Porter's Disgusting Dinner Delight - 2011

The mood was set with spooky music, the lights were low and candles were burning.  Mysterious smells wafted from the kitchen. One by one each of the Porter children knocked on the door to the family room/kitchen. They were greeted by the hostess of the Disgusting Dinner Delight restaurant.

"What do you want?" she said.
"Um . . . . dinner."  And then they were led by the hostess to their seat at the Table of Doom, where they selected their meal from an array of enticing choices.  Goblin Droppings, Scab Picker, Zombie Intestines, Shivering Slimy Ghosts, Bloody Cat Hearts,  Decapitated Digits, Bat Saliva, Crunchy Cicadas, Leftover Toejam, Bat Saliva, Ghostly Spirits.  Yum.  How delicious.

Thanks to lots of hard work with food challenges and OT, Joseph was only a little nervous about choosing disgusting sounding foods without knowing what he would receive.  (In past years, this was really tough for him). And, he tried everything on his plate, including the finger!

 

The 2011 Disgusting Dinner Delight was a great success!

Making pumpkin faces

After our perfect pumpkins were selected early in October, they sat on our front porch for weeks. Joseph was anxious to carve the pumpkins from the very first day we brought them home, but I convinced him to wait until closer to Halloween. To take the sting out of the delay, I had him paint one of his pumpkins.

But, he still asked me every day if today we could finally break out the knives and carve. However, as we neared the end of October it became increasingly difficult to get everyone in the family home at the same time. Seriously, we couldn't find one night when everyone was available. Finally, we did our carving the night before Halloween. And even that wasn't perfect, because Bailey chose not to carve since she was doing some prepping for a big Geometry test taking place the next day.  Oh well.

First Joseph drew a picture of his carving plan.

 Then he helped Dad carve. Well, we forced him to help. It's ironic that he was the most excited 6-year-old in the universe to carve his pumpkin, but didn't actually want to touch the gooey stuff.

 And the finished products.

 Aubrey also wasn't a fan of scooping out the pumpkin innards.Good thing Dan is so, so patient!

 

I love the freckles on your pumpkin, Aub!

Pumpkin Patch

Somehow I missed blogging about all our October festivities. So, here goes my catching up.
Early in October we made our annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch.  It was a beautiful fall day - the kind of day I remember with great fondness now that the weather has turned colder!

Our friends the Kartchners met us there. Here Joseph is with two of his bestest buddies.

Joseph had a staring contest with the sheep - who could keep a straight face longer?  Hmmmmm - I wonder.

Loved this gentle donkey.

My sweet girls, growing up too fast.

The pumpkin launch - a huge slingshot thing which always requires Dan's help to pull back.

Riding the wagon to the pumpkin fields.

Picking out the perfect pumpkins.

 

 As we were preparing to load back up on the wagon, Aubrey accidentally slipped on some rotted pumpkin and landed in a pile of pumpkin slime (and who knows what else). Wow - it was some stinky and disgusting stuff, and she was covered from her feet to midway up her back.

The greatest thing, though, was her attitude. Aubrey just laughed it off and kept smiling when it would have been easy to be really upset. Way to go, Aubrey!  

By the way, we did break all the traffic laws and let her ride the short distance home in the very back of van. We had her go back there and strip off her stinky clothes where there is a liner to protect the car floor. She didn't want to jump up to the regular seat in her skivvies, so we gave in.  It took three washings with hot water to get the smell and stain out of her clothes!

That's it for the pumpkin patch - til next year!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

Joseph is very INTO the holidays this year, in every possible way.  When I pulled out my paltry collection of Halloween/Fall decorations this year, he was aghast. I have never owned an abundance of Halloween decorations, and the older I get the more simplified and streamlined I have made our holiday decorating.  Well, according to Joseph, this is Unacceptable.

He talked to me incessantly about our sad state of festive preparedness and what types of Halloween decorations we needed to buy until I finally took him to the store and let him pick out a few things to jazz up our walkway.  I am realizing belatedly that I didn't ever take a picture of our festive and tacky new decorations . . . . skeleton window clings, bright yellow caution tape wrapped around the front porch, light up ghosts to line the walkway. You get the idea. And Joseph was really  happy.

Until the day after Halloween, when he wondered where my box of Thanksgiving decorations was hiding.  "Hmmmm," I said, "I think I have a few turkeys somewhere." And I found three cute little turkeys to add to the tables in the living room. But did that satisfy my little holiday decoration aficionado?  Oh no, no, no. Unacceptable. So, he decided to try a new tack and proposed that we decorate early for Christmas.  Like now - right now.

Last Sunday I was taking a nap after church. Apparently while I was in a semi-sleep state Joseph asked me if he could get out some of the Christmas boxes.  And apparently I said yes (to get him to leave me alone, I'm sure, but I do not remember this). So, he immediately went downstairs to tell Dan that "Mom said you are supposed to get out some Christmas boxes."  So, they did. And when I came downstairs a few hours later, this is what I saw.

 

 

 

That's right . . . turkeys co-existing with snowmen, Christmas trees, and all our regular decor. It's very unique. Our house looked like frantic Christmas elves threw decorations around haphazardly.  And to Joseph it looked just right.

Dan and I talked and decided that there is no compelling reason to hold off on Christmas decorating until after Thanksgiving, other than the avoidance of extra clutter in the house. So, we decided to follow the lead of our youngest and jump headlong into the holidays.  Which wasn't too difficult, because Bailey has been listening to Christmas music since the day after Halloween and both she and Joseph have already written multiple Christmas lists. (And Joseph has written many, many letters to Santa, currying favor before the big day arrives.)

 And that's how we do holidays at the Porter home. Early and wholeheartedly.