Nablopomo! - and Halloween

o this morning I planted my son in front of Sesame Street, grabbed my ritual cup of hot chocolate and shuffled my way to the computer. I was so happy to see that my lovely friend Dalene had posted - she always has such great posts - and when I read it, I decided to join the crowd celebrating National Blog Posting Month (nablopomo). This just means that, however brief it may be, I'm going to (try to) post something on my blog every day this month. Understand that this may mean some hugely boring, yawn-fest posts as my life as a stay-at-home mom can get tedious. :) I'm hoping, though, that this also means my epic take-a-bathroom-break-in-between novel posts will be coming to an end soon - those even make me tired reading them. :) I realize that this is the second of November, but hey - one day off isn't bad, right?

So here's my Halloween post this year. We had a fun little weekend, kept it simple. Friday was the ward Halloween party

of course we tagged along with the De Leons to trick-or-treat around the building

There was a chili cook-off, and the chili I got was delicious, but I've got to speak up here and say how truly terrifying a ward chili cook-off is for those of us consuming said chili. All chili more or less looks the same, but definitely do not taste the same. Some will put your mouth on fire, others...well there will be some sort of fire going on at some point. Fire gut = not Halloween fun. I am in favor of a nice potato bar or something like that at ward functions - various chilis just cannot be trusted. Anybody else feel the same on this one?

Saturday afternoon we carved our pumpkin, which turned out like this:

Awesome, right? Paul wanted to do the Punisher symbol, and I was super skeptical as I favor the traditional jack-o-lantern shapes face, but I ended up loving it. Sam did, too.

Then we had our Halloween dinner, consisting of mummy dogs (yes, I ate hot dogs - don't worry, they're all beef - thank you Jewish faith)

Latin chili corn - can't stress the deliciousness enough. Try it.

and toasted pumpkin seeds from our Punisher pumpkin

which were disgusting. Aren't these supposed to rock? Does anyone have a better recipe? I looked one up online that was just a little vegetable oil and salt, toast for 45 minutes. Seriously gross - but hey, I tried, right?

Then Woody went to work (no, not dressed up. Something about a uniform code - party pooper), Buzz refueled,

and we went off for a little trick-or-treating. We didn't join the Eddy's this year because they've been passing a gross bug between them for like a week. Everyone's over it but Sarah, but I didn't feel like we needed to risk contamination. :) Unfortunately, I have party pooper neighbors in my complex, so we more or less just went on a wagon ride, but we had a great time all the same. I left a huge bowl of candy on our porch expecting it to be long gone by the time we got home, but we still have a ton left. Want some?

Here's Sam practicing telling people what his costume is - he flatly refused to even try "trick-or-treat!" Stinker. :)

How was your Halloween?

love, mary

p.s. just because I think it was fabulous, I'm linking up to my friend Rissa's costume - awesome, right?