pumpkin carving

pumpkin carving is an amazing halloween tradition!

you get to make your hands all slimy and orange and you get to cook up pumpkin seeds and eat them for the next two months and then you actually remember how difficult it is to carve a pumpkin and spend the next hour complaining about it.

it's so GREAT!

so we had all our little friends come over and we ate chili, chips, cornbread and pumpkin cookies and drank some spooky sip and then it was time to carve!

i think the hardest part for everyone was deciding what the heck to do on their pumpkin.

but the funnest part is taking all the guts out!

sorry some of the pictures are fuzzy.

that's what happens when you try to take pictures with the only fingers that aren't covered in pumpkin slime.

ewwwwwwwwwww!

after the guts are all out we decided on our designs and put them on the pumpkins.

except Chase.

he did a lot of this.

and this.

while the rest of us were hard at work.

oh except Jordan who likes to do this with my puppy instead of working on his pumpkin.

but of course Chase was the last to start and the first to finish.

and i think we can all agree that it was the most hilarious pumpkin ever made.

don't try to guess what it is, that only gets people into trouble.

it's actually this...

looks just like it right?

to someone who knows what that is, yes it does.

to the rest of the world...not so much.

so Chase wins the best pumpkin award!

and the rest of us come in second place.

except Matt.

i might let him get 1.5 place since his took so long and was obviously the most difficult.

while the rest of us got our fill of Troll 2 after our carving was completed Matt just kept carving and carving and carving away.

he didn't even finished until after the movie was over.

but it paid off.

the completed pumpkins lit up!

(with the exception of Jordan and Christine's)

Amy's happy pumpkin!

Chase's...Nixon sign?

my Bugaboo monster!

and Matt's killer shark!

best pumpkin carving night ever!

but let me just say, i was not too happy with Christine and Jordan.

they left their pumpkin guts and crap all over the table.

grrr...okay enough venting.

costumes costumes costumes

i super d duper love halloween!

but not in a scary-i-want-to-go-to-haunted-houses-and-watch-horror-movies-so-i-won't-sleep-for-a-week kind of way.

more like in a little-kid-i-love-candy-and-costumes kind of way!

in 2006, our first halloween together, i begged and begged and begged Matt to go trick-or-treating with me and he said no way jose all the way up until we were at Ben's house and then he wanted to go.

so we searched through all of Ben's halloween boxes and came up with costumes to run around the neighborhood getting caaaaandy!

i'm just a boring old pirate but i bet you'll never guess what Matt is!

he called himself "the spirit of halloween."

after that year Matt started to come around to my way of thinking which is that halloween is the bomb diggity best holiday ever invented and we should dress accordingly.

so in 2007 we stepped up our game.

Matt's band played a show on halloween that year and they were having a costume contest so between Matt, me and Josue we made a pretty awesome ninja turtle costume!

Matt was an evil foot soldier so we could be enemies and battle all night long.

we walked into that place and were immediately declared the costume contest winners!

xena the warrior princess (right) was pretty ticked off she didn't win the $50 to Best Buy but she is seriously crazy if she doesn't think ninja turtles kick warrior princess bootay!

man it was hot with that turtle head on!

in 2008 we owned Create It! which meant there was very little time for costume making.

we had a party at the store that night so we had to dress up as something but we kept it simple.

Matt was his favorite character of all time.

Calvin and his little stuffed tiger Hobbes.

again, not our best work but everyone knew who he was!

unfortunately, i have zero good pictures of my costume that year.

i ended up being Dora the Explorer which was a midnight decision at Walmart the night before halloween.

did you know you could find everything you need for a Dora costume at Walmart?

remember that!

2009 was our best year yet.

we spent many hours slaving away working with fabric, foam, cardboard, hot glue guns, ice (after stepping on the hot glue gun), wrapping paper, pipe cleaner and poster board.

and i must say, i was very pleased with the results!

Max and Carol from Where the Wild Things Are.

Matt's costume obviously took the most work.

his head is made entirely of cardboard, foam and fabric.

my costume was much simpler but equally awesome!

i mean, i got to wear a onesie!

which i totally talked Matt into buying for this costume but has been worn on other occasions as well!

and my favorite part of my costume is my little wand/staff thingy which is actually made from a christmas ornament!

i think the best part about our costumes is we went to a party and ended up having our picture taken so many times i lost count!

everybody loved it and couldn't believe we made the whole thing ourselves!

which brings us to 2010.

everybody better watch out for this year's costumes because they are going to be out of this world!!

EXCITED!

hootie pillow

last week on thursday the lovely Christine and i took a trip to Goodwill for dollar day.

it's seriously a genius idea if you come on the right week.

Christine got 3 cool things for 3 little bucks.

dollar day was not my friend that day so instead i ended up with only 2 things for like 8 bucks.

laaaaaaaaaame.

but one of the things i found was a cute shirt with hooties all over it but it was about 20 sizes too small for me.

but i just couldn't put it down!

the pattern is just too awesome!

so i decided to get it so i could cut it up and make a pillow!

first i cut the sleeves and collar off the shirt and then cut it down the side to make two pieces.

then i had to do some weird maneuvering because the big hootie and stars design was really close to the collar.

it made me pretty mad for a bit because it just wouldn't behave and i had to decide to lose a little bit of one of the stars but i still think it came out great!

it's cute and little and just perfect for halloween!

plus it's ridiculously soft since it's made out of a t-shirt.

Padme loves it!

probably because it's just her size!

thank you Man Vs. Food!

saturday was an epic day for Matt.

we love love love watching the show Man Vs. Food on the travel channel and love love love even more trying to go to the places that Adam Richman has eaten at.

in fact, when we took our trip to Portland last year our number one priority was hitting 2 of the places that Adam went.

Voodoo Doughnut

Matt got the famous Voodoo doughnut and i got an oreo one which was gross so i sneaked bites of Matt's gooey delicious voodoo!

this place is one of those places that earns the term "wonderfully weird."

and if the workers didn't make you feel like a total moron for asking what kind of doughnut that one in the case was it would be the best doughnut shop in the world!

and the Stepping Stone Cafe.

they're famous for their gigantic stack of mancakes but there's no way i was going to attempt to eat those bad boys.

i'm just not that hard core.

but this place was incredible!

their slogan is "you eat here because we let you".

it had that diner feel that i would imagine you would feel if you could go to Luke's Diner from Gilmore Girls.

and to me they will always be famous for their AMAZINGLY SCRUMDIDLYUMPTIOUS hot chocolate!

in a mug that i honestly thought about stealing.

both suggestions came from the great Adam Richman and we salute him for his impeccable taste.

which brings me back to Saturday.

Adam's impeccableness does it again.

Los Reyes de la Torta

in english means heavenly mexican food that is way too far away from our home.

on Man Vs. Food, Adam talks about the Torta Del Rey which is a burger filled with fried beef, ham, egg, chorizo, hot dogs, cheese, avocado and who knows what else!

oh and they weigh it in at over 2 1/2 pounds.

and who conquered those 2 1/2 pounds??

MATT DID!

picture or it didn't happen?

okay!

first Matt sized up his opponent.

let it know who's boss.

and then he murdered it!

all 2 1/2 pounds of it!

was he excited about his achievement?

yes.

was he excited about his achievement about 2 hours later?

no.

apparently what Man Vs. Food doesn't tell you is that you will be hurting and not able to eat anything else for the rest of the day if you finish the Torta Del Rey.

but when i asked Matt if it was worth it he said ohhhhhhh yeah!

and he's already made plans to return again with my brother.

crazy boy.