::halloween tradition::

Max and I made a batch of halloween sugar cookies for the first time four years ago, in our first house in Kansas City.  It was a bit of an ordeal, making cookies with a two year old, and I just wasn't that good at cooking back then (I'm only slightly better now.)
But they turned out so delicious and cute that we had to do it again next year. Or maybe it was the fact that Sultan ate most of the cookies that year--we accidentally left him in the house and the cookies on the counter when we went to deliver some to friends. We needed to make up for that.

So we've made cookies for the last four years, and the crazy thing, in four different kitchens. You think that sounds like too much moving? Why yes, yes it is.

So we made our traditional batch this week. I added a few new cookie cutters last year taking advantage of after holiday sales. It was fun to get to use them. Max's new favorite is the ghost.

I like him because he only requires white frosting, yay.

Max is getting better at helping--at least he doesn't just spill all the cookie cutters on the floor and roll them around in the flour like he did the first year.
He's my decorator now. Last year we got M&Ms and candy corn and he made faces on all the pumpkins. I wish I would've done that this year, instead we just did the standard sprinkles and such. But it was still fun. I only had to yell at Max 10 or 12 times for dumping the whole tube of sprinkles on one cookie.

Fun to make with my Max, but even more fun to eat. Which is what Kris thought when he came home from work to a kitchen full of delicious cookies! Mmmmmm.

::boston adventure pt 1::

This is the spooky part of our Boston adventure.
Kris's mom was here visiting last week and we had a really great time. She's been wanting to go up to Boston ever since we moved out here, so on Sunday after church we piled into the car and headed on up. Kris has a who-knows-how-many-great great grandfather that's buried in a cemetery up there. We've been meaning to go up there for a while and find it. This was the perfect opportunity.
Turns out this cemetery is famous. It's on the freedom trail in Boston, which is another cool thing we haven't taken advantage of. But we will. I'm sure.
It's said that this ancestor of Kris's and Kathy's helped to found Harvard. So it was a long while ago that we was alive. In fact the best we could tell is that he died in the 1690s--that should give you an idea of the age of this cemetery.

It was really picturesque. Right smack in the middle of the city stuff--apartments and tiny streets packed with cars all around. It was really close to the water too.

It also didn't hurt that it was an amazingly beautiful fall day.

This cemetery had headstones with dates as early as 1600! I think the latest stuff was the in the 1800s. All the headstons were different, and they were all amazing looking. Actually, I thought most all of them were really spooky.
I'm having a really hard time deciding which photos to post. I had to take a picture of every different skull I saw, and there were so many. No mass production here.





I find nothing comforting about these gravestones. They're so stark and scary, aren't they?
We couldn't find Kris's ancestor George. So many of the stones were broken or had been worn down into illegibility. But we did find a George without a last name, and I think that's going to have to count.

His stone may be there somewhere and we could've just missed it. But who knows.
Max was running around tripping over gravestones. That didn't make me too happy. So we snagged him and made him hold hands. That didn't make him too happy. But too bad.

Kris finally found something for him to do.

There was some ramp somewhere--who knows why. And so Max ran up and down it for the next 15 minutes.

I promise, it's sturdier than it looks. And since he wasn't running on people's bodies, or breaking centuries old grave markers I was happy.

A strange coincidence--I had just read the october issue of Martha Stewart Living, and it had a big article about old New England cemeteries and their grave stones. Some of them look so similar to the ones we saw.  It was really interesting.  I found a copy of it online you can check out if you want here.
And if you're dying for more gravestones and want to spook yourself out I have a lot more--just go to my flickr.

RIP.

::::

Max asked for peanut butter toast, but ended up with a peanut butter ghost. Spooky, right?

::souvenirs::

Last week Max went on a field trip with school. He was way excited to ride on the bus, and I was way cool to not freak out and make him stay home after the American Fork band bus incident not too long ago. Anyway, enough about motherly worries. I volunteered to go along and assist, but of course in true Rhode Island public school fashion they didn't have any parents come along.

But this post isn't about any of that.

They went to a farm, took a hay ride and got to pick out a pumpkin to bring home. At least that's what I gathered from my son's very non-descriptive description of the day.
His pumpkin was cute, and he liked it although he was very glad to hand it over to me when I picked him up. He's kinda wimpy and doesn't like to carry heavy things--wait, really anything that weighs more than an old cell phone. He'll carry an old cell phone around all day.

But, here I am sidetracked again.
Here's the man with his pumpkin.


I brought him home and fed him lunch. I cleaned up the kitchen and was sweeping the floor when he suddenly said, "oh! I almost forgot! Look at what I brought home!"
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a big handful of hay.

Seems that they did actually go on a hay ride! This is the same boy who would come back from his preschool in Kansas City with pockets full of the big gravel in the playground. I'd have to go and put it back all the time.

I was really please (as you might imagine) to have the hay hit my newly swept up floor. He gathered it up--with no small amount of encouragement--and took it outside to his "house" which is our little shed in the backyard.

What a goofball. I think he was more excited about the hay than the pumpkin. Oh well, there's no accounting for taste, right?

::more party::

We had some pretty great costumes at the party this year.
Kris:

As you've already seen, Kris made a pretty convincing Spock. Would you be surprised to know we threw the costume together an hour before the party? Good thing we found the ears at savers.
Me:

Max:

the residents: (at least the ones that made it to the party)

It was so fun that everybody dressed up. The kids all looked so cute. Like Natalie as Tinkerbell:

And Zac as Yoda:

I didn't get a photo of everybody, unfortunately, but that's at least a taste for you.

Our party activities mainly consisted of eating yummy food, watching the wonderful Halloween movie and playing doughnuts on a string. Everybody's played that at some point, right?
We just did it for the kids this time. It was pretty hilarious, and messy. We had to do it inside because it was freezing outside.






It's a serious deal for these little guys. Danny ended up eating his off the floor dog-style after it fell off of the string. Impressive dedication, right?



Then after we sugared them all up they went home. I'm sure it took a while for them to go to sleep. But who can complain with kids this cute?::::

I have to say, we have dang cute kiddies in the program this year. I think St. Joe's must have cute kids as a requirement. Like Grant and Porter. You can't go wrong!

Oh, and proof that Dash is fast.

Oh yeah, he's fast.

::look what i made::

Look!
Marilyn's muffins.

I made a couple of tiny adjustments. I used a "I can't believe it's not butter" stick instead of normal butter and I used Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour instead of white. They turned out delicious!
A pumpkin:


A silly fish:




I made him too. It was a while back, but I still take plenty of credit. He's the best thing I've ever made.

::spooky food::

We had some great food for the party.
I made some delicious homemade oreos. Mmmmm. Using Erica's recipe. I made them last year and loved them. They're killer straight out of the fridge.

My friend Yonah brought an awesome death by chocolate. And I'm a big death by chocolate fan. It's the best. The worms took it over the top I think.

Jess made spider cupcakes. They're pretty spooky. And the kids loved them. They were all running around the house with black mouths lips and teeth.