after Samhain part two

OK, not the day after but this will have to do. I just wanted to jot down what we got up to :o)



We walked home from school an the world was wonderful. The Earth had a clear crispness in the air, yet it wasn't that cold out. I tried to capture the glorious colours in the leaves of the trees in the park; I've heard that trees are especially beautiful this year because of the wet summer and mild Autumn.

The pictures I got weren't wonderful, but not bad I suppose. The children's pics were cute though. On our way through the park we collected some of the prettier fallen leaves and I pulled up some Ivy (saying thanks as I did so and now) and we took them all home in mama's big string bag to decorate our home with later.
I'm working on getting Rowan to walk home now - he's three and will be at nursery next year and I don't want him arriving in a pushchair! So trying to strengthen his legs meant it took ages to get home. Once in I sent the children upstairs to get changes in to what ever costume they wanted and I set straight on to yet more gingerbread! We had already made loads recently; I only have a recipe for a big batch and don't know how to lessen the quantities, but it's yummy so who cares! We had eaten loads and I was worried that we wouldn't have enough for the trick or treaters!

So about half an hour, 2 batches of baking and plenty of flour marks later, my three returned. Took this long because Scarlett had lost her witch costume under the bed! Frazer decided to be a skeleton and Rowan was spiderman. Scarlett enjoyed her brand new witch hat, which was a bargain so I was pleased.

We had 'Witches Stew' for dinner - which ended up being a stew I chucked together in the slow cooker and left on while at the school. Missed out a load of bits we didn't have so chucked in some random stuff to make up for it - lol! This included some of the turnip that I had carved in to little jack o'lanterns. Liam popped in around now - unfortunately Hallowe'en this year fell on a wednesday, which is when he teaches Kung Fu. He's a 2nd degree black belt now and I am so proud of him! He might be going for his 3rd soon, but this means he really need to up his training - missing him already!

Anyway, after dinner I served up the scrummy pumpkin pie that Liam had cooked the night before - we had it with maple syrup whipped cream - soooo niiiiceeee *drool* Scarlett and Rowan didn't entirely agree with me (Rowan chopped his up and didn't eat, Scarlett only had a very little) but Frazer ate two servings and wanted more! I said no because it's just so sweet and he'd been munching on cookies too. The pie was made with the innards of a pumpkin I had carved the night before - I stayed up stupidly late but was very pleased with the result!

We only ended up with two lots of T&Ters, the kids Loved it! They really get in to the spirit of sharing out our cookies and weren't fussed at all at the idea of going out ourselves. At one point we knocked at our neighbours doing a reverse T&T - to give them some biscuits! lol
Back home again and before dinner we shared some fruit in the front room; cutting apples in half across the middle to show the witches' stars in the middle - did you know that's why people always cut from top to bottom now? It used to be frowned upon (or even considered evil) to cut across the middle, as 5 pointed stars were a sign of witchcraft (hehehe!)
We also had pomegranate - a sign of life and rebirth and of the underworld - I told the children the story of Persephone and Hades earlier in the day and was pleased that they remembered most of it. Of course we ate more gingerbread! They were shaped like witches, ghosts, pumpkins and bats.

After this I had to send the poor mites off to bed, they really didn't want to go, and said how much fun they had - Scarlett (bless her!) asked if I thought Christmas would be as fun, so I guess it was a great success. I'm so pleased.