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.