Halloween 2013

Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were the inspiration for the Harper family costumes this year...

Galadriel, Arwen, Frodo, Smaug the Dragon, and Gandalf

Baby Smaug (not quite as ferocious as the dragon in the movie, but super cute, and warm as she consented to wear something WITH sleeves! Hip hooray!).

Frodo, the Hobbit. Complete with creepy hairy feet. His bag has the one ring to rule them all on it (which incidentally I neglected to print in mirror image so it would show correctly once ironed on... then I am pretty sure I ironed it on upside down, but who's keeping track anyway?).

Galadriel, the lovely elf... her elf ears made it a little hard for her to hear, but helped her look oh, so authentic.  Her bag says (in Elvish and English) "The world is changed. I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air." and has a drawing of Galadriel's flower symbol.

**What were you for Halloween this year?

Hey Ferb, I know what we're going to do today....

 Trick or Treat!!!

Happy Halloween to all.... This year we decided to continue on with our love of Phineas and Ferb...

The Flynn-Fletcher Family... Sadly, Lawrence didn't make an appearance... and Ferb had to be on Coleman's bag since we couldn't convince any of our neighbors or friends to join our family for the night...

Liv made an excellent Candace... she doesn't often try to "bust her brother" and isn't in love with someone named Jeremy (lovely bag, no?) but she still pulled it off. She had a parade at school that Sophia and I got to go to. She had to explain to people who she was... but if they were fans of the show, they totally got it as soon as she said it. Sophia loved being there because all of the kids would point to her and say, "Hey, look! It's Perry!" She felt just a bit famous :).

Coleman loves, loves, loves this show. I love that the the characters are mostly nice to each other, tell the truth, and are quite intelligent. The plots are simple enough that Sophia likes it but witty enough that Ryan and I even sneak in an episode or two after the kiddos go to bed. People who know the show loved the costumes and recognized us immediately... those who didn't... well, they didn't. Some thought Coleman was a rooster! Sophia and I went to Coleman's class for his party.

Ryan made a great Doofenschmirtz... all evil and ugliness aside, he at least had the clothes down :). Sophia's debut as Perry the Platypus was great. We've been planning this for weeks... and a couple of weeks ago Soph decided she wanted to be a cat instead. We finally convinced her to put on her Perry costume by telling her she would be a kitty cat that looked like Perry the Platypus :). In the days leading up to Halloween we kept asking Sophia what she was going to say at the door... her response: "Me want candy!" I think she caught on to the whole idea of trick-or-treating... when they got home I asked her if they had gone to a few houses... she answered with, "No... a lot!" and then I asked if she got a few pieces of candy she said, "No, a lot, a lot, a lot!" She's been chowing down ever since.... She loved her Major Monogram bag and kept calling it "my Major Monogram bag."

Ryan rigged up speakers and played the "Doofenschmirtz Evil, Incorporated" jingle from his lab-coat.  We brainstormed about what "inator" he could carry around but never built one.... we should have made the Trick-or-Treat-inator to suck all of the good candies out of trick-or-treaters bags...

We all know that Linda and Heinz didn't end up together... but they did go on that one date... :)

It definitely wasn't my best year for creativity in the culinary area, but we had a few yummy Halloween treats... My headstone cakebites didn't work as well as I hoped (the white chocolate seized up, likely from the food coloring I added?) so we turned some of them into ghosts... We made some mummy pigs-in-a-blanket, spiderweb salsa with chips, and had some jack-o-lantern slush. The cake in the top right corner was made by someone at Ryan's work and I loved it... they just used strawberry pieces to make a pumpkin. I loved the Frankenstein rice krispy treats that two of my friends made for our pack meeting this month. We didn't have very many trick-or-treaters this year, which was strange because we had beautiful weather... 71 degrees! The ones that did come to our door got to take some Perry fruit snacks, Smarties, Nerds, or Dum-Dums. I am quite sure the significance of the candies was lost on everyone but me and Coleman (and Liv after we explained it to her) but that is okay :).

They got home with so much candy and spent a bit of time trading and paying the 'mom and dad tax.'

They taught Sophia how to say "Happy Halloween!"

Hope your Halloween was great too!

Happy Halloween!

Oh, Halloween! This year the Harper girls went with a bakery theme...

...and the boys decided to do their own thing. Coleman made an awesome Harry Potter...

...and Ryan advertised the new bakery and Harry Potter on his Facebook page, which was resurrected from last year when it was too rainy to wear outside.

We carved pumpkins last week at Tim and Laura's house... The pumpkins we grew this year were late in  blooming and growing, so when it was time to harvest them they were still green. We learned that green pumpkins are a whole lot cleaner to gut and carve, so that was a bonus! Olivia did a candy corn and musical note, Coleman did a Harry Potter lightening bolt. and Ryan paid homage to Steve Jobs with the Apple icon (note that the Apple pumpkin is lit up using the flashlight app on Ryan's iPhone, which is sitting inside his pumpkin). Today I decorated a mini pumpkin to look like a cupcake for Soph.

We made some tasty "Eyeballs" (Sour Cream Raspberry Cake Bites) to send to work with Ryan...

...and we went and saw the kids in their costume parade at school. Coleman was one of dozens (hundreds?) of Harry Potters, but added his own flair to it. He walked by me so quickly that he didn't even realize I was there (even though he said hello to our friend that was sitting right next to me). Silly kid.

Liv was looking good in her baker's uniform.

Later in the day I got to go into Olivia's class for her party. She was wrapped in toilet paper like a mummy!

