Halloween👻❤👽👾💀

     Instead of going trick-or-treating this year, we went to a Halloween "party".  I'm scared of using the word party because those are pretty much off limits due to Covid.  It was more of a family gathering and it only had 7 adults so I think it was fine.  Anyways, Kat had a blast!  We made all the kids go outside while we hid candy around the house and when they came inside they ran around the house looking for candy.  All the kids ended up with a TON of candy!  It was also so cute to see Kat's older cousins helping her get candy that she couldn't reach or didn't see.  Her cousins could have just grabbed it and put it in their buckets but instead they helped Kat (the youngest of the bunch).  The "party" also had a piñata that looked like a mummy, pin the face on the pumpkin, relay race with balancing an "eye ball" on a spoon, popping orange pumpkins (balloons) with candy in them, and a lot more games.  My sister hosted it and we all chipped in a little, it was so fun seeing the kids have fun.  I thought Halloween might not be as fun as a mom, that sounds bad but I knew I wouldn't be going to any haunted houses or staying out crazy late watching scary movies like I did as a teenager, but Halloween is actually way better as a mom.  We dressed Kat up as Super Girl and she looked adorable and I wore a batman shirt and Josiah wore a superman shirt.  They were extremely easy costumes so maybe next year Kat will actually pick something she wants to be and I'll have to try to make it, we'll see.

     I tried to take a cute picture of Kat with her pumpkins but she didn't even want to get close to them until Josiah laid down next to one.   Needless to say, I never got that super cute picture that I wanted, but I am okay with that.  These are cute enough and we had a blast painting the pumpkins together as a family.  I thought painting them might not be as fun as carving them, but it was actually just as fun and Kat got to do it with us too.  

     When I was little, I remember drawing on the pumpkin and then my dad would cut out what I drew on the pumpkin.  I thought about doing this for Kat, but I don't think she is old enough yet to understand that.  She probably would have just thought we were ruining her painting and I didn't want to do that, so they were just painted for Halloween and I think they turned out adorable.  We also got to eat them after decorating them which we couldn't do if we had turned them into Jack-O-Lanterns.  

     Kat enjoyed taking the "guts" out of the pumpkins and playing with the goo inside.  I was a little nervous letting her play with the seeds because they are so hard and she could choke on them but I told her not to put them in her mouth and she never did.  She is getting so big and I love all the fun things I can do with her.  I also love that she helps me in the kitchen and she enjoys it too.  I feel like cooking with kids makes the whole thing take a lot longer but I'm getting used to that and don't mind it taking however long it needs to take.  One reason the seeds took so long though was because Kat spilled all the seeds on the ground!  We picked up the seeds and put them back in the colander and then I picked up the colander and stood up to wash the seeds when the pumpkin slime on my hands and on the colander made me drop the colander on the ground.  Fortunately the colander landed right-side up.  Unfortunately, the drop was so high, all the seeds flew out of the bowl like a firework!

This pumpkin chili made me regret all the years (23 years to be exact) that I hated the taste of pumpkin.

I don't like pumpkin pie or squash soup and yet I loved this chili, so even if you don't love pumpkin and don't love sweet soup, you should give this soup a try (especially if you have extra pumpkin from Halloween like we did).

Pumpkin Chili Recipe:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 green pepper
1 can black beans
2 cans pinto beans
2 cans chili beans (pinto beans in tomato sauce and chili powder)
1 tomato
5 cups pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

1. Open your pumpkin and take out the seeds.  Chop up your pumpkin small enough that it will fit in your oven, maybe in half if its a small pumpkin, maybe in lots of pieces if your pumpkin is huge like ours were.  Salt it lightly and cook it for 40 minutes at 400 degrees.

2. Take a fork and pull out the "meat" of the pumpkin and throw the peeling in your compost bin.  Blend the meat up until smooth like pudding (you may have to add a little bit of water)

3. Chop the onion, pepper, and garlic.  Cook it with the oil in a big pot until the onion starts to get a little translucent and soft.  About 10 minutes.

4. Add five cups of your pumpkin puree.

5. Chop up your tomato and throw it in.

6. Open the cans of beans and dump the beans in the pot and dump your cans in your recycle.

7 Add all the spices.  If you want it sweeter add more nutmeg and cinnamon.  If you want it spicier add more chili powder or even some cayenne powder.  I'm sure you could have figured that out though.