Happy Pumpkin Day!

My dear husband cleaned the house (partially, anyway) today while I was at work and, in the process, found my camera cord. So here are our Halloween pictures! First, carving the giant pumpkins that sprouted from seeds in our front yard. They were beauties! We put the kids in the picture for scale.



Bill carved, and I had the fun job of scooping the guts out. Surprisingly, I couldn't get either of the kids to help me - they're fastidious about the strangest things. Here's the result of our handiwork, glowing on the front porch on Halloween night:



And here are the little gremlins, all dressed up:



My mother-in-law is to thank for Owen's devil costume...she dressed up as a devil last year, and Sydney found the accoutrements when she was helping decorate the in-laws' house for Halloween. She was all set to be the devilish one (I even bought her a red shirt and pants for the occasion), but at the last minute decided that she wanted to squeeze into her Blue's Clues costume from two years ago. Owen didn't have a strong opinion either way, so he made a delightful little devil. He was too cute when we pinned his tail on him - he ran around in a little circle barking. I wouldn't make this stuff up, folks!

Trick or treating was a great success - we went up our street and the next one over (our street is only two blocks long, so it wasn't too big a trek). The kids were totally into it (especially Sydney, who started asking if she could "pick out one more piece" at every house after one kind person made that offer to her) and came home with a great haul. It was fun for me to meet a few neighbors I hadn't run into yet (and peek inside their houses). We were also delighted to run into a family dressed up as the Teletubbies, complete with an adult-sized Tinky Winky.

We got several trick-or-treaters at our house, but of course I bought way too much candy (as I do every year) so we're totally candied out here. I'm going to need to go up a size in all my clothes between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas! It's ridiculous.

On the knitting front, I'm working on yet more samples for January TNNA. I tweaked my shoulder a few days ago putting on a sweatshirt but fortunately knitting doesn't bother it too much. I just can't reach out to pick anything up. I'm knitting furiously on a lace stole made out of Kidsilk Haze which has been in progress for over a year. I'm glad to finally have a specific deadline for it since maybe now I'll actually finish it! I've also got a few small samples to finish up and test knitters to hear from, and then I'll be all set for the show.

Gee, this blogging every day thing isn't so hard after all! I just need an excuse to make it a priority. Obviously, from the length of these posts, I have plenty to say... In fact, I could go on and on, but I think I'll save something for tomorrow! Coming up, more published patterns!