Happy Halloween!

Here are our Halloween costumes for this year:

Fancy was a ghost.

Bayberry was a black cat.

And Army Man and I were an old married couple.

We had lots of fun handing out candy last night to all the trick or treaters. Tonight, it's off to a haunted farm for more Halloween fun.

What did you do for Halloween?

Here are tomorrow's lunches. You'll note that I will be using up some candy in this week's lunches. Anything to be rid of it around the house.

Both girls have peanut butter, Nutella, and banana wraps. Bayberry has an organic red pear, while Fancy has red grapes. Bayberry has some Cheetos from Halloween. Fancy has a granola bar from Halloween. Both girls chose three small candies to bring. And both are bringing orange juice to drink.

Stay safe. Have fun. Brush your teeth! :) Oh, and check out All Home Cooking. All Year Long. for a great giveaway. You can enter to win a CSN shopping code!

Gopher Guts

*First, my apologies for no posts Thursday and Friday. I see I actually lost a couple of followers when I didn't post for several days, and that makes me sad. :*( However, my oldest, Bayberry, got her third HPV vaccine (Gardasil) and immediately went into a full-blown seizure, had loss of feeling in her leg, and has been dizzy and headache-y ever since. Nothing like this has ever happened to her. We have a pediatric neurologist visit this week to see what's going on. I would advise anyone considering this vaccine to read up on it online. That's all I'll say for now.

Onto lunch! Do you remember the song about gopher guts from childhood? There are so many versions, but this is the one I was raised with:

Miles and miles of greasy, grimy gopher guts
Mutilated monkey meat
Chopped up parakeet
Eyeballs, eyeballs, floating in my bloody soup
Me without my spoon

So that's what the kids are taking, in honor of the month of October and Halloween, for lunch this Monday.

Miles and Miles of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts (Chilled Peanut Butter Pasta Salad)

Mutilated Monkey Meat (Cut-up chocolate chip cookies and Halloween theme mini marshmallows)

Chopped Up Parakeet (Kiwi)

Eyeballs Eyeballs Floating in my bloody soup (pomegranate seeds)

Peanut Butter Pasta:

Cook 1/4 lb of whole wheat spaghetti al dente. Drain and toss with a bit of olive oil.
In a small sauce pan, combine 1 cup beef broth, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 cup green peas, 1/3 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy, your choice)/ Cook and stir until thickened. Toss with pasta. Serve warm or chilled, with sesame seeds on top.

Fancy's Spooktacular 1st of October Lunch

It's October! Fancy's first lunch of the month is all dressed up for Halloween!

From top left, clockwise: Turkey on whole wheat bread with an American ghost cheese that has turkey pepperoni eyes and mouth; crackers (a few each of white cheddar crackers and yellow cheddar crackers); string cheese ghosts with food coloring eyes, grapes, and pumpkin fluff dip with strawberry shapes.

One serving of pumpkin fluff dip: stir together one ounce of cream cheese, one tablespoon of marshmallow cream (fluff), and one tablespoon of pumpkin puree. Serve with fruit to dip.

To make the ghosts, I cut a mozzarella stick in half. Then, I fringe cut the bottom half and drew on eyes and mouths with a food coloring pen. The picks in the grapes I found at Michael's (craft store).

Fancy is taking pumpkin juice to drink. Okay, not really pumpkin juice, but I'm blending a smoothie with pumpkin, yogurt, honey, orange juice, and banana.

Off topic: Do your kids know what they want to be for Halloween yet? Fancy wants to be a ghost. I have the costume all planned out and I think it's going to be good. Bayberry (who isn't going to school tomorrow) is going to be a cat. Gotta love the classics.