Earlier in the day we put Charlotte's lamb headpiece on her to see what her reaction would be. We were encouraged that she would tolerate the costume based on the results...
Before all of the "festivities," I ventured out to find the missing piece to our Halloween puzzle - a pumpkin! Steve was working from home so he was able to watch Charlotte while I went out. Carrying a baby and a pumpkin at the same time - something I was not willing to attempt. I thought foolishly that the grocery stores would still have pumpkins for sale. All Safeway had was a basket of rotting mini pumpkins and decorative gourds. Bloom was no help, and all that remained at Whole Foods were small and difficult to carve (from past experience) pie pumpkins. I remembered I had seen a "pumpkin patch" in the parking lot of the Trader Joe's/JoAnn Fabrics shopping center, so as a final attempt I headed there. Yeah - I could see the orange glow from 2 stoplights away - PUMPKINS! There were actually lots of other people there as well.
I browsed the pumpkins for a while - there were HUGE ones with price tags upwards of $50, lots of 'bo-bo' looking ones (mishapen, smushed, dirty, stemless, etc) and a ton of small ones for $4 a piece. I finally found a decently sized and shaped one for a reasonable price. It was pretty heavy but I picked it up and headed to check out. A nice pumpkin patch worker offered a shopping cart for me to put it in while I waited. He asked where my car was as if he was going to carry it over for me, to which I immediately think - is this guy going to expect a tip for carrying (check that, pushing) this thing to my car?? He stepped away for a moment to load a bale of hay into a woman's car, so I grabbed my pumpkin and ran (well, not really).
By the time I got home it was about 3:30. Charlotte needed to eat again, so I took care of that and then got to carving. Because we were limited on time and I was working with a steak knife, I just did the traditional triangle eyes and nose, and a simple mouth. I did add a bit of flair by putting ears on! I was pretty proud of my last minute work.
Our master plan was about to be put in motion. Charlotte ate her cereal, we wiped her down, and began the process of turning her into an adorable little lamb!
After we got her dressed we went next door to show her off to our favorite neighbors (the only ones we really know and talk to). Bummer - they weren't home. No surprise - we were "trick or treating" at 5:15! Oh well. We decided to just take some outside pictures instead.
Overall it was a good experience for everyone. Hopefully next year we will be able to do some more official trick or treating!
Charlotte's typical open-mouth look
All smiles...
No comments:
Post a Comment