The Giving Flower

Let me introduce a few people that have moved in for the night. It’s going to be a long one so get cosy and read on. First we have Mrs. Ingalls from The Little House on the Prairie. This was my favorite show when I was little; I remember watching it with my mother while she knit on the couch. When I moved to Germany 11 years ago and couldn’t speak a word of German I watched the reruns which were shown here. I knew every episode which enabled me to train my ear to get used to the language. I’m still trying to find the show on DVD so I can watch all the episodes one more time, well, maybe two or three.

Mrs Ingalls is quite shy and has been working in the fields all day only to come home and make bread and meatloaf. Here she’s wearing her good Sunday dress with her apron over it, she’s been cooking remember? Alexander took these pictures, do you believe it? He only took three pictures and this is what came out. I think he’s doing quite well with a camera. I can’t wait until they come out with the first Fisher Price digital camera. You know, one that can fall on the ground and keep on ticking. I’m buying it!
Dracula was also in attendance but was not impressed with the flash on my camera. He said the light was painful, I don’t know why.
This was all that was left this morning when I woke at the crack of dawn.

Next we have the devil himself trying to ward off the beautiful princess Alida. The next minute he’s the kissing devil!

The devil was a dog in a former life so if you look closely you may see the tail still wagging in the back.

There were no growling stomachs at our house last night. We had lots of goodies to go around. Just a warning some things are not for weak stomachs. First, just a bit to get you in the Halloween mood.

I made these flags with the intention of making a Happy Halloween banner, but after sewing my dress, the apron, Alida’s dress and Alexander’s cape and hat I decided embroidering boo on both sides was enough. I hung it in the doorway so you could see it from both sides.

Just a bit of deco we made.

I always make my carrot cake with cream cheese frosting but this time I decided to try this pumpkin cake recipe I found at Thimble. Of course, I had cream cheese frosting which was supposed to be orange but came out a tad pink-yummy nonetheless.

This is your good old pumkin pie which they don’t have here so for Claudia it was a first and she thought it was delicious.

Ok, these aren’t real but they sure look it, don’t they?

This was a spinach and sour cream dip with olive oil toast as gravestones.

Here we have an amazingly yummy nut cake Claudia brought with her.

We went trick or treating in our apartment building which has 8 apartments so it was just enough for us to get some good grub. For the past 4 years we’ve been trick or treating here in the building. The first few years I printed out the whole Halloween story so the neighbors knew what was going to happen and why. This year I just hung up a sign on the door warning them that we were on the attack.
It’s not really custom here to celebrate Halloween but for my good friends it is and they’ve come to enjoy learning and celebrating something different. Nine kids were invited of which only 4 actually came. You know how it is, moms it’s the cold season and you’re lucky to get 6 healthy kids together in one room at any one time. In this picture Buzz Lightyear wasn’t feeling photogenic, here we have the rest of the gang.

After we came back Alida immediately sat down to check out the goods. Believe me she wasn’t dissapointed.

Eventhough it’s not tradition the Halloween spirit is slowly taking over Germany. When I moved here I couldn’t find a single set of false teeth now you can find pretty much everything you need with the exception of candy corn. Thanks to my sister Judy, I had a whole bowl full and my German friends liked it. Can you imagine a world without candy corn??

Of course Emily, here she’s dressed up as a witch, helped out with the party but she wasn’t too keen on those spider webs hanging from the ceiling or the spiders crawling along them. Oh how I love Halloween.