Halloween

I know it is silly. Here it is, days before Christmas and I’m blogging about Halloween. Oh well, better late than never.

Halloween weekend followed the stressful week that included my first 3-hour glucose test, ultrasound, and testifying in court. I tried to keep the party planning simple, but I love Halloween too much. We held our annual Halloween party on Saturday. Although we had a decent turn-out, it was a smaller crowd than our previous Halloween parties. I made the usual peach Jell-O brain, plus honey caramel apples, pizza burgers (pumpkin-shaped cheese on top), and a creepy face cheese ball. I also put out hot peppers stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto, topped with a bit of black olive to look like eye balls. I was most proud of the cheese ball. My friends, Bob and Mel, had given me a skull ice mold that I decided would work for shaping the cheese ball. But I lined it first with prosciutto, and added black olive eyes to the finished masterpiece. It looked disgusting!

It rained most of Saturday, but the rain turned to big fluffy snow flakes for a bit in the late afternoon. The snow stuck long enough to make everything pretty.

As the evening approached, it was decided that some people would go to the Pumpkin Walk early, and others would wait until after dark. After hearing the story about one of my friends falling off the path into a creek during a previous year’s pumpkin walk, I decided that with the weather and being pregnant, I should go before dark too. I knew it would be muddy, so I decided to be extra cautious, and I took my hiking poles. At first it seemed silly to take them. But before we even made it to the entrance of the Pumpkin Walk, we were navigating around deep muddy ruts. The staff had put down cardboard on the path where they could, but it was a losing battle. The heavy rains had turned the path into a swamp, with knee-deep water in some places. I was so glad that I had brought my hiking poles! The pumpkins were amazing, and the snow made the Pumpkin Walk magical in the fading light. Unfortunately I didn’t take the camera because I didn’t want to chance getting it wet or muddy.

I had purchased 7 different pumpkins from the farmers market for people to carve at the Halloween party. However, I was not motivated to carve inside the house. I had no problem with other people carving inside; I just didn’t want to do it. But no one else seemed interested either, or else they just didn’t want to be the first to make a mess. So on Sunday, Aaron and I carved pumpkins. Aaron picked the bright orange warty one, and I picked a big flattened one. Gutting them took forever because we carefully separated the seeds into a pan for eating, and tossed the rest of the guts into the composter. The sun was starting to set by the time we each finished one pumpkin. In addition to the 5 other uncarved pumpkins from the farmers market, we had 2 small pumpkins from our garden. I couldn’t convince Aaron to carve a second big pumpkin, but I did persuade him that we should carve our tiny garden pumpkins. I let Aaron take the smallest one. Since I wasn’t sure if we could eat immature pumpkin seeds, we decided the seeds could just go into the composter. So it didn’t take long to gut and carve the mini pumpkins. All four pumpkins looked great lit up at night.

Monday was Halloween. Even though I wasn’t showing too much yet, I wanted to have a costume that showcased my belly. Being a big woman, showing off my belly isn't something I do on a regular basis, so I didn't want to miss my chance. Earlier in the month I picked up an orange t-shirt, a green long sleeve shirt, some felt and fleece squares, and some fabric paint, and turned it all into a no-sew pumpkin patch costume. Samantha was a pumpkin for Halloween! The costume wasn’t all that great, but I’m still proud of it. I was only one of a few people to wear a costume to work on Halloween, so I won one of the prizes during the costume contest. The prize was the little pumpkin I'm holding in my hand. 

After work, we set up speakers in our front windows, and turned up Halloween music for the trick-or-treaters. I think it really helped to attract a few kids that otherwise would have stayed on the other side of the street. We ended up seeing a lot of kids, much more than the previous year. Next year I hope to decorate the yard a few days earlier and add more lights and decorations.

Overall, it was a great Halloween. 

Additional pictures are posted at http://hooppics.shutterfly.com/12319