This is our son. He aspires to be Batman. He is already practicing his karate moves inside of me. I feel one day the world will be safer and cooler with him in it. Just so you know, the only thing we added was the yellow outline. He really truly is dressed up as Batman in there.
Ghouls, goblins, and boring humans alike! Last night was the wonderful celebration of All Hallows’ Eve, the most daunting, bloodcurdling night of the year. (On a side note, what does curdled blood look like?)
We hosted our second annual BEST HALLOWEEN PARTY EVER! After our Clue themed party of last year we decided that it would be a crime not to have another amazing shindig. So, like last year, I decided to go overboard with decorations to spookify the apartment. I’m especially a fan of the spider webs you can buy; they last FOREVER and don’t break the bank.
Last year we did a pot luck, but this year we thought it would be a nice change to have us prepare all the food and then exploit our friends by having them help pay for it. We thought we had gone a bit overboard on the food, but good thing because honestly I don’t think they’d eaten all week.
This year we went with a Cops and Robbers, or Good Guy Bad Guy theme. We had all sorts of costumes: ninjas, forensic scientists, cops, robbers, mafia members, flapper girls, and even Mr. Monk and Natalie decided to come. Nichelle and I went for the classic cops and robbers look, which Nichelle pulled off exceptionally well (it makes me wonder a bit about her past). It was a great party filled with fun and games. Nichelle and I made up special Halloween and theme related lists for Scattergories which seemed to go quite well. It was a great party and we were glad that so many of our friends could come. It’s a little sad that we won’t be able to have a similar party next year seeing as we have no idea where we’ll even be living, but I’m sure we’ll make new friends who will think we’re weird.
First of all, to make sure you’re reading this with the right voice in your head, this is Mike not Nichelle. Yes, yes, I apparently am still a part of this blog despite the pastel color scheme. As you may or may not know, Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I tend to go a bit overboard each year, at least in terms of how much we should be able to afford.
A few days ago I was at the grocery store and finally bought two good sized pumpkins. Nichelle has been making me wait a few weeks now, and good thing because they were only 19 cents a pound! Not too shabby! We’ll be carving those soon enough. Earlier today I needed to go to the grocery store and what did I see? Pumpkins for only 9 cents a pound! (This was at Macey’s for all those in Provo.) Since I was there alone there was no stopping me from procuring a 25 pound pumpkin and taking it home.
While Nichelle was at work I had the pleasure of gutting the beast and smoothing out the interior. As a side note, a really nice tool for the inside of a pumpkin is the spoon-type thing that comes with a rice cooker (see below).
Another tip I came up with today. You know how pumpkin stems have all those little prickly things on them? Well, I just grabbed a small piece of sand paper and rubbed it down! Now it’s smooth as a baby’s bottom.
= 
Nichelle found a good stencil online and we decided to carve it up tonight. Nichelle traced the stencil onto the pumpkin via poking little holes through the paper with a push pin. Afterward I got to go through and cut it all out. Being a larger pumpkin there was a very thick flesh to the pumpkin which made it fairly difficult to get through. But after not much time, and no bodily harm, we had a mighty fine lookin’ Jack-o-lantern!
Mike made some amazing chicken parmesan for us last week. It was very very good. He’s really a good cook. Not only was the chicken made from scratch, but the sauce also. As much as I love chicken parm, the sauce was my favorite part of the meal. I was glad we had plenty of leftovers because we’ve been using it for a week now. It’s great!
The portion size looks huge in that plate. Don’t judge us. Neither of us actually had that big of a chicken breast. It just looked better that way for presentation purposes.
…for Mike at least. He absolutely loves Halloween. And for that reason, I’m sending out an early October Halloween greeting to everyone out there in cyberworld.
May this card urge you to be excited, be very excited, for the upcoming holiday.
