the witching hour

Oh, you know how it is. You meant to do the costume ages ago, or you did and then somebody changes their mind, or you've suddenly spilled orange juice all over the back... and you need a last-minute costume.

In our case, Auggie's costume for halloween is very bulky (it's a truck) and we've realized he can't really wear it to a little party we're going to or he'll have a hard time running around indoors. So we're saving the big costume for Wednesday and improvising for the party.

Here are some of my favourite last-minute (or just easy) costume ideas and tutorials as well as some free printable masks, all from pinterest.

First, for our purposes as the Windy, Foggy crew, this cloud costume idea from Sarah Illenberger.

squash soup

Oof, I've been trying to finish up another children's scarf pattern, but I misjudged the length, so it won't be ready for another week.

In the meantime, I thought I'd put up this really, really fantastic squash soup recipe from Jeanette Ordas of everybody likes sandwiches at poppytalk. This soup has a number of great things about it:

1. it's really, really good
2. it's not sweet
3. it's fast and uses frozen squash (it is very good to cook with small children, just keep them away from the peppers — measuring the frozen squash and chopping peeled apples under supervision are a lot of fun).

It has only one bad thing which is that it's a little spicy for a child. What I do is cook most of the spicy spices separately. It's quite easy and just means there's an extra saucepan to wash up at the end.

First, see the recipe here at poppytalk.

My modifications + tip for cooking with spicy peppers around small children and babies:

Shadow Puppets

This is a good gloomy-day activity, especially when it's getting dark earlier: shadow puppets. There is a printable template here for these super-lovely polar bear and musk-ox puppets by Orange Moon Toys.

We're going to make them this afternoon, so I'll see if I can do a better image, but for now this is via Martha Stewart vis pinterest. You could do a version of the Donkey in the Lion's Skin (see below) by Aesop — the Muskox in the Polar Bear Skin?

If you prefer to buy some pre made puppets (no shame in that) then you can find some gorgeous ones here.

Also this week: Aesop's Fables as told by Mitsumasa Anno and non-stop nature walks.

bat | cat hat

This is a good October Saturday project if you knit: bat or cat or superhero hat/mask pattern. Notes and information here.

If you don't knit, I bet you could sew together 2 squares of fleece or knit fabric and cut out some eye holes. The pattern gives dimensions.