Halloween Week

I wanted to do something fun and special for FHE since it was Halloween week. I've always wanted to try dinner in a pumpkin and this was the perfect time to attempt it. I bought the pumpkins last week and decided that we'd have dinner at 5:30 on Sunday which is late for us as we usually eat by 2 on Sunday's.  I thought people would be hungry so Saturday night I made this cheese ball.  It has cream cheese, cheddar cheese, minced onion, cumin and salsa in it and then you refrigerate it over night and crush Doritos and roll it in it right before serving.  It was delicious and so we had that to snack on before dinner.

When Garry got home from his after church meeting, he gutted the sugar pumpkins for me.  I had already started the chicken stew as it had to simmer on the stove for two hours before you put it in the pumpkins. 

This is what they looked like right out of the oven. 

They were really good and tasty when you scrapped off a bit of pumpkin with each bite.

Taz and Talon had decorated the outside with Sharpie and put a little pumpkin face and everyone's name on their pumpkin.

After dinner we had FHE and then we started the caramel apple making.  Taz stirred the caramel while it cooked for me. 

Then we had toffee bits, chopped pecans and peanuts, mini semi sweet chocolate chips and melted chocolate to drizzle on top after everyone rolled theirs.

Cynjyn went first and rolled her apple in the caramel.

They turned out super delicious.

For some reason our tomatoe plants that we planted in March are thriving.  At the end of summer they had some blossoms on them, so we just left them.  Now we are getting a lot of tomatoes.  We only got grape tomatoes this summer even though I'd planted some roma's and early girls.  Now though we are getting them!

See all the tomatoes we still have that are green!

Our green onions are still going strong too.

Cynjyn had a band concert on October 30.  It was the advanced Orchestra, choir and band and she did an awesome job.

She wanted to be a zombie this year for school.  We saw a video tutorial on how to do a busted open jaw and so she wanted to try that.  It involved elmers glue and toilet paper, about 5-7 layers of it. So she got up at 5:30 to start that.  Garry went into work late so he could do makeup.

We saw also a picture where a lady was zombieish, but had one half of her face normal, so C decided to do that with her eye. 

It ended up looking pretty gruesome.

But she liked it.

The mouth lasted until about 5th period, then it fell off.  The problem was that it was difficult to smile or talk with it on, and virtually impossible to play her flute, I'm sure that was the last straw.

Garry and I were going to theme ourselves this year and be Joker and Harley Quinn, but we couldn't find the right stuff around town, so we ended up taking the easy route and became zombies.  I did C's jaw thing and Garry was a one eyed walking dead.

Then there's Taz.  He refused to dress up for school even though we gave him many ideas.  His school came out with a new policy where you can't wear any face paint, so that limited our costume expertise.  Apparently, Lawson brings this big snowboarding jacket to school to keep warm in the mornings during band practice. So when he saw Taz had nothing, he told him to wear it and be a snowboarder...so Taz did.  He only had problems in 8th period because the heat was on in the room.  He was roasting.  His teacher let him sit out in the hall to do his work after he took notes, because Taz refused to go out of character and take off the coat.  So we were getting ready for trunk or treat and he was going to be nothing but the snowboarder!  I said "that's not the Goon way!" and he promised next year he'd pick a better costume.  After Trunk or Treat, he and Alexis went to a Halloween party at Courtney Eddington's from 7-9:30.  Since we were taking the camera to T or T, he decided to be a photographer snowboarder.

I wanted something a little calmer for school.  Ms. Jury did a poll the day before and a lot of kids were going to be zombies, so I decided to do a grinning cat, (mock Cheshire) I'd seen on Pinterest.  The kids liked it, but someone thought I was a Zombie bunny!!

I came home from school and took a shower and transformed myself.  I think the cat would have gone off better with my primary kids though, some of them wouldn't come too close to me.

Cynjyn went to Becca's before T or T.  She was going out with them like she does every year.  They go to Becca's grandpa's neighborhood and it's pretty ritzy and they get full size bars and slim jims and chips and stuff.  She organized it in her candy box, so now I call her the candy shop and if anyone wants a little snack, they can go see her.

 Her and Becca had wanted to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 all month, but that night, Becca had left her tutu at our house and C didn't bring it, so they didn't do it, but I threatened her that she had to take pictures or she couldn't be gone on Halloween again, so they took pics and then got in different costumes for the night.  They made their tutus and I crocheted their hats for hair.  I thought they looked pretty darn cute!

 I think they could have pulled it off without the tutu..

 Here is a shot of the Hopkins clan plus a few friends ready for the night.

October

October went by super fast. At least for me! I love it when Cynjyn is in a snuggly mood, it doesn't happen very often!

