Friday Favourites – Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I’ve been looking forward to today all month long. I just love Halloween, although over the years I’ve realized that I what I love is the pumpkins, goodies, costumes, and the pretty tame movies – I’d be happy to leave the overly scary or frightening bits out. It all boils down to my very overactive imagination (Garrett, my friends, my family, anyone who has been to a haunted house with me can attest to this).

I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, convinced that someone is in the room, only to turn on the lights and see it’s a jacket hanging on the back of a chair. Or I’ll hear a branch scratch against the window and I’ll jump out of my skin. Just this week Garrett and I were walking around the neighbourhood at night, looking at the decorations when we saw this creepy doll hanging from a lantern as part of someone’s decor. Just as we walked by, the wind caught it and it turned towards us…ever so slow and creepy. Garrett jokingly said it was watching us and would probably follow us home. I kid you not – I looked over my shoulder just about every five minutes convinced I might catch the doll peeking around corners and alleyways, as we made our way home. Even just typing that up gave me goosebumps on my arms, haha.

This year Garrett and I are having a much more low key Halloween than we’ve done some years because even though it’s a Friday night, we both have to work tomorrow. Instead we’re heading over to our friends’ place tonight to watch a scary movie, make dinner and hand out candy – which sounds like the perfect Halloween night for us this year. Some R&R and hanging out with good friends (and candy, of course). I can’t wait to see all the cute kids costumes too. Just like every other year, I’ve made a costume for Whiskey and I also made Cola his first costume too. I have a few little touches to put on them and then I’ll post a photo on Instagram later today.

/  /  /Earlier in the week we scooped out our pumpkins (mainly so I could get the seeds out), but since then they’d sat uncarved. Just sad, hollowed out gourds. Before bed last night, we mustered up the last of our energy to finally give them some faces.

Using a small orange pie pumpkin and my big fat green Cinderella pumpkin, I made a little chubby cat. I used florist wire woven through black felt for the whiskers, ears and tail, and the “paws” were little mini pumpkins.

 Garrett got the big huge pumpkin and gave him a goofy face.

This morning I woke up to find this little riddle taped to the big pumpkin…

..and the answer with a nice little note inside. I love that Garrett gets into the Halloween spirit as much as me!

This little comic I found online this week cracked me up too. Even witches give in to technology.

Last night was my Dad’s birthday and with my mom out of town there was no way I was going to let him celebrate alone. We invited him over for dinner, cake and presents after work. I thought I’d try Robyn from Add A Pinch’s The Best Chocolate Cake recipe. I already had everything on hand, so I was able to whip it up on Wednesday night before I went to bed. For dinner, I made pan-fried pork chops (Pioneer Woman’s recipe), fried apples, roasted garlic red potatoes, roasted broccoli and carrots.

 Happy Birthday Dad!

(the candles were from my Birthday Candle Kit. So handy!)

The cake was super decadent and just as good as I’d hoped it would be. With only three of us having a little piece each, there was so much leftover. I sent some home with my dad, froze some for us to enjoy another time and then packaged up the rest to take over to our friends’ house tonight.

Cola spent pretty much the whole night sitting on my dad’s lap. He just loves him to bits – especially when he let him play with the tissue paper. What goofs.

Speaking of birthdays, last weekend we went to a friend’s surprise birthday party and I guess it took longer than we thought for her to come in the door. By the time we yelled “SURPRISE!” the candles were just little stubs in pools of wax. I’d never seen birthday candles get so short, haha! Otherwise than picking the wax off the cake, it was a really fun night to celebrate a great friend. (and it gave us an excuse to pick up those Ghostbusters Krispy Kreme donuts I posted on Instagram. Yum!)

And one last little funny thing before I sign off for the weekend: Something I ordered online a while ago finally arrived this week. It’s fairly delicate and had “FRAGILE” stamped all over the box – and this is how it arrived. Completely crumbled on the one side, right around all the “FRAGILE” stamps. Thankfully everything in the box was alright, but I couldn’t help but think the postal service was playing a trick on me.

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Any fun plans for Halloween weekend? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. I hope you all have a fun and spooky time tonight!