe it. Me....the person who has endless baking gadgets of all varieties, has no ghost cookie cutter?!

I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe, the same one I've been using for years. Recipe Here. I just added a little bit of orange paste food coloring to turn the cookies a bright orange. The recipe for the frosting I found on allrecipes.com. Recipe Here. I used butter in place of the shortening and it still turned out great.


Next, I want to make some of those Nutter Butter ghosts....you know, the ones where you dip Nutter Butter cookies into melted white chocolate to make them look like ghosts. I just need to pick up one or two of those small $1 bags of Nutter Butter cookies from Rite Aid or Walgreens....I mean, the cookies are cute and all, but I don't need a ton of them sitting around the house.

A House For Three

Tyler was building with his Lincoln Logs today and was very proud that he made a house all by himself...one with two rooms at that.

He was telling me all about how the "Mommy Indian" was reading her favorite cookbook and getting ready to cook dinner. Hmmm, that sounds a little familiar.

Then he showed me the door to the other room and explained how the Indians could use it to keep from getting stuck inside. Tyler likes to admire his creations for awhile, so I expect that this house will stay put for several more days, at least.