The Fuzzy Pumpkin

Well Halloween has come and gone and I’m sure a lot of those carved pumpkins have started growing fuzz or some moldy form or another.  We’ve a totally different type of pumpkin fuzz growing in our home.

It came from some of our angel benefactors that helped contribute to our sanity over the past few months.

Meet the newest member of the herd.

Introducing ‘Pumpkin’, our fuzzy new kitty.

Pumpkin has wrapped his little furry body around all of our heart strings very quickly.

 

Even Itchy is enamored.  I’m sure Itchy is still in shock that Pumpkin doesn’t hiss and swat like our last cat Spo0ky did.   And as an added bonus - their furry coats kind of match.

Pumpkin even allows Hope to carry him about like a rag doll without a bawl or bite. 

Even the boys have to take turns cuddling the little fur-ball.

 

Pumpkin’s a scooter too.  He has a lightening quick run which causes him to do some major slipping and sliding into walls.  I’m sure he will get used to our hardwood floors soon.   But it is quite comical to see him skating across the floor.

He as been dubbed ‘Pumpkin the Ninja Cat’, for his ability to scale walls, furniture and even water (we did try to bath him).  His super stealth reflexes were not diminished even after having his little talons clipped.    But he uses those reflexes only for good (our merriment).  I’m sure we will have to figure out how to teach him that scaling furniture may not be in his best interest when he is older and less adorable.

This year – no Halloween theme.  Even more sadly, I didn’t get around to repurposing costumes like I usually do.  I did spend less than $100 on costumes.  But sadly I did buy the girls theirs from mass marketed, poor quality will be guaranteed to rip apart after two wearings, party stores. Never again.  Overpriced pieces of junk.   I would have loved to have made them like in years past.  But it wasn’t to be this year.  Princess went as Silvermist the Fairy,  Lea was a Candy Corn Witch and Hope was Sleeping Beauty.

They were escorted around town Trick or Treating by a Beardless Prince Erik.  And that little Santa belly was really a fanny pack holding all valuables and a few extra treats.

 

Sadly I didn’t monitor the candy intake and by the end of the night the girls were in desperate need of a sugar de-tox.

The boys costumes were less imaginative and really simply.  Orange shirts that read, ‘My Tee-shirt beats your costume anytime’.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  Bring on my Thankful month.

Today.  I’m thankful Halloween is over.  Whew!

Have Broom, Will Travel

Is the slogan of my newest Tee-shirt. And my kids wholeheartedly agree that it suits me to a Capital T.   I only wear it on house cleaning days.

Today was one of those days.  The weatherman said that Fall was finally going to arrive this week in the form of cold weather, abundant rain, and frisky wind - so that meant one last sweep of the garden of weeds to see what I could harvest.  It was a little scary.

Yet, with Hope’s eagle eye (I guess it helps to be closer to the ground), we were able to pull in a nice last haul.

Yikes, now I’ve got to plan a couple of days just to process all of this food for storage.

Will someone tell me why I planted beets?  I don’t even know how to cook them.  I guess it will just have to be another Fawn first moment in the making.

Now for the update on my Holiday List.  See I remember that I was supposed to make a list and read it.  And I deserve a gold star for actually completing most of that list.  I’m still digging up a couple of addresses on my Christmas mailing list and there are still some Halloween decorations I need to finish making.

The kids and I had a hoot making several super-fun crafts:  Including  some Potions Labels for an odd collection of different shaped bottles.  You can check out my Mommy Blessings Blog to see how we made them.

I’ve also been working on repurposing some vintage looking books into something enchanted.  

Shhhh, don’t tell hard core book lover’s that I’m cutting up books, or they might not let me in the second hand bookstore any more.

 

From the ’Joy of Words’ to ‘The Joy of Wands’.  And I’m turning the old fall-aparts into Magical Books that hold secret compartments, fairy quotes, and magical goodies.

Can’t wait to show you how I made them.  Of course I’ll post the instructions on Mommy Blessings when I finish.

So, as you can see, I haven’t finished decorating for Halloween so that’s back on my list for week 2 as well.

