I never promised you a rose garden*

but I did promise you photos of the pumpkins! so here goes!

the scary guy you saw on Monday

franken-pumpkin and friends

pacman and a ghostie... please tell me you remember
playing this in the video arcades... I'm not that old, am i?

mike's scary skull

the punkin crowd (i like mike's scared pumkin hiding his eyes behind his hands)

We had 8 pumpkins altogether - 2 big ones and a medium one that Mike got from the store, two smaller ones that we grew in the backyard but couldn't eat because the vines got killed by frost before the pumpkins were ripe, and 3 squashes that we got from our neighbour - they never ripened properly either because of the frost.

I loved all our pumpkins, but this little guy was one of my favourite:
I had this guy sitting on the kitchen windowsill while he was waiting to be carved, and at one point I knocked him over and he landed head first on a metal measuring scoop that i had been using to scrape out the insides... it cut into him and stuck there, so I decided to leave it in... you know, like when you get a piece of glass in your hand and you're supposed to leave it in there till you get medical help, so that you don't bleed to death? (this is the one piece of first aid i remember learning in grade school - well, this and how to hide under your desk in the event of an earthquake) well, this guy's cut started to leech a little water, so I decided it was best to leave the scoop where it was. So i cut a hole in his back to gut him and put the candle in, and then carved his little face. I thought his look of horror was especially appropriate since the evil rats with fur coats (a.k.a. the squirrels) had already attacked his face several weeks ago. so now he looks like he's as huge a klutz as i am!

After setting up all the pumpkins (and taking far too many photos of them) i got the candies ready...

Aeros and smarties and reese peanut butter cups - oh my!
just the standard Canadian candy selection :)

and play-doh for the little ones!

and now, in a move that i may very soon come to regret... here are some photos of us at the Halloween party we went to on Saturday night...

do you recognize our costumes? Mighty Hercules and his girlfriend Helena, from the 1970's cartoon series... (mike is going to kill me when he sees these photos on here!) We made the costumes from two flat sheets, some cardboard, and some fake leather... took 4 hours and about $30... and I think it shows, just a little! ;)

k, that's it... the halloween flashback is over... time to go get ready for Guy Fawkes day! (no, we don't actually celebrate it here... but i would if we had a place to light a bonfire, or even a fireplace that was more than just a mantle!)

more knitting stuff in my next post, I promise!

*this is the title of a book, in case you didn't know....