Friday afternoon, I made the cookie dough. A day in advance yes, but that's only because, it had to be chilled in the fridge beforehand. That way Saturday, with it being the weekend and all and the dough made the day before, things would be much easier, and then the boys and myself could bake some homemade Halloween cookies Saturday. The weather Halloween weekend for us in Chiba? Well, a typhoon was supposed to hit us. And it technically downgraded (as usual) but it did rain cats and dogs all Saturday. Saturday afternoon was when the pic above was taken. I got out the jack-o-lantern cookie cutter, that my mom used to use with me, when I was a kid. Turned up the music in the kitchen and we enjoyed Saturday being home baking cookies. Meanwhile it was raining buckets outside.
Hard to tell the rain in the background but it was raining. Branden sprinkling his tray of cookies.
And Noah sprinkling some sprinkles on his tray of cookies too.
A close up, you can almost just barely make out the outline of the face. The kids don't like too much or overly sweet stuff (like too sweet frosting) which is why I decided not to use the icing to draw faces. It would have been cuter if I drew faces on...but then they wouldn't have eaten so many. So......just went this route and they enjoyed eating them quite a bit. : )
Many many cookies, nearly 3 dozen.
Lots of pumpkin shaped butter cookies. : )
Still Saturday and the rain was still really coming down. I was making chicken parmesan while the boys were watching The Charlie Brown Halloween special we have on DVD. The one where Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin and Charlie Brown meanwhile has the holiest cut out ghost costume you have truly ever seen. ; )
Chicken cutlets with Italian style bread crumbs frying in a skillet of olive oil. After they cooked, I drained them off. Then placed them in a metal pan with sauce in it and baked them in the oven. Wrapped in tin foil. And then, the last 5 minutes added some mozzarella on top of each of the cutlets. Until melty gooey.
The Halloween cookies in the background and dinner Saturday night. We had this with a fresh baguette of bread with butter from the bakery sliced. It was a really good dinner Saturday night. We were warm and cozy at home. We could still hear the rain outside.
Sunday afternoon. Branden picking out which template he wanted dad to use to make his pumpkin. I meanwhile was handling Noah's pumpkin, we had a plan already. : )
Hi Branden, hi Noah. Boy by the looks of it, so many of those cookies are now gone. Carving tools that Noboru and I used.
Taping the face Branden chose onto his pumpkin.
By now, Sunday afternoon no rain as you can tell in this picture. It was a mantis btw, he was busy looking and preying on a tiny little grasshopper. @_@
A plastic pumpkin filled of Halloween treats. Hey, we may not do trick or treating in Japan (unless you live on the base, that is ; ) But, I do always try to make the holidays special here at our house regardless. And always try to do the best I can, to make their childhood years fun and memorable.
I was waiting to take a pic of Noboru tracing the picture, but then I realized Noah's expression. It made me laugh a little, because it looks like a....."wow my dad can do anything" type face. He might not always think so, about us..... when he's older so...was glad to get it on camera and document it now. : )
Get that pumpkin cleaned out kiddo! : )
Scoop it out Noah.
Some pumpkin guts right there. : )
You're doing great.
Aha, dad's done with your face now Branden and you can join Noah. Go on....clean him out. : )
This is a dirty job....but someones gotta do it. ; )
Some laughter from Branden. They honestly had a blast doing this.
Kindergarten sized fingers with pumpkin guts.
After the pumpkin carving was done. We broke for dinner. The kids watched more Halloween cartoons. This cartoon is called, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, such a funny cartoon.
Yes, this is Japan and they accidentally spelled Halloween wrong. But the positive is...at least living here....we do have Halloween specials. So that is the positive. : ) And the kids loved watching all the cool Halloween cartoons on satellite.
And finished!!! Branden's on the left and Noah's on the right. Noboru is so much better at this then I am. So he could do a very cool elaborate pirates...skull and cross bones. Meanwhile, I made a happy peppy witch. And even that was a bit of a cheat because it was a plastic sheet that went in there and with candle inside it illuminated this pretty picture. Yes Noboru's was way better then mine. LOL. : )
The beauty of it, was that Noah's such a sweetheart, he loved what I did. He told me...you did really good mommy.
Okay now it's time to put them proudly on the front porch. Jack-o-lanterns 2010!
Do you see what looks like teeny tiny white dots in this pic? It's not snow, it was rain. It just looks like that on camera for some reason. It started to rain yet again, Sunday evening but just lightly. By now the typhoon was a no show and all the rain we got Saturday was all we ended up with. These pics will be added to their scrapbook. Halloween 2010. : ) And of the cookies, etc. So they can remember. I'll even throw a pic of dinner in there so they can go...wow, now I know what I ate, for such and such night. LOL. ; )
By the way....see the glowing pumpkin heads, where our flowers usually go? For the month of October, we had 4 glowing pumpkin heads every night, they were set on the timer and started glowing at precisely 5:30pm every evening and would turn off automatically at 9pm.
And now safely back into the warm house, sweatshirts off. And dinner eaten, time to take the Halloween snacks into the living room and continue watching more Halloween cartoons and kids movies. Treats, roasted pumpkin seeds and homemade Halloween cookies. : )
And thank you dad, for sending the kids some Halloween cheer. They loved your Halloween cards. Noah's card was on the left....with the skeleton and Branden's was the other one. : )
The cards are being kept safely and tucked away for when they're older. And can look back and read them. Anyway, sorry a few days late. But better late then never, as they always say. : ) Anyay, this is how we spent Halloween in our neck of the woods this year. : )
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