Our Little Pumpkins

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Halloween weekend. As you can see, The Casillas Family went all out with the pumpkins this year thanks to Abel. He bought a special kit and special tools and we each picked a cool design. As fun as it was....it took 3 hours! Carmen was done soon after we cut into her pumpkin. She politely excused herself to the hole to play and said, "you do it daddy!" Gianni actually reached inside and pulled out seeds and gunk but was not pleased about it. He sat patiently for three hours just watching and helping where ever he could. He really enjoyed the process.
While the pumpkin cutting adventure was taking place I was chopping up: onion, carrot, celery, cabbage, kale, garlic and was simmering away in chopped tomatoes, chicken broth, and cannelini bean puree. I made a huge pot of Ribollita Soup. I made enough for lunches this week, dinner tomorrow, and plenty for the freezer. I do not put the bread into the soup but we are cracking into a loaf of Rosemary Bread tomorrow night for dinner. Gianni loves my soup! Carmen...no way...there are vegetables in it!

After watching, and screaming, and praying, and yelling for the Cardinals to win their game, we finally turned off the TV and had dinner with Sydney, Holly, and Adam. Adam made greek turkey burgers and I made grilled vegetables. It was delicious. We cleaned up from dinner, put the kids in costumes, and it was outside for trick or treating. This is our first Halloween in the new neighborhood so we were excited.

Gianni was bumble bee the Transformer and Carmen was what she felt was a butterfly.

The first round was the dads. They took the kids down street number one while Holly and I gave out candy. Then it was time for the mommy rotation.

It was a very successful Halloween. The neighborhood was warm, welcoming, and people were everywhere. Very different from our old neighborhood. It was a fun family weekend.