This is Halloween: 2011

We've been taking turns being sick for the last several days. That's why I'm finally getting around to posting our Halloween day. Excuses, excuses.

Like I'd mentioned before, I procrastinated real bad this year. We always bake and decorate cutout cookies, and about half the time, I bake two or three batches worth and invite friends over to help us decorate, but this year, it was just the kids and me.

On a normal year, I would have done my baking on Saturday, or even Sunday. Carving the pumpkins would have been done at this point as well. This year, it just didn't happen. So, Monday, Halloween day, it was.

Unfortunately, I found out too late, that I was totally out of sugar. So, the time I took to get the boys ready, and run to the store to get sugar, was time that was needed to be spent mixing, rolling and baking. I wanted to get this all done while Akiko was at school so that we could just start decorating as soon as she had her homework done. What's a girl to do?

I decided to cheat and buy the pre-made sugar cookie dough and hopefully save some time. Big mistake.

They looked great going into the oven...

... and should have turned out looking like this...

Cookie batch 2010

... but came out as big, ugly, shapeless blobs. You can still kind of tell that they're suppose to be pumpkins and kittys.

In retrospect, I'm sure that if I'd added some flour to the dough, they would have turned out fine. I've never baked with pre-made dough though, so, you know, lesson learned. At least they still tasted good in the end.

Traditionally, I color the Halloween frosting purple, orange and leave one white, but I let the kids decide what colors to use this year. They chose blue, green and white.

Pantsless McMose. Notice, he's not in a diaper anymore? Oh, yeah!

Akiko is very serious about her cookie decorating.

Some of the finished cookies.

While the kids decorated, I jumped on getting the pumpkins carved. I mean, we only had about three hours after school to get all this stuff done and get ready for trick-or-treating.

When it was time to pull out the pumpkin guts, I let the kids do their own.

Unlike last year, Akiko thought it was so much fun getting her hands gooey. This is also where my camera started acting real funny before it totally wigged out.

Moses thought this part was so cool.

Even Asher got his turn. He wasn't so sure about it though.

Last year, we bought a carving kit, which worked out fabulously. The little carving knife, broke, however, which was a bummer. And then I couldn't find the rest of the kit anywhere. It wasn't with the rest of the Halloween stuff. *shrug*

I looked and looked for another kit anytime I'd go out shopping, but they either decided not to sell them this year, or else they sold out super early. So I was stuck with my best paring knife and a regular old spoon. Old school!

So, I had to tell the kids that we couldn't carve anything fancy and their designs had to be straight lines. So, this is what we got this year (which I had to take with my camera phone):

All three lined up and lit for the photo op.

Akiko chose stars, which I thought was cute and clever and super easy to carve.

Moses wanted a robot face, which I was happy to oblige.

Asher got a traditional face, because he didn't have couldn't express his opinion.

Bring on the kids in costumes! We're ready for you!

Right after we got the cookies and pumpkins done, I got the kids ready just as Joseph got home from work to take them out. They had lots of fun getting candy. I stayed home and passed out... the candy.

There's a street just down from ours that gets really into Halloween (think Christmas Street in SLC). Akiko was more brave about it this year than two years ago. Moses got pretty scared. Asher just wanted to run around and didn't care much about collecting the candy.

I'd say this year was pretty successful... except that Moses had a fever by the time he got home and it ended up being croup. I had to postpone his birthday party for this weekend. Now Asher has it. Yay.