Halloween

For Halloween this year Ben was a "Rocket Boy" or "Rocket Guy"... basically The Rocketeer. He was so excited as I was putting the finishing touches on his costume that he starting saying, "Push the button. Up in the sky." He actually thought his costume would make him fly. Cute kid. I just love his active imagination.

We were actually going to have Hugh be a rocket guy, too, but then one day I decided to give them a couple of different options and Hugh actually chose to be a football player. I decided to go ahead and start on making helmets for both costumes (out of paper mache) and then ask Hugh again and again what he wanted to be for Halloween, to make sure his 2-year old mind was made up. And, surprisingly, every time I asked him "what do you want to be for Halloween?" the answer was consistently "football player."

And, that was how we decided that Lucy would be a football. Not the cutest idea for a sweet baby girl, but it was simple and easy. And, I figure it's in my best interest to go with simple and easy before they gain a super strong opinion of their own.

As I was in the middle of the costume creation process I was coming up with all kinds of alternate plans, feeling just slightly embarrassed for my kids in the event that they all looked a little ghetto in their homemade, pieced-together costumes. But, I was actually very happy with how they all turned out and was so pleased at the responses we got from people at our church's trunk or treat. Turns out everyone loves a good, old-fashioned, homemade costume... even if they do look a little pieced-together.

Before going to the church's party, we went to one house - Ben's teacher. She invited the boys inside and gave them each a small flashlight along with their choice of candy from their tray. It was cute to watch their little hands hovering over the tray, trying to figure out which of the tantalizing treats they would choose. I think Hugh picked a Hershey's bar and Ben went for the plain M&Ms.

When we turned to leave, there was a small group of older kids who had gathered at the front porch. I turned to grab Hugh's hand and saw the frightened look all over his face. The kids at the door were dressed in some pretty convincingly scary costumes and Hugh had no idea what was going on. As I tried to coax him out, he backed further into the house saying, "no, no". I was finally able to reassure him that it was okay and we left. But, the whole 50 yards to our car, he kept looking back, worried we were being followed. And, since Halloween has never been a favorite holiday I totally understood.

So, that was our fun Halloween. The boys crashed when we got home and slept in later than usual the next morning and Marc even said, "if only Halloween were every night." Who would have thought?! Plus, since we went the homemade route, the only things we had to buy were two cans of spray paint and pipe cleaners - less than $10. And, I'm hoping that next year they'll just want to swap costumes! I guess time will tell.

October Projects

I was realizing today how fast this month has gone and I'm trying to figure out where the time went. I've been busy working on a couple of projects in my spare time, both of which have me wondering why I ever thought it was a good idea to use such precious spare time for projects that won't turn out nearly as good as I think they will. Sometimes paying for someone else to do it is a much better plan.

Project number one: I found a blog with a template for quiet books and it looked simple enough that I decided to make a couple for the boys since they've started to need a little more help staying quiet during that first hour of church. A month or so ago I went down to our local craft store and bought all the supplies I'd need. Sixty-five dollars later, a couple of big headaches, and a month's worth of tiny bits of free time on evenings when I've felt any trace of motivation, and I only have two pages done. I should have just bought a couple on etsy.

Project number two: Halloween costumes. They're still a work in progress and they could actually go a couple of different ways, but either way I'm making helmets out of paper mache. Thank you, Mrs. Castleberg, for teaching me in third grade how to make paper mache. I'm just really relieved that if their costumes totally flop, we have their M&M costumes, that they've worn the last two years, as back-up. Depending on how they turn out, I may or may not post some photos.I guess if nothing else my lack of creative talent might give someone else a much needed boost. I'm happy to oblige.

And, besides those two headaches projects, I've been feeling quite sleep-deprived this week. My good little sleeper has been off all week. From birth Lucy was a great sleeper with 3-4 hour stretches from the first night, and then getting to the point of sleeping for nine hour stretches regularly, then going back to sleep for a few more hours. But, all of a sudden this week she's been waking up every couple hours, seems extra fussy (but not obviously sick, as far as I can tell), and isn't napping as well either.

I don't know what is going on, but it got to the point last night that I was sitting in the dark on the couch at 10pm just sobbing. It had been a particularly long day and I was just exhausted and felt so helpless. I begged and pleaded for heaven's help and gratefully last night went just slightly better... but, it was better enough that we both got a little more sleep and Lucy's naps today seemed to be getting back on track. So far tonight she's already woken twice, which is clearly not back to normal, but she's not as fussy and has gone back down a lot easier.

I'm assuming she's going through a growth spurt, but I've been trying to be extra aware of other possible issues. I just hope for both of our sakes that she starts sleeping better again. I told Marc today that if someone really wanted to torture me, sleep deprivation is the way to break me down. I do not handle lack of sleep very well.

So, between my latest projects combined with my lack of sleep, there's been little time and motivation for blogging. Plus, our camera battery has been dead and I don't even have any cute photos to share. Maybe we'll have that fixed by Halloween.

Halloween Photos

Halloween five years ago Marc and I were asked to chaperone a youth dance, so I whipped out some costumes for us one afternoon... actually I think it was the same day as the dance, since that's typical for a procrastinator like myself.

*Halloween 2005

This was also a rare event when Marc revealed a more outrageous side of his personality, which left some with their jaws on the floor and their bellies aching with laughter. It included Cyndi Lauper and some Napoleon-Dynamite-like dance moves. He still gets comments about it, five years later.

So, anyway, to make costume ideas simple for this year, we dug out our old costumes and I whipped out some mini versions for the boys.

(Photo quality isn't the best when using an ipod...)

