The return of the carved Halloween Pumpkins

Bert and TC haven't carved Halloween Pumpkins in FOUR years!

It's been a good two or three years since I've worn my house robes...

Halloween 2017

Man, where are all the kids at?

I want to get rid of all this shit tonight, ha ha...

Halloween 2016

I didn't dress up this year to pass out candy.

I wore my "costume" all day at work and the weight of the battery pack was irritating me...

My Halloween Costume - The "Stranger Things" Alphabet Wall

It's almost Halloween and I've had the dilemma of trying to figure out which costume I wanted to wear...

I originally wanted to be two other characters...

Halloween Pez 2016

It's that time of the year again when I change out the Pez in the house..

where they have a place of honor in our family room's media cabinet (do they even make those anymore now that you can mount flatscreens?)...

Happy Halloween 2015

Happy Halloween!

(from "Beef 'n Bun Whistle Stop" 2015, post is forthcoming)

Alas, no carved pumpkins from us this year...

Halloween 2014

Regretfully, this will be the first year we won't have any carved pumpkins gracing our front porch...

We just didn't have enough time this year so we will just have to double the effort next year...

Halloween 2013

Happy Halloween!!!

I'm doing candy duty tonight, along with TC....

Costumes 2012

All right, now that Halloween is all done...

let us gaze upon these donuts...

Carve this!

Happy Halloween!

The scene from last night...TC and Bert diligently working on two of our three pumpkins...

The big reveal after the jump!

About last night...

Seeing double?

One of the neighbors the next street over ALSO went as Slash! He's actually bald, which I didn't know. When I showed Bert the photo, he recognized him as a neighborhood kid's dad. Anyways, it was funny because my sis just HAD to get a photo of the two Slashes

Halloween Pumpkins 2011

Bert was hard at work yesterday making our Halloween pumpkins...

TC carved her own (Boo in the monster suit), while Bert did my True Blood and his favorite Avenger, the Vision...

Slash this! (Costumes 'n Food)

A few days ago we went to a Halloween costume party for TC's dance group. It wasn't as well attended as last year's party, but there was still a lot of good food (OMFG, rellenong alimasag!)...

and crazy cool costumes!

Let's take a look at the replay...

Getting ready for Halloween

We bought our candy late this year. Bert picked up some bags of the cheapy candy. Well, you know, the non-chocolate kind. Nerds, Laffy Taffy, SweetTarts, gum, lollipops and such.

We have a bag of the "goodstuff" too but that's for us in case we run out...

Random stuff...

Since it's Halloween, there is a plethora of crappy merchandise available...

Seen at a local Michael's, here's some monsters and a witch made "cute". Sorry but this just isn't right!

Happy Halloween from Eric Northman...

My husband is so awesome!

Last night he carved my favorite "True Blood" vampire on a pumpkin for me!

This shit is going on our fkg porch tonight along with TC's Spider Pumpkin and Bert's Howling Wolves pumpkin (those pictures to be posted later)! Check at the end of this post for all three pumpkins together!

Here's the hawt photo from which the design was based (this is Season 2 Eric, not Season 1 where he wears that fugly bobbed pageboy wig)

This Eric Northman stencil is courtesy of one half of the fab duo that makes up the blog "Camp Blood". These are two guys with a penchant for comics and horror movies.They are also frequent commentators on the podcast "Loving True Blood in Dallas" (check Dallas's blog here). Andy Swist has other "True Blood" themed stencils like Lafayette (yaysss!), Sookie Stackhouse and Bill Compton (boo).

Check it out here: Eric Northman pumpkin stencil from Andy's Brains!!!

As promised, here are our three pumpkins...

Carvings courtesy of Bert (Eric Northman and the howling wolves) and TC (black widow spider). The wolf in the middle used to have sharp teeth but they kind of disintegrated (it was carved a day and a half before Halloween). Lots of detail in that one. I loved my Eric pumpkin! So fkg rad!

I wish "Everyday was like Halloween"...

TC's dance company had a costume party recently and in addition to tons of food, there were also cool costumes worn by both the kids (younger and teens) and the parents (us). Before we left, I took a photo of TC in her costume. For her school, everyone dresses up as a literary character. Last year, she went as Katara from "Avatar - The Last Airbender" (see that costume here). This year, she chose Annabeth Chase, the female demi-god from Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series. She is a strong and independent character and can kick major ass!!! Great choice TC!