What’s up with my Holiday Countdown.  Well here’s Week 2:

1.  Um – Complete Halloween Decorating – Still.

2.  Sew at least 1 Halloween Costume.

3.  Cut out patterns for some Christmas Presents

4.  Design a Christmas Card.

and that’s in addition to preserving all those goodies from the garden,  and keeping my sanity in check.

On a side note:  The blessing keep coming.  My good friend Ethel stopped by and helped me clean up my sticky floor today - Just because she had nothing better to do than earn saint points from on high.  Maybe she was just disgusted that you couldn’t walk through the house without something gummy glued to your shoes or socks – or maybe, just maybe, she might be an angel in disguise.  I’m leaning towards the notion that she’s an angel.

The Men from Oz!

Or should I say the Boys from OZ. Regardless they started out rather humbly.

The Cowardly Lion started life as two velveteen tan curtains, and some yarn from the thrift store, and a super overpriced plastic ‘courage’ badge from a party supply place. The Lion’s Mane was my biggest time sucker and took me a total of 5 hours to complete because it involved a lot of yarn sewing. Total = $13.96

Scarecrow was an old ripped green sheet, and two corduroy pants from the Thrift Store I already had the straw at home so that doesn’t count. $4.98 Total

Tin Man well he was my biggest challenge. Some of the things I planned to use on him I didn’t and others I improvised. 5 packets of flexible cutting board, two rolls of duct tape, empty soda pop bottles, funnel, axe, and two can’s of silver spray paint (My biggest expense). Total damage $30.27

To be honest if I would have known about Tin man’s cost I probably would have bought it from the party supply store for $44.00. I think he looks more like a buff muscle robot than the tin man.

Poor Prince Erik was spared the dress up because I ran out of time and didn’t even get a go on his costume.

I think I got too consumed with the details and just didn't have my time straight. Some of the projects I really had fun with was my broom...

The broom of which started out it's life as a hiking stick made by my Daddy Grandpa Elk. I think that it is going to have to find a permanent home with the Halloween decorations.

I also enjoyed the Tin-man's heart.

Total spent on boys costumes $49.21 / Girls $35.39

So in total $84.60 for seven costumes. Not too bad.

I then spend probably $25 on goodies to hand out (toys not candy) but I feel like a smuck because only one person came to our home trick or treating. I think everyone went down-town for the store to store candy give-away, either that or a super dark street scared all the kiddies away.

We did take our kids downtown and they got a little basketful of goodies. We talked them into picking six of their favorite pieces and then we are going to donate the rest to the troops in Iraq.

So I did go over my $100 goal but by less than $10.

So Here they are my Men from Oz!

To go along with us girl Folk.

The whole Oz Sha-Bang of charaters.

And Next year? I'm starting the costumes at the beginning of summer.

The Ghosts of Halloween Past

So these two oddballs fell in love and started having kids. And by our second Halloween together we started the all-consuming, drive-everyone-bonkers, Halloween tradition of Family Themed Costumes.

After hours of watching Dances with Wolves we decided to go as Native Americans and won the costume contest for Prince Erik’s work.

Somehow, somewhere buried in my mountains of photographs are the years we dressed like ‘Aladdin’, ‘Indiana Jones’, the ‘Three Musketeers’, and our first go at ‘The Wizard of Oz’, and even two years ago, as my kids favorite, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ P.E. was going to pull up that picture for me but the computer was being a bit spastic.

But I was able to find ‘Star Wars’.

Prince Erik made a couple of kids cry on the Elevator when he walked on. He had the Darth Vader Helmet with him but also let me do him up as the wheezing guy as well. Lea was the Perfect Princess Leah and even wore a wig with those famous croissant buns. And little Evo-man was perfect for Pint-sized for Pod-Race Driver of the Year Award.

Then there was the Scooby Do Gang along with our bus decorated like the Mystery Machine. This couldn't have been more perfect for the trunk-or-treat we went to.

Abner kindly consented to me dying his hair but my favorite was Princess as Velma. Can I brag that my wee ones are super good at wearing itchy wigs?

Probably in the top two of my all-time favorite years would have to be...

‘Peter Pan’.

Yep, you saw right. Prince Erik kindly agreed to let me torture him into wearing Tinkerbell's outfit. Hey Tink, where’d that belly come from?

There you have it - Blackmail, material for sure.

And Abner...


Once a Pirate...



Always a Pirate.