* Those are two little teeth on Ben's smiley - to match his own (except now he has a top one poking through, too)

Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), for Marc's sake, there was no dancing this year. I'm sure I wasn't the only one disappointed.

And, here's just a glimpse of the craziness of the night and a first time (over) protective Mama. But, really, what 10-month old would survive a pen of crazy kids hyped up on candy (and who knows what else) without his Mom to shield him just a bit?! Ben loved it and seemed oblivious to all the crazy kids about to trample him... I, on the other hand, was a bit of a basketcase. 

(Okay, the video is taking FOREVER to upload... so, I'll try again tomorrow. I need to get some sleep!)

Candy Experiment

Last night we realized that the boys' bedtime was going to interfere with Trick or Treaters (or, actually the other way around), but we were determined to get rid of the huge bowl of candy so we came up with a plan.

We put the bowl of candy on the porch with a sign - "Please take TWO pieces of candy" - hoping that would be enough to set some limits while at the same time depleting our supply.

As we were heading upstairs I made a comment to Marc about wishing I could sit and watch to see what people would do. Would one kid come along and dump the entire bowl into his bag? So, at the last minute Marc decided to set up the video camera in a perfect position to catch all the action without anyone knowing. We turned the lights out and went about our bedtime routine as usual.

I headed downstairs around 9pm, expecting to find an empty candy bowl. Instead it was still half full. I know there were kids who came by, since I was spying on a couple here and there. Apparently kids are more honest these days than what I would have expected, especially on a night like Halloween when the greed for candy is at an all-time high.

Or maybe taking a bowl of candy to fill your bucket ruins the fun of going door to door for three hours.

Or maybe they didn't like our choice of candy.

Whatever the reason we still have far too much candy than we know what to do with.

Save it for next year? Ha!

Bacon, really?

I don't know about anyone else, but even just looking at this maple doughnut with bacon on top makes me want to hurl. Who comes up with things like this?  

*gag*

We'll be continuing our Halloween tradition tonight of making homemade doughnuts... and we're really looking forward to sharing them with friends. You can rest assured that we won't be adding bacon as one of the ingredients.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Fun

Before the trick-or-treaters started coming around, I separated the candy into two bowls. Any guesses of which one I set aside for us? ;)



It is true that we love Butterfinger, but we really weren't planning on keeping them for us. I swear! For some strange reason we didn't end up getting a lot of trick-or-treaters, so we still have tons of the other stuff leftover, too. We have already hidden the candy from sight until we figure out how to get rid of it. Using it for bribery is the leading choice right now.

And, here's the final product of our Jack-o-lantern. It's a five-eyed, long-mouthed, scary-monster pumpkin, with toothpick/candy corn hair. We had a great time carving it together!


We had a thrilling Halloween... and we hope you did, too!

Homemade Doughnuts

We continued our tradition of making homemade doughnuts last night. It had been such a busy day that we almost didn't follow through with it. But, it was lots of fun to make them together. And, the seminary kids had a great surprise this morning when I brought them the leftovers. They'll eat just about anything at 6am! lol!


For anyone that's interested, we decided to try a "Krispy Kreme" recipe we found online. They were good, but next year we'll probably go back to the tried and true family recipe.

Doughnut Recipe
2 cups scalded milk
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar, divided
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons yeast
4 eggs (beaten)
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
7 cups sifted flour

Glaze*
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cold water

Directions:
1.Mix together ingredients for glaze.
2.Melt butter in hot milk, add 1 tsp sugar and salt. Allow to cool.
3.Beat in yeast, nutmeg, eggs, remaining sugar, and 3 cups flour.
4.Add rest of flour (dough will be sticky).
5.Knead for 5 minutes then allow to rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.
6.Roll out dough, cut into shapes.
7.Do not re-roll dough, then allow to rise for 30-45 minutes.
8.Heat oil to 365° and fry 1 - 2 minutes on each side or until brown. Toss in the doughnut holes first, let those cook, and then proceed to cooking the donuts.
9.Let them cool on a paper towel - helps get the glaze to stick.
10.Dip in warm glaze.

* For the chocolate glaze we used chocolate cake frosting.

Traditions

I can't believe this week has gone by so fast! We've been busy with work and school and... other stuff, I guess. I don't really know where the week went. But, it has been a good week. The weather has been unseasonably warm - in the 80s! Yeah, the week before Halloween we have been wearing flip flops and t-shirts, opening the doors and windows to let the warm sunshine in. It has been beautiful!

We're looking forward to a fun-filled weekend, with lots of activities going on. We'll also be getting geared up for the traditions that come with celebrating Halloween in less than a week. For us that will include:

carving pumpkins

roasting pumpkin seeds

making pumpkin bread and cookies

breaking out the hot chocolate

(if the weather doesn't cool down, maybe we'll go with chocolate milk instead)

.

.

... and the best tradition of all....

.

.

.

.

making homemade doughnuts!

Growing up that was one of the most exciting traditions I looked forward to. We'd come home from trick-or-treating to find Mom and Dad busy in the kitchen together, making loads of doughnuts. Rather than eating candy, we'd enjoy a fresh, warm doughnut. Yeah, so maybe doughnuts aren't much better than candy... but, at least they're homemade and it's a once-a-year treat! Marc and I decided it was one of the traditions we wanted to carry on. It has been fun to play around and try new recipes and new glazes.

I asked Marc this morning what Halloween traditions his family had growing up, and he said I'd have to talk to his sisters. So, Calamity and Carrot, I'm counting on you to fill me in! Anybody else have any fun traditions for Halloween? We're always looking for new ideas of things to do. Please share!!