Historical Halloween

Jordan and Brendan each chose a historical figure to be for Montessori's annual Historical Halloween.



Meet King James I

and King Tut

Carving Pumpkins

Our yearly activity of carving pumpkins has had to change a little bit since living in Hawaii. We have to keep the pumpkins inside until we are ready to carve them because outside is too hot. We still ended up with one rotten one, as Jordan found out while he was digging seeds out. After we mourned over the loss of a very expensive pumpkin, we quickly threw it out and lit a candle to cover up the awful stench. By the time we were done we had one huge mess for me to clean up but we all had a lot of fun.

Richard and Dylan shared a pumpkin. Richard carved one side and Dylan made a scary Witch with Mr. Potato Head pieces on the other side. Jordan carved the middle one and Brendan's is the one on the right.

Halloween Parties

On Friday night we had a Halloween Dance and on Saturday night we had Trunk or Treat. The dance was great and Dylan ran around for literally hours (that's his kind of dancing). Jordan and Brendan ran around too but they were playing tag, football, or anything else that kept them busy. David and Suzie's family came with us and I had a lot of fun dancing with Elizabeth.

Jordan changed his costume for the Trunk or Treat but the rest of us stayed the same. He decided he wanted to be a basketball vampire instead of a pirate since he was a pirate last year. Everyone thought I looked like Raggedy Ann but then they were confused when they saw all my stitches. Let me clear up the confusion-I am Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Clearly not enough people have seen that movie. It was a fun costume though but many people did not recognize me. I kept saying hi to people and they would start to ask who I was or look at me really funny.

Well, we still have one more day of dress up and enough candy to start up our own candy store.

Andes Mint Cookies

I finally tried this recipe that I got off of Becky Higgins Blog. Although I had to travel to three different stores until I finally found Andes Mints, it was well worth it. After taste testing many cookies I decided they taste like Thin Mints Girl Scout cookies. You will just have to try them and taste for yourself but they are super easy to make.


ANDES MINT COOKIES

3/4 c. butter (or margarine)
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
2 T. water

Melt in a saucepan over medium heat until melted and then add:

2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips, stirring until completely melted.

Cool for 10 minutes. Pour into a mixing bowl and beat in 2 eggs.

Add:
2 1/2 c. four
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Mix together and chill for about 45 minutes. Roll into balls (like 1 - 1 1/2 inches big), flatten slightly, and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes (for my oven, this is the perfect time, keeping my cookies soft; your oven may be slightly different).

When cookies come out of the oven, place an Andes mint on top of each cookie and allow to melt for a few minutes. Swirl the melted chocolate like icing. Allow to cool.

Disney Scene it?

After a great lesson on The First Vision by Jordan, we decided to play Disney Scene it for our Family Home Evening activity. Now we are usually short on time after FHE and can only fit in a few hands of UNO or Phase 10, but last night we let the kids stay up late. We even played the full version of the game instead of the short version we often play. We have not played it in a long time but it gets more fun as our kids get older and have seen more Disney movies. We occasionally rent old Disney movies for our movie night which has proved to come in handy when we are playing this game. Our lastest rental was The Love Bug and Brendan was jumping up and down in excitement when the question about it came up in the All Play.

Hightlights of the game:
Brendan jumping up and down when he knew the video answers before time ran out
Brendan winning the game
Jordan wanted to continue playing to see who would win next
Dylan hardly being able to wait for his turn to roll the die
Richard getting to answer a question about the Princess Diaries
(What country is Mia the Princess of?)
Since he had not even seen the movie he made some educated guesses but there is no way he could have known the answer was Genovia (a fictional country-we had to look it up on Google)

Sugar Cane Train

This was our first trip on the Sugar Cane Train. It runs from Lahaina to the Ka'anapali Resort. When we stopped in Ka'anapali they had to derail the front part of the train so it could circle around to the other end of train for the trip back to Lahaina. It is a steam engine train and, as it was passing us to get to the opposite end of the train, it sprayed us with steam to try to get us wet. It was a good thing the winds were going the opposite direction.

All the kids are on Fall Break right now so it was fun to have all the cousins together. (Brendan, Ethan, Kathryn, Elizabeth, Ryan, Jordan, Ella, and Dylan)