Sylvia's Scenario

We are hot and heavy into Halloween and our house is decorated enough to be respectable for the  neighborhood . There is no parking spots available on our street right now because of the  Skeleton Theater   a few houses down. It is really packing them in.  The trick or treaters have been nonstop but I often go outside to check things out and the theater sound is crystal clear.  It currently sounds like Pirates of the Caribbean.  They are doing a rendition of all their previous years which last about 10 minutes and runs continuously until 9:00 pm.  We plan to go check it out later.  In the meantime, you can check out our decorations.  I think we might run out of candy this year...

We have noticed since our first walk to the  Farmer's Market   that the neighborhood here really gets into Halloween.  More and more decorations are going up all the time.  Most of the decorations are very simplistic but effective. Ghosts are a common theme as is the spider webbing that people love to spread all over there yards. People here don't mind if an effective decoration means digging up their front lawn. Getting places takes a lot longer since I'm often on foot because I want to just stop and look at all the decorations.     One day, the Seahawks were playing so you would see lots of   12th Man flags amongst the Halloween decorations. The decorations are not just in people's yards. Sometimes you must look upwards. Oh, hello there, Mr. Skeleton.  If you look closely, he's waving to his friend across the street. I'm not sure if putting skeletons on telephone poles is exactly legal

Spider web cupcakes were my go-to treats for Halloween when Nick and Lauren were little and yesterday I made them again after many, many years. Kids were always thrilled to get one, each complete with a spider ring on top. I made them yesterday for Lauren who had to wear a costume to her internship and bring some treats. She was just going to pick something up at the store until I got motivated to lend a helping hand. I already had the Halloween paper cupcake liners and a full bag of spider rings, still stored in our Halloween box in the attic    I went to Trader Joe's and bought pumpkin muffin mix which made approximately 20 cupcakes. All I really needed to make was the frosting so I whipped up some butter cream frosting from my   Halloween Cookies   recipe which is the best.  After frosting the cupcakes, make about 4 circles using black frosting (which you can buy at the store) on top of each cupcake. Take a toothpick and drag a wooden toothpick thr

On Saturday, I had two friends over for lunch, Sheryl and Meredith, whom I hadn't seen in years.  This is the best part of moving...getting caught up with old friends.  When we reunited, it seemed only like yesterday. Our kids went to preschool together so we have many memories of carpooling trips, play dates together, meals together, many memorable birthday parties and summer swim parties, shared holiday traditions, summer camps, sports teams, etc.  Our kids were sleeping overnight at each other's houses very early on.  Nick and Lauren both had second homes before they even went to kindergarten, sleeping overnight at their best friends' houses regularly.  It's really special for parents to have friends like that.  Now, all our kids are grown up but us moms still have each other.  It's a very cherished friendship.  I spent all week thinking about what to make for our lunch and decided on chicken pot pies.   I decided to make them in individual ramekin dishes