Pumpkin Carving

The weekend before Halloween day I went to my friends’ Juliet and Troy’s house for some pumpkin carving with them and the Crisps! I do love hanging with those nuggets and the pumpkin carving was fun (even if the kiddos are not old enough to wield a knife yet). I went for a traditional jack-o-lantern and the kiddos picked out patterns for their parents to cut for them. Everyone did an excellent job! I was super happy to be able to hang out with some of my favorite families, thanks Williams and Crisps!

Grayson supervising:

Jaxon helping remove the guts:

He wanted to make sure he got every last fiber of guts:

Mom and Dad helping Avery and Evan with their pumpkins:

Jaxon's finished product:

My finished Jack-O-Lantern (photo credit: Jaxon)

Everyone's pumpkins:

Grayson cheesin for me:

Jaxon giving me the big teeth smile:

Avery looking quite adorable:

Even sticking his tongue out at me, stinker!:

Happy Halloween!

Halloween

Since it's almost Thanksgiving, I guess it's time for a Halloween synopsis. Halloween is my favorite holiday! I have, however, been slacking in the costume department in recent years. This year my friends Skyler and CB were hosting a Day of the Dead Halloween party so I knew this was my chance to remedy that situation. I decided to go as Poison Ivy from Batman and Robin. I made my costume from a green dress, fake ivy, lots of hot glue, a red wig, and some green eye makeup for the ‘eyebrow’ effect. Here’s a terrible phone picture of the costume (I forgot to get one with my camera):

Here are some of the other peeps at the party:

Skeleton Puppies!

Robin Hood and Rapunzel:

The Day of the Dead Peeps (it was the theme of the party):

Waldo Sr.:

A Mime and Lance Armstrong's Career (he went as something dead to match the theme):

Happy Halloween everyone!

For Your Creepy Crawly Enjoyment- Happy Halloween!

Saw this guy on my coworker's car:

Found this fella on my porch:

And this mama was in the change room at my work, I now check my shoes before sliding them on:

Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween Baking

For the Halloween party I attended, I baked a few goodies to share. First was a round Spiderweb version of the King Arthur Fudgy Brownie (recipe HERE). I made the brownie recipe and poured it into a greased 9" springform pan. I then made a mixture of the following:

4oz cream cheese
1 egg yolk
1T flour
2T powdered sugar

I put the mixture in a Ziplock sandwich bag and snipped a very small part of the corner off (about 3mm). I piped the cream cheese mixture first into the center and then in concentric circles out from the center. I then took a knife and dragged lines radiating out from the center. I used the remaining cream cheese mixture to draw lines over the knife drags. Baked for 35 minutes at 350F. The result was this:


The second treat I decided to try was the pumpkin whoopie pie. I've been noticing that whoopie pies are all the rage on blogs lately so I made some for the party. They were pretty delicious, I must admit. Next time I will use a smaller cookie scoop, though, because these were ginormous:



Pumpkin Whoopie Pies (from King Arthur Flour):

Cookie:
1/2c butter, softened
1/2c vegetable oil
2c firmly packed brown sugar
2T molasses (I used honey because I didn't have molasses)
1t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1t salt
2t cinnamon
1t ground ginger
1/2t ground nutmeg
1/4t ground cloves
2lg eggs
1 1/2c (one 15oz can) pumpkin
2 1/4c flour

Preheat to 375F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat together butter, oil, sugar, molasses, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Scrap side and bottom of bowl to ensure all ingredients are fully incorporated. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in the pumpkin. Add the flour in 2 additions, mixing well after each one. Scoop batter onto the parchment paper-lined baking sheet and space about 2 in apart. Bake about 15 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.

Filling:
1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese
4T butter, softened
1t vanilla
2c powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar until desired consistency is reached.

Once cookies are cool, pipe filling onto a cookie and then press another cookie on top. To store, wrap in plastic wrap and keep in an airtight container.

Halloween 2010!

Halloween is my favorite holiday but for some reason I'm always super busy in October and have yet to realize my extravagant costume dreams. This year I was just a generic character from True Blood. I ordered the Fangtasia t-shirt from HBO.com and hot some red heels to match and painted on bite marks with fake blood. Here are some pictures of my friends and I in costume:
LOVE True Blood:

70s guy, Baker, Waldo:

The baker with a Girl Scout:

Me and the injured Romo (taken out by the GIANTS btw):

The baker, oven, and bun :) *Cutest costume award

Me and David Hasselhoff circa Baywatch *Best look-alike award

The ladies: Me, A Convict, Oven and Bun, Half of the double rainbow *Most Clever Award, Girl Scout, Freddy Kruger, and Raggedy Ann:

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

OMG Amazing Cupcakes!

Whoopsies, I fogot to do a Halloween cupcake montage last week. Here are my belated favorites inspired by my favorite holiday:

Witch cupcakes by Angelia of Eclectic Recipes:


Candy corn (my fave candy!!) cupcakes by Hol-Berry's Cupcakes:


Awesome Dracula cupcake you can see here: DRACULA!

Super cute ghost cupcake found here: GHOST!

And an amazing Brain Cupcake by Made with Pink:

My Favorite Holiday

Well I completely failed at picture taking this Halloween. As it turns out, maneuvering a cape, basket, beverage, AND trying to take pictures is rather difficult. I saw lots of costumes this weekend including the stack of money you could be saving with GEICO (with the song playing), a completely painted yellow Marge and Homer Simpson, Billy Mays (too soon?), swine flu, and one picture of a baby in a Where the Wild Things are onesie like the pj's Max wears. Lots of great ideas out there this year. I was Little Red Riding Hood if you remember and here is the only picture I have where you can see my full costume:



Kristine in the middle was a ketchup bottle (her mustard was taking the picture for us), Roxy is wearing a t-shirt reading 'Professional Heartbreaker", and Christine was Tinkerbell. I'm very proud of Christine and her costume because she made the entire thing by hand! Even the shoes! Very nice, most people thought she bought it :)

Little Red

So my favorite holiday is Halloween and I generally have a costume picked out way in advance. This year is no exception! I'm going as Little Red Riding Hood and I have my costume mostly assembled. I sewed up a red cape and hood from satin fabric and attached a satin ribbon for the closure. I am wearing a navy blue and white dress underneath because I couldn't get a good consensus on the stereotype dress for Little Red. All the illustrations are different! I have a basket for grandma's goodies and some red pointy-toed wedges that I'm not sold on yet. Here's the ensemble all laid out:




What are you being for Halloween 2009?

Halloween is Here!

Ben is visiting Houston this weekend so Christine and I decided to get pumpkins and carve out some jack-o-lanterns while he was here. We selected our pumpkins from the Kroger 'pumpkin patch':



Our selections:



I found a design from Extreme Pumpkins by Tom Nardone (book found here: PUMPKINS!). I really like his cannibal jack-o-lantern, although all of his designs are pretty awesome. Since I didn't want to spend the big bucks on a giant pumpkin, I had to modify the design for a smaller scale. I found the biggest regular sized pumpkin at Kroger (Christine and I emptied all 4 cartons of pumpkins looking for 'the one') and got a mini pumpkin for the victim. Here are the results:



Happy Halloween! Now on to the costume...