Well it is here…Halloween…All Hallow’s Eve…the last day of October. Could a month have went by more rapidly? I don’t know. This post will be predominately pics so bear with me. Although long it should be a quick read.
My wife and 3 of her friends from work meet monthly at one or the other’s home for a get together. They adopted the name Dancing Tarts from the title of this post. Mary knew that I would appreciate the opportunity to do a Halloween-themed Tarts party and thus the invitations went out last week:
(Alex Raymond illustration for envelope)
(cover of tri-fold card)
(World series was over, of course…and vampire hunting proved unsuccessful)
(need to have at least one ‘tart’ on the invitation!)
The party kicked in gear Friday night. I decorated the kitchen table with this centerpiece
and each lady had their own grave marker treat bag
complete with really bad macabre poetry by yours truly. Each one reflects something about the Tart in question and I reprint them here for you to moan and groan at my poetic terror:
Mary (loves dessert):
Mary, Mary…quite contrary,
She was as a matter of fact.
Insisted on eating one last dessert
and she died of a tart attack.
Dominique (has an impending stray cat problem):
Curiosity drove Dominique to grant a reprieve
To every cat she discovered outside.
When she ran out of room she asked them to leave
Curiously they stayed, and she died.
Carrie (likes, and reportedly frequently sings, showtunes):
Carrie was quiet fond of her karaoke,
showtunes she like to sing.
‘Memory’, ‘Fame’, and “the hills are alive”
were a few of her favorite things.
One rainy night up on the roof
“the sun’ll come out tomorrow” did ring.
As she slipped and fell to the solid ground
she felt the wind beneath her her wings.
Laura (world champion knitter):
All the danger aside, a mob knitting job
was what our Laura did take.
A sweater for Nick, one matching for Pearl
she was now ordered to make.
She knitted all night but it wasn’t right
one was pink, the other blue.
They started to fight, Laura died that night
because Nick won (and) Pearl too.
There’s a bad knitting pun in that last line…really bad, I admit!
and Tori (my daughter…teenager…shopper):
Tori shopped and spent, purchased and bought
at the mall though she had not a need
Piled with bags, looking not as she ought
a ‘watch your step’ sign she did not heed.
Tumbling down to the floor below she thought
“Shop ’til you drop, indeed!”
Sorry, but I had to share. We ate delicious vegetarian chili, grilled cheese and apple sandwiches on sourdough bread, and had a cream cheese and chocolate pie for dessert. We roasted pumpkin seeds and the girls carved pumpkins:
We took them outside and lit them up and I played with various settings on Nick’s digital camera:
The long faced guys are squash that I had carved earlier in the day.
These are some pics of pumpkins and lights I took with the camera set on the ‘fireworks’ setting:
The party was alot of fun and I enjoyed being an honorary tart for the evening.
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Saturday afternoon the Smith family came over to carve pumpkins for the first time. Although I had cleaned out the inside of the Tart’s pumpkins the day before I thought Jeff needed to dive right in to get the whole effect.
We (the royal ‘we’…meaning ‘Mary’) baked cookies and we all sat around decorating them.
(Zach “the Fonz”, Tori, and Ashley)
Keri arrived and we carved pumpkins…the kids helped some but mom and dad got to do most of the work.
(Zach “the Fang”)
(Ashley, “the demure”)
Zach picked out a wolf pattern that Keri carved for him which turned out great
And Ashley wanted a combination of a horse and some stars and lightning bolts from 2 different patterns which Jeff mastered quite will for his first carving experience.
(taken with ‘fireworks’ setting)
Tori found a really cool pattern of the face of Chicken Little from the upcoming Disney flick. It turned out really cool but I didn’t get a good picture of it.
We played games and ate pizza and had a really terrific time.
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All in all we had a wonderful Halloween weekend and look forward to the trick-or-treaters tonight…especially James and Jules’ brood who always look adorable in their costumes. One year…was it last?…the three oldest dressed in matching pink 60’s go-go dancer outfits…it was super cute!
I hope you all have a wonderful, safe and happy Halloween! I’ve enjoyed sharing predominately horror based posts with you and there are more to come over the coming months as there are things I didn’t have time to post. Thanks for reading.
It looks like you had quite the perfect Carl weekend.
Close, but perfection would have been if Jeff and I could’ve managed to do all that we did with our families on Saturday and still been able to make it to Saw II with you and Tom! We’ll catch it this week though.
Great pic’s Carl. We all had a blast over at your house on Saturday. I definitely needed the extra hour of sleep on Sunday. 🙂 Thanks again for having us over.
Looks like it was a great weekend for you. The pics are fun. Mary is a very beautiful……dead princess?
She actually had bugs glued on her but they kept falling off…the tiara was a later edition that eventually ended up on my head for a good portion of the night. Laura hasn’t sent me pics or I would’ve posted on of that as well.
And a hearty ‘thank you’ to Dominique for letting me borrow your camera…I really, really appreciate it!!!
looks fun. glad you enjoyed it!
wow – those punkins (and squash) are absolutely amazing – looks like fun
my roomate & i carved out pumpkins the other night.. i forgot how disgusting the insides were to scoop out.
I was suprised…Jeff’s kids were pretty disgusted by the whole thing too and gave the inside cleaning job over to us to finish!
It was alot of fun…I enjoy carving pumpkins eventhough using the patterns makes it somewhat easier its still fun to do to see if they’ll come out looking like they are supposed to. Didn’t have to do any toothpick repairs of broken parts this year and we all feel pretty good about that!
Those pumpkins are great looking. Makes me wish that carving pumpkins was big over here so I could see some in real life. But it aint.
I like digging out the goo. I think it’s fun! The kids do, too. Elaina tried her hardest to do it all herself. I guess next year I’ll have to get me my own pumpkin!
I would’ve loved to see the D girls doing their pumpkins…I bet they had a ball.
Fence, next year I’ll send you a pumpkin carving kit and you can start a wave of jack-o-lanterns in Ireland!!!
I love the “fireworks setting” pictures very cool.
Dare I say it? I loved your poetry.
And the pumkins look fantastic.
I weep for you Anne, I really do! 🙂
I enjoyed the heck out of that fireworks setting as well WE…I took A BUNCH of pix with it just messing about and seeing what it would do.
Cool pumpkins. Where did you get the patterns?
We got them from those pumpkin carving kits you can buy everywhere…Target I think is where I got these.
Thanks Carl and Mary and Tori and Alyssa for watching Anjelia. It was a very relaxing time for us taking the girls door to door without the toddler. Thanks too for the treat bags. I asked the girls what was in them and they said, “GOOD STUFF!”.
I was wrong about Houdini. 🙁
Did you notice I called her the toddler and not “the baby”. Maybe I’m slowly coming around!
We had fun watching her…she’s funny when she’s sitting next to you and you aren’t talking to her directly because she just talks and talks.
Yes, you were wrong but Houdini’s death was an interesting one and that was a fantastic 2 hour special…I’d watch that again if it comes back on.
Awesome pumpkin carving! Way too cool.
I sacrificed (pun intended) my Halloween this year to vacationing out of state. Oh well, next year.
Sometimes its good to go home, Rob. Thanks for the compliments, we had a great time!
Great pics, Carl! You were really enjoying that “firework” setting on the camera 🙂 Pumpkin carving has never been so much fun. Thanks to all the Andersons for a terrific evening.
-Carrie (Baby Tart)
Glad you had fun, Carrie…I enjoyed having you and the rest of the Tarts over to share my love of Halloween!
Alex Raymond, the illustrator of “You have been summoned” died in a car crash.