Halloween Lite

After a morning at church, we went home to celebrate what we've been calling "Halloween Lite." That's Halloween done "Sunday style." Fun, family, Halloweenieness but a in a low-key, let's still remember it's the sabbath kind of way.

Saturday night, my sister and I went grocery shopping for a few necessary items for our Halloween dinner. I had realized earlier in the day that we had completely failed to carve pumpkins this year. {shock} I know! Insanity!! That should truly demonstrate how busy this fall has been. So while we were out, we picked the bottom of the Albertson's barrel (King Soopers pumpkin bins were totally wiped out), and got the boys four nice looking Colorado-grown pumpkins. Here's what is strange about Colorado pumpkins. I think they are slightly mutant. Not that they are odd, not that they are funky, it's that they are all nearly the same size, and all totally orange. No fleck of green, no lumps or bumps, no long, fat or warped...only round, orange, medium sized with very little "guts." Stepford Pumpkins!

Sunday afternoon, after watching Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Ware-Rabbit or "Course of the Ware-Rabbit" as Ben used to call it when he was 4, we held a family pumpkin carving session. The older boys just take the reins these days, so Adam only had to do the scraping for Luke. Let me tell you how pleasant Adam thought that was! There have been Halloweens when he's scraped out 3 to 4 on his own, so having to only do one was a gift.

Especially since there are so little guts. The picture below shows just about all the guts there were in that particular pumpkin. So easy to scrape, right? Even if having less pulp means you have to deal with the odd Colorado Stepford Pumpkins.

Zach had his own little unique plan that he would not disclose to us.

Tommy clung to my leg and shrieked at me, then laughed ("Oh, I'm so funny!"), multiple times while the boys carved: "LET ME SEE UP THERE MOM!!!"

No guts, no glory! Josh dropped his pumpkin taking it out of the car, so it got a big split down the back. Instead of cutting off the top to clean the pumpkin out, he just used the split side. I forgot to get a photo of Josh with his pumpkin when he was done because he finished up so fast, but it's the one second from the right in the last pumpkin pic. I love that it has such small, detailed features. You can tell Josh was trying to be so careful. That's not easy to do when you're six!

Luke picked out the shapes for his face and Adam carved. Luke contributed to the carving by stabbing the pumpkin over and over with one of the little safety carving knives. Now that's a little scary! :)

Zach's master plan revealed: Scraping instead of carving so the light can glow through the pumpkin! I loved that he thought outside the box.Josh was done quickly, so he took on the job of supervising Ben. He was very encouraging!
Vampire pumpkin! Check out the freckles Ben gave it. :)
Four pumpkins all lit up for Halloween night!

We shared a spooky-ooky dinner with our friends, the Murdocks, who were also abstaining from trick-or-treating. It was a delectable feast of white worms with eyeballs and a side of witches' fingers, oh, and salad too...to round out the meal.

Zach made his meal even more fun. Isn't that hilarious?!

This was supposed to be dessert, an adorable and delicious-sounding idea straight from Miss Martha Stewart:

But after I followed the recipe for those hats to a "T" they didn't come out right at ALL! I don't even know what happened! It was a dessert disaster! My friend Adri said that she thought that Martha purposefully leaves out an ingredient so your version of her concoctions can't ever possibly compare. I fully agree. So in the final hour I came up with these ice cream dishes instead. The "swamp monster" is what the witches' hat cookies actually turned out to be, but I couldn't salvage enough for everyone, so I also made the little marshmallow/Oreo bats. Those came from my own brain, and not too shabby of a dessert! I was proud. But would have preferred the cute hats, anyway.

My birthday babe, taking a little birthday evening lounge. Love you, A!

My sister had to leave on Monday. I was sad and I miss her soooo much already! I am so glad she (and my parents) will be back in less than two months for Christmas! That made saying goodbye much easier. I loved every minute of her visit and all her help with/participation in celebrating Halloween, one of our favorite times of the year. When I woke up Tuesday morning I sure missed her excellent company. Counting down the days....