Plus, it was the easiest costume ever! I bought the orange shirt at Michaels for $3.99 (it's really big on her because it's an Adult S), the NYC cap from Wal-Mart for $7 and the Iron-on transfers for $6 (3 sheets in the package). Bert downloaded the "Camp Half-Blood Logo and Pegasus" for the shirt design. Bert found a wanna be knife at K-Mart for $2.00 Annabeth's hat makes her "invisible". One of her props is a "bronze celestial dagger" but this knife will have to do. As for pants, Annabeth wears jeans. Easy!The only thing TC didn't want to do was wear a blond wig (thank goodness!). By the way, Annabeth wouldn't really post with her dagger that way.

A depiction of Annabeth Chase (from wikipedia's entry)

So hey, I decided to resurrect my "Joe Elliott" outfit from the "Photograph" video (he is the lead singer of Def Leppard). I didn't wear the white bandanna around me neck or the red legwarmers or white shoes. I felt this was close enough and I knew that no one at the building would even know who I was. Which they didn't. Sigh. They just thought I was a "British" rocker.

The breakdown: Vintage Union Jack Muscle Shirt bought in 1983 for $15 (after begging my mom to buy it for me). Red wristband from Hot Topic $3. TC's black studded cuff $3 (Target!) and stretchy metal belt from Express $20 (I've worn this belt with other outfits so it's not just for this get up). Black Converse One Stars (child's size 6 = women's 8) $20 at Target!.  Skinny black jeans are mine and were bought at the juniors section at Nordstrom - Brass Plum.

Here's the real Joe Elliott back in the 80's. Of course, I think I look waaay better than that! Ha ha!

Bert wore his Michael Meyers costume from last year. Unbeknownst to Bert, another guy wore a similar outfit. This guy always does something scary every year. This year, he was the dude from "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", Leatherface. The lights in the building were turned off with only the strobe light, signalling his impending appearance. All of a sudden, we heard the RRRRRRRR of the chainsaw and a wierd smell filled the air as he stalked the interior in a menacing way, scaring a few of the younger kids. It was so funny that their outfits were so similar! I think it's funny how Bert is so much darker than that mask!

Here's me and Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. He has a red one too, but got the new yellow shirt this year.

I thought these costumes were awesome. These are my my cousin's kids. One of them (my godson actually) went as Russell, the little boy from "Up". The older nephew went as Ash from Pokemon (he is a college graduate!). The youngest, my neice went as Hello Kitty.

My nephew worked so hard to get his costume just right. He made the sash and the badges himself with felt. He also had a pot hanging from the backpack (instead of a trumpet). Everyone loved it!!!!

This was one of the few images I could find of Hello Kitty with the red dress.

And here is Ash Ketchum - the boy who tries to train and catch all of the Pocket Monsters (Pokemon). My nephew also had the "ball" (held in his left hand). In the picture below, Ash is shown with Pikachu in his left hand.

Now one of the BEST Costumes of the night was this guy who went as Antoine Dodson, of the "Bed Intruder Interview" video.

Here's the real Antoine Dodson..."Obvioussssly!"

He came in struttring his stuff and waving his rolled up paper in the air. The older teenagers were howling with laughter while the younger kids were wondering what was so funny. Capt. Kirk showed me the video on his iPhone. I felt like I lived in a cave because I didn't know about this dude who apparently has his own website now after the video went viral and two white guys made his interview into a song which is now available on iTunes.
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Here's the original video along with the song which manipulated his video with auto-tune. "Hide yo kids, hide yo wife!". Just goes to show you that anyone can get famous for anything nowadays. The song starts at 1:36...

Other cool costumes were a couple who dressed up as babies, complete with terry cloth diapers. One kid made her own costume - she was a robot (cardboard box and all), while one boy went as a Knight character from a video game, "Castle Crusaders", complete with hand made paper mache helmet (cushioned with foam inside), a few cats, several "nerds", and a few kids whose mom sewed stuffed spikes onto their hoodies so they would look like dinosaurs. The hood had eyes and fake teeth. Very creative.

Along with the costumes was a boatload of food - cheese for nachos, pizzas for the kids, spring rolls, and bread sticks (under the foil). This was early in the evening, later on, the table was filled with potluck donations...

There was creamy penne pasta with bacon, buffalo chicken wings, fried shrimp, tofu with sliced pig ears (I tried one and did NOT like it - the texture was too soft!), two kinds of pancit (bihon and luglug), two kinds of fried rice, regular rice, green salad, pork ribs adobo, chicken arroz caldo...

One of the mom's brought in her signature dessert - chocolate swirl brownies. Our table immediately hijacked one tray while I took a corner!

Another person brought in dipped jumbo marshmallows - I liked the chocolate dipped ones with crushed pretzels which was nice because it was salty and sweet. I'm thinking of making this for a future holiday party...seems easy enough.

Someone came in late and we noticed that there was a flurry of activity at the table. WTH?  Turns out that person brought in what they jokingly referred to as "The Time Bomb".    Hands were grabbing bits and pieces everywhere! I'm lucky to have even gotten a clear shot.

