Squash-o-lanterns

I had a good chuckle when I saw the Hallowe'en carving my kids did while my husband and I were out of town visiting my in-laws this weekend. Somehow, the two large "moonface" pumpkins that I harvested from our backyard this fall and set on a box in our furnace room weren't seen or carved. However, the gang did find the five smaller winter squash that I intended to turn into soup. To be fair, winter squash do look like pumpkins, but they have a bump on the bottom that prevents them from sitting as level as a jack-o-lantern should, so we'll have a few off-kilter characters on our steps this evening, hee hee, and tomorrow they'll become yummy squash soup!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Hallowe'en, sigh...

It's gotten a lot easier... but a bit sadder, too, now that my kids are older. No more costume chaos... and its resulting flurry of creativity. Less anxiety about school parties... and trick-or-treating partners. Pumpkin carving? Barely. Decoration? Not this year, unless I do it.

In the thick of hectic Hallowe'ens of the past, I'll admit that I was looking forward to this hassle-free day. But now that I'm here, honestly, I miss the fun of it all. Not that all of it was fun, but I enjoyed watching our girls in their excitement and creativity. It's always been interesting, at the least.

Costumes this year? Wayne from Wayne's World (oldest daughter), and an all-in-black assassin (youngest daughter). Middle daughter doesn't seem to be interested at all. Oh well. I guess artists, brides, gypsies, little bo peeps, mailboxes, masquerade ladies, owl princesses, papparazza, pirates, punk rockers, scarecrows, traffic lights, unicorns, witches and many others are all in the past, where our little girls live in my memory. 

Just a part of growing up.

Have a happy Hallowe'en, and if you're around little ones caught up in the excitement, enjoy!

Hallowe'en drum roll please...

Our youngest daughter has developed herself a reputation for coming up with creative Hallowe'en costumes. In the last four years, she has been a laundry basket, a traffic light, a radio, and a Canada Post mailbox. So this year, she came up with an idea early in September, begged her sister to take her to get a morphsuit, got her dad to drill holes in the glow in the dark star set from her bedroom ceiling so that they could become buttons, sewed them onto a morph bodysuit that covers her completely, and voila: she's the night sky, of course, or at least one or two constellations. She'll glow in the dark at her Hallowe'en dance this afternoon, but I'm not sure how she is going to wear her costume for what will be snowy, chilly, trick-or-treating. Our other girls are going as literary characters, Arya Stark and Elisbeth Salander. Suzanna's Game of Thrones costume is quite pleasing to the eye, a sort of female swashbuckler style, but I'm very glad Christina doesn't always look like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

And here are this year's pumpkin masterpieces, Nature, Death and Laughter, 

all born and raised in our backyard. Tomorrow they'll become Soup.

Have happy All Hallow's Eve, All Saints' and All Soul's Days.