The rest of Halloween 2009…

Which actually went very well.  We had a great day together.  In fact I can’t remember the last Saturday that we had to spend together as a family.  DH took all the boys to Scouts with A where they decorated pumpkins with glitter glue.  I was quite sore from all the walking around we did on Friday while trick-or-treating at DH’s work so I stayed home, made bread dough, and got to relax while they got some needed errands and shopping done before lunch.  Everyone decided they needed flannel sheets this year and they found some very cute ones with safari animals (for A and C) and snowmen and penguins (for D.)  So now that we have a new furnace and also had the bedroom vents repaired and cleaned out, we’ll all be very toasty this winter.

After lunch we carved the pumpkins that they had picked up on their errands.  A wanted to do a real pattern on his pumpkin this year while the other two were content to draw their own faces on.  It took him quite a while, but he did most of the work himself.  The other two thought it was great fun to scoop out all the seeds and “gunk.”  The first year we carved pumpkins (probably 2004 because I was pregnant then too) A took one whiff of the inside of the pumpkin, declared it stinky, and held his nose the entire time I carved the thing.  My, how times have changed.

Tonight (Monday) we finally got candles for them and put them out on the porch for jack-o-lanterns.

I’ve been wanting to try these cute mummy dogs for a Halloween dinner and finally got around to it this year.  Everyone wanted to get in on the act except A who was still carving his pumpkin and therefore we didn’t end up with the picture-perfect mummy dogs, but the fun we had rolling strips of bread dough and wrapping them around hot dogs was well worth the less than photogenic results.  Using homemade bread dough made them taste so much better too I’m sure.

The three “cutest” ones:

I never did get a decent picture of their costumes on Saturday.  My new criteria for costumes will be a) There must be a pattern for it and b) You must be able to wear it in the car with your seatbelt on.  Putting it on and taking it off every time you get in and out of the car gets so old. 

I had determined that in spite of great intentions and willingness to sew, this was not the year for homemade costumes.  D wanted to be Cookie Monster and we had that already, so he was ok.  One point for Mom.  A wanted to be George Washington and despite quite a few months’ advance notice, I just knew there was no way I could get that costume sewn, not this year.  After calculating the cost of a pattern, fabric for pants, shirt, and jacket, plus my time, effort, and patience, I knew it was totally worth it to just buy a costume for a change.  Yay, another point for me, and I thought he looked really good.  Can anybody guess what C is?   

That’s right, he is a Civil War cannonball!  No, I have no idea where he came up with that idea, and yes, I made that costume using some black felt, plenty of stuffing, and a beach ball as a guide.  So I still ended up sewing a costume this year.  And resewing.  And taking in seam after seam after voluminous seam after I was way too generous in the curves.  Hence the decree that all future costumes must have a pattern.  But the cannonball was a hit everywhere he wore it! 

So we all had a fun day, and then we got rearended by another van, and that was the end of that.  Now the holiday is over, and the effects of both the time change and too much candy (which is soon to disappear) are setting in and I will be so glad to get back to normal.  Whatever normal feels like.  I’m not sure I remember.