Pumpkins by WBH: 2011

This year WBH offered his pumpkin carving services at really reasonable rates- here are several of the ones he finished.  Enjoy!

He Made More Monday: More Pumpkin Sculpture!

Just before we left for Stinky's preschool Fall Festival, WBH went to get the Wild Things pumpkin, to discover it had rotted and grown mold (don't store your pumpkins inside). So, what to do? Re-do it, and then some! Stinky wanted an Allosaurus:

Then he added a mad hatter to the mix:

and added one of our holiday favorites to the mix:

In total, WBH did 8 pumpkins for us, our family, and friends, and some have talked about comissioning him to do the work next year. He really rocks!

Happy Halloween : Phineas and Ferb Costumes

We had pretty big plans for this Halloween. Then, you know, I went and had a baby and reality set in. Wanting to keep a family theme, but also keep it frugal and fast, we decided to go as the Flynn-Fletcher family from Phineas and Ferb, one of Stinky's favorite shows.



For comparison:

We considered spraying the boys' hair, but with the cold and damp weather here, hats were a better way to go. All in all, we spent under $25 for the costumes. I had to paint Stinky's shirt. Who'd have thought it would have been so hard to find an orange striped shirt? Rotten's pants were made from a 99 -cent thrift store tee, and I only had to but half a yard of orange fleece for his hat and buttons for my earrings. Everything else we had on hand. Not as big or bold as last year's Shrek costumes, but I wasn't going to stay up all night sewing when I'm already up several times a night. Stinky's already putting in requests for next year- and they're quite a bit more involved.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Cookie Friday: Candy Corn Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup margarine or butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp almond extract

3 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

yellow and red food coloring

Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg and almond extract. Slowly add flour and baking powder. Remove 1/3 of dough. Tint remaining dough yellow- try to refrain from saying "Don't eat the yellow dough!" Remove half of the yellow dough, and add a few drops of red food coloring. blend until dough is desired color of orange.

*hint- make the colors very bright. They fade a little while baking.*

For the shaping tips, I refer you to cakespy's directions at Serious Eats.

Dust both sides in sugar and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a rack and store in tupperware to prevent drying out.

halloween at our house

He Made It Monday

WBH's pumpkins this year are his best yet. A barn owl for my mother...


a death star for our good friend...

and some wild things with their king for us.

To see some of his other work, click on the pumpkins tag at the end of this post.

Pumpkin Patch Kids

I love fall. I love cooking in fall, the warm, hearty food after being outside in the cold. I love the colors, and the transition nature makes. I love the smell of spices and leaves. I love the way that fall begins the time of year that is full of traditions.

One of our traditions in the trek out to the pumpkin patch. We've gone to the same one for four years, now, and each year it's more fun. Stinky loves running through the muddy patches (with our sunny October, there was much less of that than the year we took the picture for the header). We told him this year he could choose his own- but he had to be able to pick it up and carry it to the wheelbarrow by himself.

My parents got some free pumpkins as part of the CSA at this farm, so we went with them. WBH will be carving one for them this weekend. Check out his past work here. He's got some big ideas for this year's pumpkin.

Yeah, I love fall.

Halloween 2009: Costumes!

(the dress photographs really blue, it's more green in person)

Our Fairy Tale Family wishes you a Happy Halloween!

Oops...

We didn't get great pictures to show you today. Today has been crazy! Bald Caps are HARD to get right!!

So, instead- I really reccomend mummy mini pizzas. Super easy and yummy, they are much faster and less stressful than pumpkin tarts to make for something like a pre-school party- especially when Stinky turns the carrier full of tarts upside down on our way to the party.

Pretty self explanatory. English Muffin, string cheese, sauce. You could use olives for eyes. I don't like them, though, so I used a teensy bit of black food coloring. Bake for about 10 minutes, or just before the cheese starts to brown. There's something about warm, baked cheese. YUM.

Pictures tomorrow! Promise!

Pumpkins 2009

WBH has been hard at work on this year's trio of pumpkins. A dirty job, for sure...

...but totally worth it. Check out the boys.

There's one more that was a special request from Stinky. I'm saving for a Day of the Dead post.

Costumes are so close to done. Finishing touches are all that are left. Pictures tomorrow evening.

Halloween 2008

WBH made this one as a gift for my brother, a big fan of The Office. Dwight Shrute is a pretty scary guy.

Stinky was the only one who really dressed up, and his costume was inspired by the comments we get about NoNuts all the time. Please, don't ask a great dane owner if they 'have a saddle for that thing.'

We might be forced to make one.

Halloween 2007

Stinky's first Halloween. I started knitting this costume that summer. If I can brag, the cardigan and pants looked pretty fantastic when it was all done. I will never knit pants again.


Being in a new home , we were able to use costumes people hadn't seen us in. So Chris resurrected the pirate costume...

.. and I used my costume from a church production of Wizard of Oz.

The pumpkins this year were a sight to behold. We called this one "Hannibal Lantern"

And we brought Bat Boy into the mix.

Halloween 2006

Halloween is kind of our holiday. It's our favorite. Starting this year, we've made the decision that each year our family will determine a group theme for our costumes. I'm about halfway done with our costumes, which will be taking up most of my mental capacity and energy this week. So, if you'll humor me, I'm going to share pictures from the last few years of halloween.

We used a cement form, spray paint, and elastic and transformed my belly into a cannon. We had the parrot at the time, we figured we might as well get into the spirit of things.

This was the first year WBH used his drill press to carve our pumpkin. It made a fantastic mess in our apartment, but we were happy with the results, and he's done it each year since.

We Made it Monday: Pumpkin Jars

A joint project with Stinky, these are super easy and very open to interpretation. We used tissue paper, paint, yarn, felt and the stuff that you use to glue your puzzles together (it's what we had). It could be done with just paint, or just paper and glue- use what you've got! I first saw these here. Halloween is kind of our thing, and I'm excited to decorate our home for it.

Oh, one more thing: I really, really, really reccomend electric tealights for this. Really. Little hands that helped to paint and glue paper want to be able to handle them. At least, the little hands over here do.