Happy Halloween! Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays and I am so thankful that my sweeties also enjoy embracing and celebrating it.
Our Halloween week began with the threat of "Frankenstorm" Sandy coming our way.
Last year, we were hit by Hurricane Irene. We lost a major tree that came very close to hitting our house and we were without power (and without a generator) for a week. Rainbow Girl remembers the experience for two main reasons. One, she is afraid of the dark; we went through many, many batteries in that week without power keeping her room illuminated at night. Two, the massive tree that fell came crashing down directly on top of her special cherry tree. The tree she picked and planted on her fourth birthday. We cut up and moved the fallen tree the next day and very thankfully, the cherry tree recovered after we splinted it up. It will have a fabulous knot on it when it grows older.
When she heard that another hurricane was coming, Rainbow Girl was very anxious about the potential of loosing power and trees again. We did all we could to reduce her anxiety. The kids and I went out in our yard and talked to the trees. Rainbow Girl told them that there was a hurricane coming and that they need to stay strong. She talked to almost every tree in our yard- and we have a lot of trees. We also decided to invest in an generator.
We had the generator all ready do go and lots of special inside activities planned for when the power went out. I decided that we would watch movies and use the electricity while we had it. I baked a lot that day, and the kids watched a lot of tv. I am very thankful to say that we never lost power and only lost a few branches and had a few downpours. We lucked out significantly while many others further north were not as lucky- and are still without power.
On Halloween, the kids and I woke up ready to be festive! We began by coloring our small pumpkins with permanent markers. Rainbow Girl drew faces on her pumpkins and Sugar Bear drew fabulous scribbles.
We generally carve our pumpkins a few days before Halloween, but with the hurricane rain, we were stuck inside and the pumpkins were wet. On Halloween, the weather was lovely and out we went to carve them!
Rainbow Girl has always been grossed out by pumpkin guts, and requested to wear gloves. Of course that meant that Sugar Bear had to have gloves too.
We collected the seeds from the orange pumpkins (the pink pumpkin had VERY stinky seeds), washed them off, tossed them with oil and salt an roasted them at 325 for about 25 minutes. Last year, we did several batches of seeds with different seasonings. The simple oil and salt combination is always my favorite. They were delicious! Rainbow Girl even enjoyed them!
After we roasted the seeds, down to the school room we went. I had some coloring sheets, "The Story of a Pumpkin Seed", for the kids to do. Sugar Bear chose to stack his crayons instead of coloring.
After we were done coloring, it was painting time! I drew an outline of a pumpkin with permanent marker, and the kids panted it how they wanted to with water colors.
We took a break for lunch and to watch part of Edward Scissorhands. After Sugar Bear fell asleep, Rainbow Girl and I went back to the school room to continue the festivities. I found a great set of fall stamps at a thrift store while on vacation in the Outer Banks in September. We had a ball stamping for a few hours!
After supper, it was trick or treating time! The kids were very excited to walk around the neighborhood in the dark. The neighbors all loved the kid's costumes and the wee ones did great walking all around the neighborhood. We had the company of my mom, my brother and his girlfriend.
The next Sunday we went to the Carytown Wine and Food Festival. Because of my self imposed dietary restrictions, I was unable to enjoy the food at the festival, but had a great time sampling all the wine. The kids did fabulous.
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