I guess I'll start with last night when we carved the pumpkins: And then I'll skip ahead to tonight, when Henry watched for trick-or-treaters out our door.... Then after a bit Jonah came over to do some trick-or treating... They had a blast running up to the doors. I think they could have gone all night. Sinead and Rhiannon are back from South Africa, so they came to see Henry. South Africa won the rugby world championships while they were there, so Sinead is dressed as a rugby player. After pizza and caramel apple and a little It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! we posed for a couple more pictures. We didn't even have to coerce Henry into putting his costume back on. And now he's sacked out in bed. Before drifting off I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. Without even having to think he said "trick-or-treating!!!!"
(I'm writing this Sunday night, but letting it post Monday noon- so adjust your reading accordingly)
I found this idea in some home and garden magazine that I was perusing at the library one day, while Henry played train. I used refrigerator dough, because sometimes it's okay to cut corners.... But I turned it orange with a hideous amount of food coloring. Also added a little extra flour to offset the coloring, and almond flavoring because that's the key to good sugar cookies...even 'fake' ones. Yes....it really is that orange. I couldn't find a candy corn shaped cookie cutter, except in a giant box of assorted Halloween cookie cutters. I already have all the basic Halloween shapes, so I wasn't going to buy the box- no matter how cheap it was. I cut these by hand, and kind of like their charming misshapeness. Also, don't they look like Doritos? Or giant Cheezits? Here's the pumpkin guy I made for Henry with the leftovers. Here are the final results. Tops dipped in white chocolate, bottoms in semi-sweet. Pretty cute, I think! I'll send them off to various places tomorrow. I'm not sure how I'll package them though. I've finally used up the purple Saran Wrap I've had for years. In the meantime I have a little container of melted chocolate re-hardening in the fridge, which might make its way onto caramel apples or bananas or some other such thing for dessert tomorrow.
So, I thought about doing a photo montage of all of the tissue boxes around our house. There's at least one in each room, but I then I realized I'd have to go take pictures of all of those tissue boxes, and I just didn't want to do that.... So here are pictures of the other things we did this weekend besides blowing noses. Yesterday morning we went out to the pumpkin patch, which has turned the whole event of buying a pumpkin into a children's entertainment money-maker. We started our morning with apple-cider cinnamon pumpkins and hot cider. We visited the petting zoo (3 $1 tickets, plus one more for feed). The goats were all very friendly. There was also a big fat bunny, some chickens, a llama and a donkey (which I heard a guy tell his daughter was a horse). After a quick ride on a little train, Henry bounced in the giant pumpkin. Then we finally chose our own pumpkins. We plan to carve them tomorrow or Tuesday night....photos to come. Today we attended Jonah's birthday party at the "Exploratorium"- basically a big play room for kids, with climbing things and a water table and dress up: Pete thought I should wear the cape. Notice how the flash picks up the spot where the elastic in my shirt is most stretched. When we got home we took a nap and then we made caramel apples. I didn't make my own caramel, like my mom does. Some day I'll be at that level. They still turned out quite yummy. Henry only ate the caramel and maybe three bites of apple. I learned that it really is neater to eat it off the stick, than to try to cut it and eat it off a plate. And here is Henry trying on the costume that his Grandma Mary made him. He loves it! He makes the cuddliest penguin I ever did see! Here he is posing with a few of his penguin friends. And that's it for now....there will be plenty more photo opportunities this week. Let's hope I can keep up.
We were in Iowa City this weekend for my sweet niece's christening. Pete and I got to babysit Friday night. Pete caught this little moment. I was trying to correctly bundle Eleanor in the "miracle blanket" and we were having quite a giggle together. You can see by the look in her eyes that she already has much love for me. The baptism was on Saturday. I'll save the details for Rob and Carrie to blog about, but look at how lovely she is: Henry also enjoyed the ceremony. This was taken shortly before he decided to do some splashing in the baptismal font, or the holy water or whatever it is. He's clearly trying to get himself some of that oldetyme religion....or embarass his mother, whichever comes first. Here's a happy grandma and some proud parents. And one great aunt. (Eleanor is a girl who knows when it's time to give up the fancy and get her party clothes on.) Eleanor and Aunt Betsy. And this is what you get when you ask Henry to smile for a picture. Isn't it fun to have cousins?