When Tanner moved out, I thought I'd have less mouths to feed.  I was excited, but then Talon moved in and with him came Mikel almost every night for dinner, I don't mind at all, but it's funny how life throws you curve balls.

Cynjyn had project to work on and used our tracer that hasn't been used in awhile.

In August I ordered Garry and I tickets to Brett Michaels at the Henderson Pavilion.  It was on a Wednesday night and he was recording it for I believe one of his TV shows.  There weren't a lot of people there.  We happened to get 4th row tickets. 

We had an excellent view and he sang all our favorite songs.  BUT, we forgot ear plugs, so our ears were plugged and ringing by the time it was over.

Totally worth it though and

we were home by 10pm. No smoky smell, no cursing, it was a perfect concert.

Remember that snow cone machine, it came with two powdered syrups that you add to water.  Cynjyn tried it out and it wasn't very good at all, but we can't find any normal syrups because it's the wrong time of year, so we haven't used it much.

Random picture of C watching TV upstairs.

The day after Brett Michaels, I had to play a really hard song for choir at the Open House.  I had practiced for hours and hours and still couldn't play it very well, but I made it through and made C take a picture of me with it after it was over.

Cynjyn is so creative when it comes to her fingernails.  She does them herself and always does such a cute job.  Here she painted stuff that turned into skeleton's when she put her fingers together.  So cute.

In October, Rob, Jodi, Trey, Trey's friend and Mom and Dad came down for the weekend.  Mom and Dad stayed extra to watch Taz perform at a football game and to go to a cross country meet.  Of course Trey and David wanted to swim.  We heated up the Jacuzzi, but not the pool for them!  They are crazy!!

We went to the football game on Friday night and it was very windy and cold.  We brought our jacket's and blankets and snuggled in for the night!

Since you can't really see the band spell out their words on the field, Taz let everyone watch it on Facebook from a video that someone taped.  It's pretty cool because they spell out live, life, love at different times throughout their performance.

Dad is always so generous and took us out to Claim Jumper for dinner one night.  It was super good.

After dinner, mom, dad and Rob's family were going to see Beatles LOVE, but mom must have eaten something with Dairy at the restaurant and so she was in the bathroom all night and I went in her place.  It was a very good show and I really enjoyed it.

We played a lot of games while they were here and of course, Cynjyn painted my nails while I was playing one day.

Taz cut his finger at band one night and it bled for a long time.  When he got home, Garry super glued it together.

It still looked nasty though.

Garry, Taz and I got to go to a few of the girls volleyball games.  Taz knows a lot of people on JV and likes to support his friends.  He's a good guy.

It didn't seem like there were a lot if football games at home this year, but we enjoyed watching Taz perform at the ones that we went to.

Cynjyn had tryouts for Hollywood Kids and she got the part of Genie.  She really wanted it and was sooo happy to find out the she got it!

She braided my hair one day and I loved it.

But alas, I have some short strands and so it fell out after only a few hours.

Our book club is still going.  I think we started it in 2002.  We had a fun night this month at Heather's house.

I caught this picture of C asleep one day after school.  She get's up super early for her now that she is in Jazz Band.

Selfie of me at work, some day's I am so bored it's not even funny!

Remember those cakes the kids made this summer?  We needed some room in the freezer, so I took one out and it was still delicious!

The three of us went to see Gravity this month!  We haven't been to a movie in awhile, so it was nice to get out to one and it was a good movie.

Taz has been babysitting a lot of dogs lately.  This was his first time with Jack.  He loved him so much.  He is a shedder though and got hair everywhere and one day we were gone for a few hours and we had just gone to Sam's and while we were gone, Jack got the 2-pack of baguettes and a package of bagels we'd left on the cupboard and ate them all!!  It was crazy and felt like we had a little kid again and couldn't keep things out!

Cynjyn and Becca decided early in the month to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 for Halloween. So we got them red shirts and leggings an they wanted to make a light blue tutu to go with it, so they spent a Saturday doing that.

Cynjyn had YW in Excellence and it was a Hollywood night theme and the girls were to dress all fancy.  We found this sparkly shirt at Good will and she and I enjoyed a night out.  Garry had to go to YM, so he didn't attend.  We had a variety of soups and salads for dinner with rolls and then each girl was spotlighted as they walked the red carpet.  It was cute and a fun evening.

C has been begging to go to the Asian market and so we had a few day's off school towards the end of October and I took her.  She went a little crazy, but everything was yummy!

Taz enjoyed doing his homework outside in the cooler weather one Saturday.  He's had a band competition almost every weekend this month. 

And that's October!