I should note (realizing that I should have gotten over high school a long, long time ago...) that one of the other moms was dressed as a perky cheerleader, in her own costume from her high school days. I chuckled to myself thinking about how beautiful and thin and smily she was and that I was right back in the role that I can't seem to break out of, no matter how hard I try--frumpy and sitting off to the side serving food (I was in charge of the drinks). It's funny how insecurities resurface in situations like that, regardless of how many years have passed. The cheerleader mom was so nice and friendly, which made my unease all the more unsettling.

After school we got our treats ready... we handed out cookies and crackers and other "baked goods" (although I think it was lost on all the kids that came to our door... they were just glad to get a big package of anything).

We had a spooky drink (with a frozen brain) to go with our homemade pizza for dinner.

Liv wanted her bag to say "Sprinkles" over the cupcake. Coleman's bag has the seal of Gryffindor on it.

Sophia was so excited to go trick or treating (although she wasn't too excited about keeping her cherry hat on her head!). She lasted for about a block or so before she was ready to come back home (or before Liv was ready to not hold her or chase her anymore?). She and I hung out and passed out candy while Ryan and the older kids cruised the neighborhood seeking the sweets.

Soph and I had a few treats of our own!

**Did you dress up for Halloween?
**Are you ever unwillingly transported back to high school (or some other insecure time in your life)?
**Favorite Halloween treat?

Halloween 2010

We started out our Halloween celebrations a few weeks ago with our yearly pumpkin carving with Ryan's family at Tim's and Laura's house. The kids wore their costumes too! This year our kids were bugs--Liv was a bee, Coleman was a spider, and Sophia was a beautiful butterfly.  Ryan and I were exterminators :).

Laura did so much work preparing so many yummy treats... be sure to click on the collages so you can see the details of the creative way she presented all of her delicious, festive foods.   (Laura took all these pictures and created the great collages!)

 We had a great time with everyone!

Olivia and Coleman spent an fun evening with my brother David and his wife Katty and they carved another pumpkin... Liv did Tinkerbell and Coleman made a three-eyed alien.  The apple? That's mine :).

On Friday Ryan's company invited family members to come in and trick-or-treat at different desks. They had this fun spooky house backdrop for a photo booth and Ryan took photos.

Ryan designed and printed a great new costume (I guess he thought the exterminator costumes were a little lame?)... He was his own Facebook page! He was good enough to put an ad for Harper Extermination on the right side of his page :). He won first prize for the best costume at work.

 Saturday morning Olivia's soccer team had a Halloween scrimmage...

...It was so funny to see the kids playing in their costumes. They had a great time.

Saturday night Ryan took the Coleman and Olivia trick-or-treating--even though it was raining hard and was freezing cold!  He's such a trooper. The saddest part of it all was that he didn't get to wear his great costume because it would have gotten ruined.

Coleman, the scary spider...

...who has been leaving plastic spiders all over the house all weekend trying to scare me. It usually works too, I hate spiders!

Olivia, the sweet honey bee.

Our Sophia butterfly.

I was still an exterminator and even put plastic spiders in my hair. Soph and I stayed home and passed out treats to the few that braved the rain. We had lots of candy and mini card games left over! (I threatened Ryan that I was going to hand out string cheese instead of candy, but he would have none of that...  I just read a friend's facebook status and she said her neighbor's got creative and passed out things like fruit leather, water bottles, notebooks, pencils, etc. I'm going to mull that over for next year...)

**What were you and yours for Halloween?
**Do you think kids would dig a different "treat" or is it all about the candy?

Return of the Jedi

Thanks to the brilliance and sewing talents of my sister Stephanie, Ryan and Coleman dressed up as Jedis and Olivia was a lovely Princess Leia for Halloween this year. I contemplated (very briefly) trying to pull off a pregnant Queen Amidala... but one look at her wardrobe and I decided to opt out of dressing up with the family theme this year...

In my defense, my t-shirt DOES say "Spooktacular" and I threw on a witch's hat so I'm not being too bah-humbuggy about Halloween :). We did some iron-on bags with Yoda and some kind of fighter ship to complete their look.

A few weeks ago we got together with Ryan's brothers and their families (thanks for hosting Tim and Laura!) for yummy chili and pumpkin carving. Ryan was a champ (like always) and de-gooped the pumpkins. Olivia and Coleman helped too, but Ryan was the one up to his elbows in slime. I was willing to help carve, as long as I didn't have to get too messy.

Coleman liked having a reason to wear the orange apron he got at Home Depot awhile ago...

...and Olivia liked digging in the pumpkin guts as much as anyone. Tim and Laura had the best pumpkin carving equipment... the scooper in this photo worked wonders.

Cute cousins and their pumpkins....

I must say (with all modesty) that the Yoda Olivia and I worked on turned out quite nicely.. the Imperial Tie Fighter (I just Googled it, I think that's what it is) that Coleman and Ryan worked on together looks great too!

The candles made them look so neat!

This is Ryan's X-Wing and although the photo is blurry the pumpkin was very cool.

Now, two weeks later, our poor pumpkins are wilted and moldy and you can hardly tell that they have anything to do with Star Wars... but that's okay. We lit the candles anyway (and I just watched a little boy almost catch his cape on fire from one of them... luckily it didn't!).

On a side note, I'm posting as I'm handing out candy to our cute neighborhood trick-or-treaters and I must say, I'm quite disappointed in the lack of "thank yous" that I have heard. Where has politeness gone? My kids BETTER be saying thank you at each house...

**What did you (or your family) dress up as this year?
**Did your trick-or-treaters say the magic words?