Evie, dressed as the bat Stellaluna, enjoyed her first ever trick-or-treating experience! This Halloween, I hope all of you have as much fun as a toddler!
Stellaluna visits the bats
Happy Halloween!
Halloween
Closer and closer to Halloween
On Friday, Evie and I tried our most ambitious baking experiment yet: a pumpkin roll.
Pumpkin roll is easily in my top 2 deserts all time. I could probably eat one by myself, in a sitting, if I had to. But this is the first time I ever tried to make one. People kind of talk it up like it is hard, so I was a little worried, but honestly it wasn’t really that much trouble. And it was deeeelicious (even though half of it was eaten by a bunch of barbarians).
On Saturday we hit up the Halloween thing at the Lincoln Park Zoo, where we are members. It was a cold, wet, miserable day like you wouldn’t believe. The kind of day where nobody should be outside, everyone should be inside, under blankets, with something warm to drink. So traipsing around the zoo wasn’t really the greatest idea. Especially since Evie couldn’t wear her coat, because that would have ruined her awesome bat costume. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but most of the indoor enclosures were closed for the day, meaning we couldn’t get out of the elements. Luckily the bat enclosure wasn’t closed, so we were able to get some pictures of Evie in her bat costume looking at the actual bats. We did not stick around for the music or trick-or-treating, but Evie did ride on the carousel, so she was happy.
Finally, on Sunday we carved pumpkins. Readers of this blog will not be surprised that Evie requested that her pumpkin be crying, with tears running down its face. That being said, I am quite proud of the way hers turned out, very sad looking. Evie was a good model, fake crying for me whenever I needed it, to get the look right. She wanted my pumpkin to be angry / scary and Sara’s to be happy. She helped do hers, but got bored long before everything was done. That’s okay, I had fun doing it. Plus I have a bunch of roasted pumpkin seeds to eat now!
One last thing to mention about the weekend, I opened my first jar of pickles! They were very good. If I had been given that jar by my grandma, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But, since I was the one actually making them, I was maybe a little over critical of them. They were a little vinegary and a little salty. Still, all in all, not too shabby for my first time out!
Halloweeny Weekend
On Friday, Evie and I really got into the Halloween spirit. We got out the Halloween decorations and decorated the whole house, including a Halloween tablecloth that only covers like 75% of the table. We also made Halloween sugar cookies, shaped like bats, cats, pumpkins and Frankensteins. This pretty much wrapped up the whole day since we had to make the dough in the morning, the cookies around lunch and then make and use the frosting in the afternoon.
Evie was already impatient for Halloween, and this didn’t help much. She has been asking multiple times per day, “Is it Halloween yet?” We tried to get some supplies for her costume over the weekend, but we had some pretty bad luck. We also haven’t carved the pumpkins yet because I was worried they wouldn’t last until Halloween. So we still have some Halloweenin’ to do before the big event.
The other news of the weekend was the big used book sale in our neighborhood. We managed to nab 55 children’s books for the grand total of $19! (Actually, it was even better when you consider it was 52 books for $13, the last 3 books being $2 each) We haven’t even gotten a chance to read them all yet.
The grand prize as far as Evie was concerned was a big, hardcover Curious George collection, with about 7 of the original stories in there. I am sure they were the original ones because they contain many things that would no longer be appropriate for kids books, such as George smoking a relaxing pipe, or George getting high by huffing ether and then passing out. I am not kidding, that is in there! I have to say though, those original stories are so much better than the newer, more commercialized ones, even if they are a little non-PC.
So Evie demanded this book as soon as we got home and continued to demand more Curious George all the way through. The result was that I read all 400 pages or so straight through as she sat enthralled for about an hour and a half, after which she demanded more. I have no doubt that she would have sat through it again, but my voice was getting raspy and my throat was sore. “Guess she’s ready for chapter books,” said Sara. I mean, she is 2 after all.
Dart Throwing Monkeys
I’m sure lots of exciting stuff happened since the last time I posted but I’m too tired to think about it. Halloween was pretty uneventful since we got no trick or treaters and Evie was a little too young to appreciate the holiday. I’ll put some spooky ghost pictures up on myspace sometime.
I haven’t posted any games on here in a long time. You know I like Tower Defense games because I post them all the time, so here is the latest take on that. It is called Bloons and instead of the standard Warcraft/Starcraft ripoff this one involves dart throwing monkeys that pop balloons. I appreciate the new take on the old concept. Also I like how you always know how much “power” something has by the color of the balloon. Anyway, I think I actually like Bloons 2 a little better. I haven’t beaten any of them yet, but I can get into the 40s.
So, enjoy!
Ho hum
Create your own “motivational” poster. Oh, the possibilities!
Not much to report here. Things are definitely slowing down now that it’s getting colder! Saturday night we went to a Halloween/Chad-going-away party. Sara and I didn’t have costumes and when we got there we were the only ones! It was fun, we haven’t been to like a party in a long time. Dan and Dave L. came from Ft. Wayne. Stayed up until like 2 a.m.! Amazing. Then Sunday we helped Chad move, then went out to eat. Sunday night I fell asleep on the counch watching Children of the Corn at 8 p.m. Sara woke me up and made me go to bed and I fell asleep at like 9. I was worried I would wake up early or something, but I slept until 7 a.m. the next morning!
P.S. I’ve got my vacation all planned out for next year…the 4th 2nd Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational!
Shane Halbach 