Halloween 2010

Where to start on the topic...  And be prepared for some boasting.  I've been busy!

Having Amanda living here she asked early on if she could come trick-or-treating with us.  We decided we should do a theme for all of our costumes.  Claire wanted to be a princess so we slotted Anson to be a dragon, Amanda the knight (or dragon slayer/tamer), and Blake and I as King and Queen. 

I always try to spend as little $$ as possible on costumes and I really don't like those expensive & flimsy packaged ones so the hunt was on.  I found Anson's costume first for $12 and decided I couldn't make it for less than that and it was reasonable.  That first purchase was the most expensive part.  Claire had a fancy Easter dress I figured we could use, and I still have some old prom dresses - which I still fit into!  So we'd just have to add on to those dresses to make them look royal.  I started asking around for costume pieces from Blake's and my mom.  My mom had Renaissance costumes from her step-sons in the attic which we used for Blake's costume AND she had REAL CHAIN MAIL that Amanda was excited to wear.  That stuff was HEAVY!!!  She didn't have any royal capes, but did have leftover fabric. 

Now, I'm not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination.  I barely can sew a straight line.  But I figured capes for all three of us couldn't be too bad.  I looked online for some examples and was encouraged.  Each would be one piece of fabric with straight lines.  Thanks to some (ok, lots of) help & encouragement from my mother-in-law and her sewing machine & supplies I was able to make our capes.  My mantra was, "It's only a costume.  It's fine."  Decorating them was fun.  Claire loved putting the glitter on her and my capes and did a great job.  Amanda's knight cover took a little more doing but this amateur still got hers done and didn't have to buy a thing.

And then when we found out Christy would be here for Halloween we decided she needed to join the group costume.  She was a court jester and was able to make her costume out of things she already owned.  Wohoo!

Of all 6 costumes we only bought Anson's costume, gold clasps for the capes, jewel stickers, gold decorative ribbon, and crowns.

Here's our group photos:

And AFTER Halloween night I spent the next few days baking the pumpkin seeds and turning our jack-o-lanterns into pumpkin puree to bake with.  Baked pumpkin seeds were first.  I found the pumpkin seed recipe last year and we loved them just as much again.  Click HERE for the recipe.

Puree was next.  We had so much pumpkin that I had to do the puree in three batches.  And with lots of little interruptions it took quite a while.  But know we have at least 20 cups of puree.  It's a good thing we like pumpkin!  So far I've made pumpkin pancakes, froze cubes for baby food, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin chocolate chip bread.  Pumpkin pie is next.  YUM!