And I always love the year I did Lord of the Rings.

But I will never confess to how many times I watched the movie to try and figure out the costumes.

I'm still working on the Wizard of Oz boy costumes and I'm hoping they will be done in time to 'Trick or Treat' tomorrow.

So Stay Tuned...

Crazy, Crazy, and More Crazy

Crazy is something I’m very familiar with. I’ve been known to drive myself near-batty this time of year. And since I’m a wee bit behind in my Halloween Holiday checklist I’m postponing the Christmas stuff till next week. Then I’ll be back with a vengeance.

Don’t forget about my two give-aways. I’ll pick the winner tomorrow for both so don’t forget to sign up if you’d like a chance to win either contest. Click on the pic’s to see the contest details.

and...

So, without further delay, here is crazy in action!

We hosted Two Kid-Friendly Halloween Parties for Evo-man’s and Lea’s friends last week. I’m going to try and squeeze one in for Princess this week. Why? Because I’m insane; and because it’s nice to invite kids to something besides a birthday party. They come and have fun with no obligations attached. Or at least I like it when my kids are invited to something similar.

So we made some ghoulish treats for both parties that included the Skeleton Veggie Platter (This one was made by Lucy's daughter who kindly stepped in to help me with some last minute, procrastinated kitchen help)...

Deviled Eyeballs...



Pumpkin Shaped Bean Dip...



Ghoulish Biscuit Pizza Faces...



and Mummy Dogs.



Activities included decorating mini pumpkins with colored sharpies, taking soup cans that I’d previously filled with water and frozen, and using hammer and nails we punched little spooky decorations into them. Then I sprayed them with a quick-dry spray paint...



added beads and a glow stick and Ta-Da!



O.K. aside from the blurry picture...The Kid’s made their very own little Halloween lanterns.



We also had a Mummy Fashion Show contest.



I secretly saved the toilet tissue - now I’ve just got to convince my kids to use it. You know the whole frugal thing.

We also had another go at the Family (Nice Picture). Too bad the Fire Department drove by in their boat.

The water was a beautiful glass before and it never quite recovered its earlier autumn mirror look. This one’s o.k.

and it may have to do but I was disappointed because the leaves are more in focus than our faces, but then I was thinking, 'Out of focus faces ain't a bad thing if your trying to hide acne. We've been out three times so far trying to get that really nice picture. I think the weather has had enough of giving us perfect days to take those pictures.

This here is our typical picture. Nothing but Goofs.

Also this last week I also sadly decided to put one of my two little Japanese Maple Tree’s out of its misery. This year only two of its branches bloomed. So I hacked them off, shook out the nesting spiders (although they would have added themselves nicely to the Halloween décor), and brought it inside. Then I plunked those branches into a vase so I could enjoy its leaves one last time.

R.I.P little tree, I loved you once but when you got all scraggly on me – Adios!

And I finished my temporary Blog banner with our Families Theme this year. Evo-man pointed out that I left out Toto and the Flying Monkey. Picky- Picky! I’ve never used Watercolor Pencils before and found them fun! I might experiment with different holiday banners once I come up for air but this will do for now.

My most exciting thing last week was to finally find a Halloween book I’ve been looking for since grade-school.

Trenadoll is going to be so jealous! I bought it used and it came well loved with torn pages, erased pencil scribbles – but, I still love this book. It is my all time Favorite Halloween Story. So I'm going to give you a book review of sorts for my Favorite Halloween Story of All Time.

Every year, during my grade-school learning, when they put out the Halloween books display on the check-out table of the school library I had to be sure to check it out. I love the illustrations...

the story – the whole thing.

It’s about a little witch who just can’t act like a decent horrible witch.

She can’t seem to do anything right and she even break’s her only broomstick. One wicked night she frees the Night Fairies who were trapped by the other witches.

In return the night fairies rescue her from the punishment the witches were going to inflict her with and they take her home with them where she discovers she is a Night Fairy that had been stolen by the witches when she was a baby. Then she get's a glamorous make-over and what little girl wouldn't think that was cool.

So that was last week. ~ This week - Well I have four costumes to finish, a small Costume Party to throw for Princess, and a home, that looks like a Texas Twister hit it, to clean. So I'd better get goin'.