Great Snakes!

For Halloween this year, I pulled out the idea I postponed from last year--Tintin and Snowy!  Perfect for a little boy and a littler baby.  

Originally the plan was for me and Drew to be Thomson and Thompson:

But it turned out to be surprisingly hard to find all the components!  It would have been funny, but we switched gears.

Drew decided to be a somewhat dressed down Captain Haddock and well, I was a unicorn with a secret.

(Get it??)

For Tintin, I bought the sweater online and made the socks from leftover fabric I had.  His shirt, pants and shoes all came from my beloved JBF consignment sale (can you believe those pants??).  

Really happy I didn't have to make those pants.

Snowy on the other hand, well, I made all of that.  I used a pattern that came with the sleep sack, but by the time I was done, I realized I should have made my own pattern based off an outfit she already had.  It would have been easier and fit better.  The suit was HUGE on her when I finished it.  HUGE.  So I had to cut it down to size, but it didn't fit great still in the end.  

BUT the fabric is such that all my adaptations didn't really show.

BUT the fabric is such that it was impossible to work with.  Never again!

(Please note her little tail.  Hee hee!)

I made her little headband from a 97 cent Halloween headband from Walmart.  I actually made it several times...  In the end, I assembled it with hot glue.  

As for us, I bought the shirts and made the iron-on designs myself.  Drew did the sketch of the unicorn though because, as it turns out, I do not draw a good unicorn.  No no.  But I did finish it up.  I also made some unicorn earrings to go with it.  

In the end, I don't think anyone knew who they were and probably didn't even realize we were wearing costumes.  But!  Being recognizable has never been a HUGE concern of mine at Halloween...and they looked cute all the same.  

And now it's time to brainstorm for next year...

A Hobbit-y Halloween

(First off, can I just say how cute Babycakes was last Halloween?  So little!  So cute!)

Months ago I had a plan for Halloween costumes this year.  Then I realized it would be better and cuter if we had a second baby to fill a role so we pushed that to next year.  So what to do this year?  It seemed the time was right for Boo Boo to be a little Frodo, with Drew as Samwise.  As for me, well, when I made my Care Bears shirt, one of my other ideas was to do a shirt with the Eye of Sauron on it.  Hilarious! I cackled about the idea for about a month before actually working on the costumes.

I spent a week making them, and what can I say, they turned out even better than I expected!  Then we got this group photo and Babycakes made this face. 

(I must confess his expression reminds me of myself as a child, especially in one particular sibling portrait.  Family, I think you know which one I'm talking about.)

I made both the cloaks, plus the little vest (Eep, buttonholes!) and hemmed up both pants.  I used this tutorial for the little cloak and this pattern for the big one.  I had to lengthen Sam's and I used flannel instead of felt so I finished all the edges.  I think I spent half the time measuring hems, which is my least favorite part EVER about sewing.  But, like I said, I love how they turned out so I can't really complain.  I made the Eye in Photoshop.  Hey, let's look at pictures:

We took some pictures outside and Frodo went straight to the village of Bree.

Fortunately, he loves wearing capes!

It will probably come as no surprise that I already had a Ring and the brooches were found on ebay for about $1 each.

The cutest of hobbits!

 

New favorite pictureeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

"What's that over there...Mordor?"

(Hobbits are always careful about steps)

On a quest!

 

This distracted expression brought to you by the mail truck.

"What's that over there...Mordor?"

Hilarious!

Halloween H'Activities

I have always enjoyed Halloween, and I wanted Babycakes to have a good first Halloween too.  He won't remember it, but I will!  Being five months old and all, it's hard to get him into the spirit of things.  He's really only interested in things he can grab and/or put in his mouth.  So how does one get a baby involved in Halloween fun?  Here are some ways:

1) Buy a baby friendly pumpkin:
 

See?  Baby friendly.

2) Dress the baby up like a skeleton:

(I love those side-looking eyes.)

