Halloween - 2012

Here are pictures from TWO different evenings.  First is the evening we attended the pot luck dinner and Trunk R Treat at church.  Then comes the pictures from the actual Halloween.  Two fun evenings… and in some cases two different costumes or at least variations on the original.  All costumes were put together earlier in the day on Saturday from the dress up box in the attic and the backs of the children’s closets.

First I had to settle the children down long enough to take their pictures.  They were quite excited.

Friendly spider                         Purple spider ballerina                Joker

     Taylor Swift  (different view of hair in second picture)              80’s chick

And Tristan took away a costume prize; not bad for pulling together his costume from the attic earlier that day and putting it on over his PJ pants.  It is an old dance costume that his older sister wore for a recital.

Then Tuesday October 30th we carved some Jack o Lanterns.  Actually just Rick and Tristan did it.  Awesome looking!  Tristan’s is the fierce looking one!

I finally caught the whole group of them right before I took them out to fill their candy bags and buckets.  Kaitlyn bought herself a pumpkin bucket at the school’s annual “Pumpkin Patch” just because she likes pumpkin buckets so much. 

The friendly spider again!   He is “friendly” so I wouldn’t be scared of him.

Purple spider ballerina, this time with a black and purple spider mask she made herself at the Kindergarten Halloween Party.

Tristan the ghost changed his outfit all together.  That way he didn’t have to “decide”. 

Taylor Swift!  Since it was raining the guitar got switched out and Lindsay carried a horse with her instead.

And my 80’s chick with the wild socks over her pant legs, her high pony tail off to one side and blue eye makeup.  Yeah, we made our own fashion statements.  The shirt is authentic from 1986 too!  I got this for my 16th birthday and it was one of my favorites.  It came out of a box and into the dress ups several years back for 80’s day at school!  Now I know what my Mom felt like when we had 60’s day in High School every year.
After the coldest, wettest Halloween we’ve had here, thanks to Superstorm Sandy, the children were very grateful to return home, regain feeling in their extremities and eat some of their goodies.  Happy Halloween!

Frugal Measures

It is sort of fun to keep in mind the things that I’ve done to save money.  I am enjoying the challenges of thinking outside of the box to do things differently that will help meet our needs.   Our budget is always seeming to be on a tighter and tighter crunch.  I think it shrinks all the time!  Our medical deductible will rise once again in January as will the % they skim off the top rise for the STRS for the next four years.  Our car continues to run nearing the ripe old age of 18 and child #3 is now scheduled for braces on a payment plan.  I no longer worry if I take it one day at a time while keeping an eye out on the horizon… but we are once again blessed with enough.  Besides making more laundry detergent here are some of the things I did:

As the first frost approached I went out to the garden and scavenged for the last of its production for the year.  I found some really nice green beans and a half dozen or so green tomatoes.  The beans went into the freezer to be added to soup.  The fried green tomatoes made a nice addition to an evening meal we had.

I roasted some granola using oats we bought in bulk several years ago as well as other foods bought in bulk or we stocked up on during some amazing sales.  This is probably our favorite quick breakfast these days and sometimes we even take it for lunches.  And I found myself without white flour!!!  I knew I was close but I did run out so I dug into the wheat flour that I’d purchased at $1.00 per 5 pound bag.  Knowing that wheat rises differently than my usual half and half bread I went after a recipe designed specifically for whole wheat bread in order to ensure it would rise properly.  Rise it did!!!  This slice on the right is sitting on a dinner plate!  It was ginormous!!!  Needless to say we all ate half sandwiches for the next several days.  It was really good too.

Rick’s great Aunt Eleanor passed away and we were the recipients of some of her furniture from her nearby home; a beautiful chair and china cabinet which are both Vintage.  The date on the back of the china cabinet is stamped 6/28/60.  We also received some lamps, a decorative shelf, glass items, a really neat stool and some other odds and ends that are both beautiful and useful.  We also gleaned some paper products, cleaning products and food items given to us from her home.  It felt a little strange to be taking these things but it is nice to keep these beautiful and useful things in the family.  My mother-in-law was her closest living relative which is how we came to receive these things.  Otherwise they would have been donated or sold.

We received a whole box of blue cheese containers for free because they were about to expire.  I placed them in the freezer and then pulled one small container out to make blue cheese stuffed potatoes and blue cheese dressing.  The potatoes were a great sale at $1.00 a bag and the bacon was also purchased at under $2 per pound meeting my meat price requirement.  It’s been a long time since we had bacon.  Mmmm!

