Chris, Cliff, Ben, Megan and Megan’s Friend, Nate and the girls, Kak-Kak and Xion, our neighbor Elizabeth and a few neighbor boys all came over tonight to celebrate Halloween. We had chilli and cornbread, cider with dry ice, donuts and lots of candy. Megan was in heaven hanging out with Luke (our strange neighbor boy) and his friends. Hunter had a blast handing out candy. And I ate way too many donuts and drank way too much cider. But I think everyone had fun.
Denver lately has been using the word “ridiculous” in a lot of his sentences. So today I asked him what ridiculous means. His answer was, “It’s when an elephant hits you.” And I said, “Oh. . . so when I say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ I mean ‘Don’t get hit by an elephant?’” And he said, “Yup!” Who knew?
We had a little pumpkin carving party today along with family dinner.
Today was a very busy day for everyone. Mark and Hunter went on a field trip to the Garbage Museum. Then I ate lunch at school with Hunter. Afterwards we went down to Stamford for the Annual GE Real Estate Family Halloween Party where the kids were totally spoiled with candy and treats. There was a money machine (like you see on game shows) and Noah absolutely loved trying to catch the money and shove it in the box. Hunter and I were thrilled with the caramel apples. We had just enough time to rush home and eat dinner before we headed off to the school’s halloween party where Hunter ran around with several of his friends and Noah and Denver danced with Mommy and Daddy and several of Hunter’s friends and their parents. Another busy day tomorrow with the ward party, a baby shower, a birthday party and karate. Ugh!
I promised Noah we’d sign him up for Karate when Hunter went back to school. Hunter’s been in school for over a month now and well. . . today was Noah’s lucky day. He even got to break a board–Noah’s dream come true! I’m not sure we can afford it, but Noah he’s worth it. He sort of needs it right now. And for Noah we’ll make it work.
I attended Jewell Elementary school way back many years ago. I think I probably had some of the world’s best teachers back then, one of them being my music teacher, Mrs. Wood. Anyway, every Halloween I think of her for one special reason. Every year, on or around Halloween, she used to turn all the lights out in her music room and have us gather around her. She held a flashlight under her chin so she looked all spooky and then, she would sing us this song. I’ve tried to find a better recording but haven’t had much luck. Anyway. . . I loved it so much when I was little, the way she’d turn off the lights and scare our pants off, that this year I’ve decided it’s time to pass it on to the next generation. So tonight guess what I’ll be doing. Gathering my boys around in their dark bedroom and singing them this song. I can’t wait!
Here’s another version of the song, with a mom and her kids and their dog singing it. I think it’s time for Mark to do a children’s c.d. of his own, and this song will definitely have to be on it. Happy Haunting!
I’ve wanted to make pumpkin pie from scratch for quite some time now. Mom said it wasn’t worth the work and I believed her. . . for a little while. But lately, the realities of another baby in our home have been setting in and the kids have been, let’s just say, a little attention deprived. And of course, preschool hasn’t been happening and Noah has been suffering. So, today I woke up and decided we were going to make a pumpkin pie from scratch, no matter how much work was involved. So I bundled up the kids and we hit the pavement, brown paper bags (for leaves and rocks and other assorted treasures)and wagon in tow. We were off to find our pie pumpkins. The boys ran ahead of me for awhile, happy to be out of the house and free, stuffing leaves and pinecones into their bags with wreckless abandon. When they got tired of looking for leaves, they hopped in the wagon. Just around the corner from the grocery store we came across a mini excavator/front-end loader digging up tree roots and stumps. So we stopped and watched for awhile. Then I noticed a farm store across the street that had what looked like perfect pie pumpkins right out front. So, we bought our pumpkins there and the lady there loved the boys so much she gave them each a painted pumpkin for free (another treasure for their paper bags.) We hit the grocery store for some apple cider and then stopped at McDonald’s for lunch with Mark. Noah fell in love with their new interior design and decided he wants to live there forever and invited Denver to join him. After lunch we returned home and turned one of our pie pumpkins into a real pie. The boys washed the pumpkins, scraped out the pulp and seeds, scraped out the meat of the pumpkin after I cooked it, and Noah mixed up the pumpkin with the eggs, spices and sugar. It was one of the funnest experiments we’ve ever done and I think it was well worth all the work. And may I add, it was one of the most delicious pies I’ve ever tasted in all my life. Anyway, if you’re looking for something fun to do I highly reccommend making a pumpkin pie out of a real pumpkin. For help just visit Pumkin Patches and More–they’ve got pictures and everything you need to make it as painless as possible.
We went pumpkin picking yesterday. Silverman’s Farm has tons of pumpkins, hayrides up to their apple orchard, a working cider mill, a petting zoo, funnel cake and pumpkin pie and candy apples and all sorts of fun goodies in their country shop. We went mostly for the pumpkins, but the funnel cake and pumpkin pie was good too. The boys don’t look like their very happy in the picture but that’s not because they weren’t having fun. They just didn’t like being called away from the oodles and oodles of mud puddles they were sloshing through. Anyway, we got almost $60 worth of pumpkins and an old fashioned honey wand (like we had when we were little–mostly for Noah, who loves honey) and some apple cider. There’s a farm next door to Silverman’s that offers FREE hayrides which we’ll probably do next weekend and of course, we want to visit Lyman’s orchard for the haymaze there. Benedict’s Farm has a great haymaze for little kids, which we’ve already visited once but plan to visit once more before the weather takes a turn for the worse. I think we’ll do a pumpkin carving party at our house the Saturday afternoon before Halloween–anyone interested?
