Halloween wrap-up

It was a very successful night yesterday – 49 kids! I think that beat the last two years at the old house put together. Also – boxes of individual portion chip packets are great for keeping count.

Here’s what our house looked like on Halloween night.

The ghosts were hung up by husband that day. The fact that the only spot by which they could be hung were their “necks” added a bit to the creepiness of the tableau.

I had a few hands coming out of the (freshly wheelbarrowed in!) soil. I think I’m going to need more hands and other body parts sticking out of the ground next year… I like the effect.

The remaining ghost swung under the branches of the weeping tree as you were walking up to the house.

And at the door itself, we had cobwebs and bats gallore. I didn’t get a picture of the pumpkins since we had already brought them in (something about Dan worrying that kids go around and smash them up overnight) – but I was promised that pictures exist, nonetheless. Not as creepy as nighttime pictures, but unfortunately I never got around to taking them the night before.

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Halloween decorations!

With Halloween (and trick-or-treaters) arriving tomorrow, I thought I would finally put some effort into the decorations. I picked up a few supplies last weekend, but didn’t get to it then – and with how early it’s starting to get dark now, didn’t get a chance to do it during the week, either.

I’ll have to take pictures of the outside tomorrow, since I forgot to today (oops), but instead you get to learn how to make ghosts.

Go and pick up some sheets at the thrift store. I’m not made of money here (and it’s not like I’ll be sleeping on them), so the two sheets cost me $3 and $4.

While you’re out, also pick up some balloons and elastics. I already had the elastics on hand, though.

Inflate the balloons. Decide you’ve discovered a homegrown method for measuring your lung capacity.

Cut the sheet in 3 parts (that’s the size that seemed to work the best), wrap one of the sections around the balloon and secure with elastic. Go search for images of ghosts on google to decide how to draw their faces. Repeat from the top.

Line up the little dudes on the couch, to wait for husband to hang them up tomorrow. Pat self on the back. Not bad for less than half an hour worth of effort. I think I like Googly (middle) and Angry (far left) the most. Who is your favourite?

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Getting ready for Hallowe’en

Hope you are too!

Earlier in the week, I thought I would get a few more Halloween decorations up before we hit the deep freeze (which was a good idea, since we have snow on the ground right this minute, and it’s still snowing). I’ll definitely have to think things through a bit more next year, as this year I just grabbed a bunch of stuff at the Dollarama and ran, since they had the most loud and annoying alarm start up while I was there. And no, the alarm wasn’t because I grabbed stuff and ran – I did pay, thank you very much! Try digging around for change while trying to cover up your ears to prevent them from suffering permanent hearing loss, though.

Even more unfortunately, when Dan came home that night he informed me that the skeleton had fallen down. Boo. I think it would’ve upped the “creepy” just a bit more to have a skeleton glaring at you from the ceiling.

I spent this morning getting some garlic into the ground, which turned out to be a good idea (see reference to snow above). One nice side effect of redoing the vegetable garden was that the soil is nice and fluffy from all the digging I had to do to transfer the soil back and forth. I think I might turn this into an annual fall exercise, because the soil is just beautiful now. I got a few varieties at the garlic festival this year, and I planted them each in its own row, made by poking holes in the ground with my fingers.

And, of course, the main event of the evening was carving pumpkins. Dan and I chose to do two pumpkins each, from the pumpkins I had picked up a few weeks ago. Lucky for us, our squirrels didn’t take a liking to them – a coworker was telling me that she’s repeatedly found her squirrels gnawing holes out of her pumpkins. While I wouldn’t want that, a while ago I saw a pumpkin that I just had to replicate.

Husband was hard at work, too.

We ended up with four carved pumpkins – Dan’s are on the outside, mine are the middle two. My second pumpkin is a little pumpkin in a big pumpkin jail.

How was your pre-Halloween night? Happy candy-distributing tomorrow!

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On the first day of Hallowe’en

I got me some bats.

I saw another picture of someone decorating their windows with bats, so I had to have this, too. I found some pictures of bats I liked and Dan made me stencils. It took a while to cut out the bats – and I might make a bunch more to fill out the flock (?) a little bit – but I like how it looks.

I’m very excited to be around for Hallowe’en this year, and more importantly for it to be happening on a weekend, so I’ll keep you updated as the rest of the decorating progress.

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