Kaitlyn went on her first field trip ever to Iron’s Fruit Farm.  She got to bring home a sweet little pumpkin from the farm she visited and when asked what she would do with her pumpkin she told everyone she was going to make it into muffins and a pie.  That’s exactly what we did and we roasted its seeds along with those from our Jack-O-Lantern as well.  No waste!

We popped some popcorn for taking in lunches one day as a fun snack; a smart choice compared with the $4 bag of chips we could have bought.  Popped corn, home canned peaches, homemade jam on homemade bread… the only thing we didn’t produce from basics was peanut butter.

And the best fun frugal project of all was digging into the dress-up box in the attic and supplementing from the backs of closets for all of this years Halloween costumes.  It even enabled some of the children to be one thing for the Halloween Party we attended and something warmer for actually trick or treating.  The kids had a blast trying things on, pairing them and choosing what to be.  More on that later…
Successful month but for one thing… the OVEN!  The whole thing blew and we had to replace it.  I made food in the crock pot or microwave for the days we were without a stove or oven.  Usually we pay cash or earn a reward and pay things off right away.  With the recent car repairs we had to have done and  a promised pay check that has not come through yet we could not afford to do that this time.  But we’re getting right back on track with the budget and planning for next years challenges.
And that sums up my economics skills put to use in October.

Pumpkin Patch

Saturday October 20th was our annual trip out to the Pumpkin Patch.  Not too far away and not too commercial it is removed just enough to let us feel like we’ve gone somewhere and made our way out to the country.  We’ve been coming here to Brown’s Family Farm for years now.

Saturday October 20th; a perfect autumn day for the pumpkin patch.  Rick requested this Saturday off months ago so that we could have this family outing.  Some years he’s had to leave work early or go back to work straight from the farm.  We felt more relaxed this year because it was truly a day off and we could take our time.

There was much discussion over the pumpkins with so many to choose from.  Luckily we each get to choose our own.  A couple of these will become Jack-o-lanterns… most of them become pies, muffins and soup; no waste decorations!

There is a little corn maze… just right for young children.  Nathan immediately noticed a wooly bear in the corn.

Nathan loved this furry and tickly fuzzy caterpillar.  As soon as we put him down Nathan found another!!!

As we wandered through the corn maze I thought this scene makes a wonderful picture. 

Another pumpkin patch was located on the other side of the corn maze… sooooo many pumpkins.  I was glad they did so well this year even with lack of rain.  Ironically I was most successful growing pumpkins in my own home garden this year, in spite of lack of rain!  A couple of years ago there was a pumpkin shortage and there was no pumpkin to be had here.  There was not a single can of it in the stores.  Since we love pumpkin so much I have been careful ever since to make sure we have a small stockpile of it in the house just in case it happens again. 

Kaitlyn is still searching for her perfect pumpkin… she wants a small one.  They are so cute!  There is a hay bale maze through a shed that the kids have a blast climbing through.  And on the right… sisters!  One crazy girl needs to put on her sweatshirt.

My boys peek out at me and tell me about the big spiders they’ve discovered up under the roof… I don’t need to see to believe!

Cute girls!  And every year for years we stick the children by this sign to “measure up”. 

They grow so quickly.  Haley realized that she only has 2 more family trips to the pumpkin patch after this!  She was such a little girl when we discovered this farm.

Rick and Kaitlyn pose, Rick driving the pumpkin car.  He should have let Kaitlyn have a turn to “drive”. 

More great harvest scenes around the farm… and inside the stand as we choose some other farm fresh produce to purchase like potatoes, cabbage, onion and a variety of apples that are normally not available around here for a taste testing back at home.  Compared to the variety of apples I once got used to in Upstate New York, Ohio offers very few types.  I try to give my children opportunities to taste some old favorites whenever I can.  One apple I can NEVER find around here is a Northern Spy.  I have my suspicions as to why but telling my Dad this one time made him crack up!

Lovely!

We also chose some gourds to dress up our table and display in the living room.  Nathan likes to “match” them by color, texture and size.  We enjoy having these around the house through the autumn.

The younger children spend a few minutes playing in the miniature houses and Nathan looks pretty tough driving that truck!

Haley buys Kaitlyn a HUGE lollipop which Kaitlyn loves as you can plainly see.

We get ready to leave by saying goodbye to the farm animals and paying for our pumpkins… plenty there for roasting.

Super girl decided I could take her picture if I let her take mine.  Deal!  And super girl used her strength to carry those pumpkins from the car to the porch.

Just a few of our purchases out on the tables.  Going to the pumpkin patch each year has become a wonderful family tradition.  We treasure being out in nature, experiencing the change of seasons with all of our senses and just being together.  Happy Autumn!