Halloween Prep

Well, I think we're officially ready for Halloween. The costumes are set, the candy's been purchased and tested for quality control, and we (by "we" I mean "I") finally carved the pumpkin tonight. We picked up one of those new-fangled pumpkin carving kits at the store today. Gone are the simplistic days of opening a pumpkin up with a steak knife, scooping out its guts with a soup spoon, and then slicing out a gap-toothed grin along with some randomly spaced triangles for eyes and nose, because, let's face it, trying to carve circular eyes with a steak knife is close to frickin' impossible. This kit was amazing: two carving "saws", a plastic scraper, a marker (they even give you your own marker!), and a book of stencils. Of course, the girls picked "The Witch", probably the hardest one in the book to do. It came out alright, although my right hand is now cramping up due to all of the detail work. But, hey, it's for the kids.

I enlisted the girls help in scooping out the pumpkin guts. They were a little skittish at first, but finally conceded. Kailey went first, taking a small hand full and chucking it into the garbage can. "OH, THAT'S DISGUSTING!!" she shrieked. Kyra took her turn, and when Kailey got into position we noticed she was looking a little pale. "It stinks," she gagged, then ran over to the sink. Thankfully she held it together, but her pumpkin-gut-chucking time had clearly come to an end. I finished the project from there on out.

Yesterday, Diane had the great idea of baking and decorating Halloween cut-out cookies, forgetting the slightly expanded attention spans of 6 and 8 year olds. The girls were really excited about the project. They got out pens and paper, wrote down all the ingredients they would need, and accompanied Diane to the store. On the way home, they saw their new friend from school riding her bike. "Can we go ride our bikes with Hope?" they asked.

"We just picked up all this stuff to make cookies!"

"Hey, I have an idea," offered Kyra. "YOU make the cookies and then SURPRISE us when we come in from riding our bikes."

So Diane spent yesterday afternoon baking cookies alone while the girls played outside. This afternoon they weren't able to flake out on the project and all of us decorated the cookies that Diane so painstakingly baked.

So I think we're ready. A day early! Bring on the trick-r-treaters!