Jumping on the Halloween bandwagon this week. Not that we’re big Halloween celebrators here… in fact, previously we would sit in the dark and dread the doorbell ringing. The years I prepare and buy sweets no-one turns up so I have to eat them, the years I don’t we ended up giving out hobnobs and mint imperials from the cupboard. Not cool.
Having moved out of the town into a village, we’re unlikely to get Trick or Treaters. Since having a baby it’s struck me as a shame that we don’t get more of that here as it’s a great community activity but enough on that. Obviously now we have the baby we’re busy recording milestones; baby’s first tooth, baby’s first smile, baby’s first October 12th – you get the picture. But how to capture Halloween?
First port of call had to be Pinterest. I’m not a pinner by nature. For our wedding I became obsessive and if I’m looking to do a bit of decorating then sure, aside from that I’m normally only good for a Pinterest fails board. My arts and crafts look, well, a bit shit. That small piece of information will become hugely relevant in the next couple of paragraphs.
Activities with an under 6 month old are pretty limited. We do a lot of walking, a lot of rolling around on the floor (dangerous in our household with concrete floors and horribly thin carpets) and a lot of jumperoo time (recently seen this described as the ‘circle of neglect’ – I prefer to call it the best thing I ever bought). But in a fit of parenting prowess I decided to take on our first arts and crafts project; we were attempting painting.
Accompanied by mutterings of “what are we doing”, we stripped off, got all the stuff into the bathroom and proceeded to plant the wriggly baby’s hand into the black paint. Suffice to say, it was messy. I won’t share the attempt at ghosts with footprints because even as his mother, and as such genetically required to love these things, they were a wreck. But the spider handprints weren’t too shabby after a bit of fixing with a marker and some googly eyes, even if I did have to explain they were handprints to everyone we showed.
Oh, the baby? He was a mass of black paint. Which, in case you’re wondering, doesn’t come off. Our child was fancy dressed as a dalmation for the next few days whilst the grey splodges faded – including at his swimming lesson. Yep. Nice.
Next we decided to do a bit of artistic photography with some pumpkins in the garden. Unfortunately, the garden wasn’t quite up to par so I somehow managed to convince my husband to take me, the dog, the baby and four pumpkins out for a walk around the village… I still don’t know how. Having walked a sum total of 50m from our gate, I declared it the perfect area (those pumpkins are HEAVY) and proceeded to attempt these photos whilst out in public.
Probably not our finest parenting moment, it did end with the baby face down on the common but I’m a firm believer in the fact that a few germs are good for you!
Finally, an attempt at some pumpkin carving. Having now upped my pumpkin haul to seven, yes seven, pumpkins (although one did go to making this soup… mmmmm) we invited my sister round for the evening for the annual carve-fest. We bought the pumpkins and she rocked up with some decorations courtesy of a last minute trip to Tesco in an attempt to pretty up our lovely retro decor. Spider-webs up, balloons blown and ghosts created we spent the evening scooping and carving to create these beauties leaving us with a mass of pumpkin flesh and three slightly worse for wear pumpkins…
Feel like this year, we really committed to the theme! Now to find something to do with my other three pumpkin babies… maybe a pumpkin pie perhaps, any ideas?
Looking for pumpkin inspiration? Check out this chorizo and pumpkin soup recipe or this pesto and pumpkin version that’s more diet friendly!
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