3) Dress the baby up like a skeleton AND a tiger simultaneously:

4) Take the baby to a pumpkin patch for a nice nap: 

5) Take the baby through a corn maze and only cheat a little because that baby is kind of heavy to carry around in circles:

 6) Take the baby to a different pumpkin patch.  He will LOVE it:

7) Take the baby on a hayride:

8) Carve a pumpkin with the baby's assistance:

8) Dress up for real!  We have been waiting and waiting to have a baby so we could be James, Lily and Harry Potter for Halloween.  Would this have happened if we'd had a girl?  Um.............yes.  These were especially appropriate costumes considering the fact that Harry got his scar on Halloween.

(This was what we were going for.)

Happy Halloween, little Harry!  I hope you had fun trying to eat all those pumpkins.

Pumpkin 2: The Pumpkining

I made more pumpkin things, like a crazy cat lady with pumpkin foods instead of cats.  Here are the results:

Pumpkin Spice Waffles
Not pumpkiny enough at ALL!  Also, personally, I didn't think the result warranted the extra work either.

Impossible Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes
These were pumpkiny enough, but I still have a lot left and I made them several days ago so...  There's something about the texture that I don't really like--maybe I'm just missing a crust-like element.  I added chocolate chips to half of them and that was an improvement.

Pumpkin Pie Granola
HOW could this ever have enough pumpkin flavor when it doesn't have actual pumpkin in it?  Mmhmm.  (Still good granola though.)  Word to the wise: when looking to buy dried cherries, make sure you don't buy cherry-flavored cranberries.  Ocean Spray is tricky!

Pumpkin Seeds
A great, basic recipe--all I need with my pumpkin seeds is salt.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
I followed the alteration suggestions in the first "most helpful positive review" and it was great.  Instead of a bread, I made 24 muffins and a bunch of mini muffins as well.  I'm sure there are better pumpkin bread recipes out there, but this one was good and worked for muffins. 

Pumpkin Whoopee!
Honestly, why do I even bother with other pumpkin recipes?  This is the only one I need!

And with that, I think I will go into baking hibernation...until it's time for pumpkin pie that is.

In Which Dinner is in a Pumpkin

On Sunday, the very day of Halloween, we had our second dinner in a pumpkin and it turned out great. And this year we had a couple of friends over to help us eat it so now there is slightly less for us to eat as leftovers all week. A lot of people that we have mentioned this dinner to have been kind of perplexed and interested in it so I thought I would explain the process here.

My first dinner in a pumpkin was made by my then roommate, Comrade Cox in 2008. Last year I decided to try it myself since it seemed pretty straight forward. And when I say "seemed" I mean "is." So, here is the process.

You buy yourself a pumpkin. You don't want a gigantic pumpkin because it has to cook and also it has to fit in the oven. I have had good luck with a nice mid-sized pumpkin that is more tall than it is wide. You clean it out all nice, and put the seeds aside for baking later--or for just sitting on the counter, like I'm doing this year.

So then you need to fill it! I follow Comrade Cox's recipe, which is as follows:
-Sausage: one of those Jimmy Dean kinds of sausage that comes in the fat tube.
-6 cups of cooked rice
-1 can of cream of mushroom soup
-1 can of cream of chicken soup
-1/2 cup soy sauce
-1 small onion, all chopped up
-A few stalks of celery, all chopped up. You want about as much celery as you have onion, unless you really like celery. Or onion.

All you do is cook the sausage with the vegetables until it's done, mix in everything else and then put it in the pumpkin! If the pumpkin doesn't quite hold it all (you want some space), everything is cooked so you can just eat it on its own. There is NO waste, Siegfried!*Put the lid back on the pumpkin, put the whole thing on a baking sheet and stick it in a 375 degree oven for 2 hours.
My pumpkins have not needed quite 2 hours, more like 1 and 45 minutes or so. Anyway, whenever it is done, you get a strong man to get it out of the oven for you.Then you just dish it out, scraping out pumpkin with the other stuff, and you eat, eat, eat until you can eat no more! And when you can't eat anymore, you dig everything out and throw what's left of the pumpkin away. Food doesn't get more seasonal than this!

*That one's for you, Marcue...can you place the reference?