So, even though we don't have TV we can still get our Sesame Street fix with their new video podcast. It's called "Word on the Street" and they do about 5 minutes (perfect!) on one word. They each have one celebrity in them as well. Today we watched a new one about "lazy" with Richard Belzer. When it was over Henry curled up by me on the couch and said this:
Dad has been here since Sunday and I am SO excited because he has been working on our baby nook. I knew a long time ago that my preference would be to have the baby share Henry's room. Henry has seemed okay with the idea too. It will be nice to maintain a third bedroom for visitors and detritus. I also just like the concept of children sharing rooms. Henry mostly uses the room for reading, dressing and sleeping. He has (too many!) stuffed animals in there and a few toys, but most playing is done in the family room. The main problem was that Henry's room is pretty small. Our solution? The Baby Nook! You might look back in the archives from a year ago or so to see what the room looked like before, when I was painting it. We forgot to get any before shots of this project. What Dad has done is to cut out the closet on one side and to finish out the space. I picked out some paint today so that Baby will have his or her own color in the nook. I decided to go with "Green Grapes". I kind of liked the middle shade as well, but I just can't bring a new child into the world and then make them sleep in a nook surrounded by Yellow Lettuce. Ick. Green Grapes should compliment Blue Collar, and it also goes well with the valances and decorations in the room. Dad even found a carpet remnant that he has put in place in the closet. And he moved the shelves in the other closet so that they make more sense. He's a SuperDad! Last night while Pete was rocking out at the Van Halen concert, Henry and I took Dad for the Hackney's experience. Tonight I'm planning to roast a chicken and bake an apple crisp. Hopefully that will be somewhat of a payback for the unpaid labor!
Pete and I were invited to attend the Chicago chapter National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences dinner last night. Shure is a sponsor of the academy and of the event. The NARAS are the Grammy people. Here's Pete in the lobby for cocktail hour. The event was held at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Here are Beth and I, pregnant as can be, drinking cranberry juice and Sprite. I really much prefer a pregnancy photo that doesn't include my backside. I swear it doesn't look this huge in pants. Did I mention I had maternity pantyhose for the event? Also, there seems to be a strange reflection or light-glare-spot or something right at my bellybutton. I'm not sure what that's all about. Here's the stage. Our table was in the front row, about three tables to the right of the stage. Here's dinner. The menu is there next to my salad if you want to try to read it. It was very yummy. The dinner was a chicken roulade with dried fruits in it, and a beef rib and a little potato triangle thingy. Dessert was ginger creme brulee, though I couldn't figure out where it had been bruleed. Bob Sirott, local long-time radio and television personality, was the MC of the event. Being honored were Joe Shanahan, Cheap Trick and Kanye West. Shanahan is the founder and owner of Metro, the big rock club downtown (in the Wrigleyville area) which always has great shows. Metro is now (I presume since CBGB's was pushed out) the oldest, largest, still-independently owned rock club. Or something like that. Anyway, he's a pretty cool guy who's helped a lot of bands from REM to Smashing Pumpkins. They had the Chicago Children's Choir sing for him. Here's Plain White T's performing some Cheap Trick songs, with one of the Cheap Trick guys. I never remember their names. Part of the deal was that these groups and people were being honored for the work they do in giving back, especially to our local community. So that was pretty cool. Here's Kanye West. Due to our angle from the stage, we could see best from the large screen in front of our table. He spoke for a long time (15-20 minutes?) and was very interesting and entertaining. Here's a little bit of him talking about when he was asked to tour with U2 as an opening act. He was sort of talking about how most people didn't know who he was, and how he wanted to make his songs work for that venue and that audience. He's talking specifically about a song he has called Diamonds from Sierra Leone.
And this was a bit Pete especially liked (listen for his laugh) where Kanye was continuing to talk about being the opening act. He has just said something about how Bono told him no black person has been able to "figure this out" meaning working the huge venue, I guess.
This is Pete and I shortly before leaving. I had picked up my jacket again from coat check. I was so cold! It was a really fun evening with lots of interesting and humorous speakers. And very good people watching! I didn't manage to capture any images of white fedoras, purple ball gowns, beaded chin hair or hot-pink mini skirts, so you'll just have to take my word on that. And here we are this morning at breakfast. It was an Egg Harbor breakfast sort of morning.
Here I am, at 2 in the morning. Wide awake. Henry woke up and needed to cough, which woke me and caused me to realize I needed to eat. So I came in and made myself a piece of toast, which made Franklin realize he needed to bark, which caused the big ol' raccoon outside to realize that he needed to waddle out from under the grill, which made Franklin need to bark even more, which made Pete come into the kitchen and ask me if I was having breakfast. Franklin is still at a low rumble, I'm still a little bit hungry, Pete seems to be coughing a bit now, but hopefully Henry is resting. I Googled images for 'raccoon' and this was my favorite of what came up. "Mrs. Coolidge and her pet raccoon (Rebecca)". Something in me still likes the style of the first ladies of old.
And then I'll skip ahead to tonight, when Henry watched for trick-or-treaters out our door....
Then after a bit Jonah came over to do some trick-or treating...
They had a blast running up to the doors. I think they could have gone all night.
Sinead and Rhiannon are back from South Africa, so they came to see Henry. South Africa won the rugby world championships while they were there, so Sinead is dressed as a rugby player.
After pizza and caramel apple and a little It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! we posed for a couple more pictures.
We didn't even have to coerce Henry into putting his costume back on.
And now he's sacked out in bed. Before drifting off I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. Without even having to think he said "trick-or-treating!!!!"