Take a good look - FRIED CHICKEN SKINS!   Complete with vinegar soy sauce dip.

Only at a Filipino party!

El Cajon Blvd Street Banners

Cool street banners seen last week during our foray into El Cajon.  Love it! There were three kinds of scary things...



We took the "scenic" route from the Himalayan restaurant (see that post here) to get to Adams Avenue. A few days ago, there was a huge festival during the weekend so me and my GF's weren't able to check out Mariposa after our dinner at Tapas Picasso...

On our way to Mariposa Ice Cream!

Marshmallow Graveyard

One night, TC was bored so we bought some ready made chocolate chip cookie dough. Then we flattened it on a pan and baked it. When it was done, she decorated the "graveyard" with these Halloween shaped marshamallows she bought at Target. They are shapped like ghosts. She alsomade tombstones by flattening and cutting regular white jumbo marshmallows.

She used little sprinkles and colored sugars to make faces and designs on the ghosts and tombstones. The chocolate sprinkles are freshly turned dirt from the grave. Nice and morbid.

The cookie didn't taste too bad, but the marshmallows were a bit too sweet for me.

She had a lot of fun making this and the only thing I had to do was put the pan in the oven and take it out!  Oh yeah, she also enjoyed spearing these tiny marshmallows with toothpicks and jabbing them into the cookie dough.   Next time we do this, I will have to get other edible and fun decorations.

TC's costume - Katara from Avatar the Last Airbender

[photos originally taken during the 2009 Comic Con in July]

I meant to post these a while back, but you know how things can get busy and then you forget...Anyways, earlier this summer, I had TC' costume custom made for the Comic Con. The seamstress also does costumes for the ballet; this was one of her first non ballet costumes and her first costume based on an animated character. My daughter went as Katara from Nickelodeon's excellent animated series, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" (fyi - this will be a live action movie coming out next summer; it's directed by M. Night Shymalan). More on the animated series here. Cannot wait!!!

Instead of those incredibly lame and weakass bDisney princess bitches or that horrible hillbilly bimbo Hannah Montana (I predict that Miley Cyrus will end up pregnant or in rehab by the time she's 17) or those slutty ass outfits that hypersexualize young girls (c'mon does your 9 year old really need to be a sexy Little Red Riding Hood or a French maid?), my daughter wanted to go as someone who was kind and strong and independent. One who could kick ass and bend water!The Katara costume was a bit complicated because there were so many components. With only TC's Avatar books as guides as well as patterns I found on the internet fan and Cosplay sites, the makings of TC's costume was based on Katara's battle costume. This particular comes in six pieces. There's a pair of arm gauntlets (dark blue), then a side slit wrap blue tunic with white edging complete with curly-cue water design on the lower corners of the tunic. The white-obi like sash serves as a belt over the tunic top. Then, there are the blue pajama like pants as well as the faux fur lined velour "boot" covers which have an elastic that goes over and under her shoes. The last handmade piece was the waterbag which was made of felt with a rope strap.

Back view of her costume. TC's hair by the way is modeled after Katara's - worn tied back with braided "loopies" over the ears. Because TC's hair is layered, the pony tail didn't really stay that nicely. Also, I think the seamstress made the waterbag too big. But what the fk, what's done is done, right?

The last of her kind, Katara is the only one left in her Water Tribe - (the Southern Water Tribe) who can bend the element of water.

Another view...

Another part of her costume was the Water Tribe necklace- which I made myself. The necklace is supposed to be "Katara's grandmother's betrothal necklace" which was handed down to her. I thought Bert and I did a reasonable facsimile of this necklace....

I bought a royal blue grosgrain ribbon and added plated silver end crimps to the ends. The end crimps come with attachments for a clasp and chain since they are made specifically for ribbon chokers. I took apart an old necklace and used its clasp and extender chain. For the choker, I bought a circular but flat mother of pearl pendant and painted over it with sky blue fabric paint. Bert's contribution was the water tribe insignia which he drew with a steady hand since I was afraid I'd mess up. Lastly, I attached the pendant to the chocker with a jump ring. Voila...Katara's water tribe necklace!

At the Con, she had her photo taken by a few people. The first was this Asian fan boy and the others were by giddy females. The year before, a whole group of young people (teens) went as the entire cast of Avatar the Last Airbender (Aang, Sokka, Toph, Katara, etc). Cosplay is taken very seriously at the Con, but TC wore this for fun. I figured she'd get some use of out this after the Con with upcoming Halloween costume parties, the Literature Parade at her school and Halloween itself. I think this was her favorite costume so far over the years. She was the only Katara at her school and the only one probably in our neighborhood. I'm glad she chose such a great character!