If you don’t count the fact that I almost burnt our house down (ok not almost, but we did have a small fire) and it still stinks to high heaven the morning after, Halloween was a success.
But it’s hard not to count that little fact because dang, it is stinky.
I’m going to concentrate on the positive though. I mean, after all, it’s NOVEMBER now and we have lots to be thankful for. Our house is still standing, nothing aside from a piece of pita bread is actually charred, Dave is home from his second stint in China in October, and our bellies are filled with Kit Kats and Twix (my favorites). Whoops, that’s actually not something I’m grateful for…starting on macros again today, wish me luck.
Whoa, long digression here. Let’s get down to business.
Here was our line-up this year:
We had Alice in Wonderland:
(see the last post for the origin of that dress)
A very fancied-up alien:
…and a girl who couldn’t figure out what to be last minute…maybe a minion?
…or Sandy?
Ha! Love high school dress-ups 🙂
Oh and we can’t forget Bo Jangles’ first Halloween. She was pleased as punch to be a pumpkin.
I kid, ’cause nope, she didn’t like it at all, but she was a pretty good sport hanging around in it.
It just is. Fun for all of us actually 🙂 Poor pup.
Let’s back up to our neighborhood Fall Festival first that was on Saturday night.
I don’t have an overall picture, but boy, that thing is a wing-dinger every year.
Everything from a chili bake-off to bounce houses and pony rides and a climbing wall.
…and dress ups like these:
I mean, wow.
Everyone lines up lawn chairs around this whole place and kids “trunk-or-treat” like nobody’s business.
I loved that when Lucy was done she came and hung with me and handed out a bunch of the candy she had received since I ran out.
We had to FaceTime poor Dave who missed out on all the fun over on the other side of the world.
Everyone knows that aliens wear sparkly skirts, right?
Then it was all chaos and craziness from there. Our neighbors came over for soup in the middle of our smoke-filled house:
We sent Lucy off to trick-or-treat for the first time without parents which worried me to death, but so grateful for these gems of girls and flashlights that helped her out so much in the dark.
Claire went off to celebrate with these folks:
Grace headed out to the desert to watch a movie and then to another party,
And we set up our little traditional station with our neighbors at the end of our cul-de-sac…
…and talked as we handed out drinks and candy to all kinds of characters roaming the neighborhood.
The candy-haul was successful for all.
(I love these girls more than I could ever put into words…they are true angels from Heaven)
And finally we tucked everyone in bed, and bid this pita bread adieu.
Who knows how to get that smoke smell out??
Do you have any towels or aprons or other soft items in your kitchen? Sometimes those hold the smoke smell just by being around. Sometimes it's sad, and it's books that are holding the smell :(.
Your girls are so cute! Glad Lucy got to be Alice.
One year my mom left chicken boiling on Halloween night, we came back from our trunk or treat to smoke filled windows and though the house was burning down! Nope- Just chicken boiled down with no water! It caused LOTS stinky smoke! Everything in the house smelled like burned chicken for days….so gross.
Since it's your oven, you could try putting vinegar water in an oven safe bowl and baking it for a bit. 15 minutes or so on a low setting.
It looks like it was a fun night!
A while back, you mentioned in the 'August Little Things' that you were thinking of updating the look of the blog. I'm wondering if there is any way that I could get in touch with you about that? What is your email address if you don't mind sharing? Thank you so much!
Try twirling towels dampened with water and/or vinegar through the air. It catches the smoke and helps get rid of the smell. It really works.
https://www.chowhound.com/post/removing-smoke-odor-kitchen-fire-989097
This link looked really helpful..if you didn't come across it yet.
As a side note…we have used the Ozone machine twice. I haven't read up on how it is in a home you LIVE in…but I bought a car and a smoke smell had been masked in it…the next day in the hot garage I entered the car…it was AWFUL and i couldn't back out of the deal. I was SO MAD. I made the dealer do an ozone treatment on it. I had to do it twice and prop open any plastic surface in the car…the second one worked and i've never smelled smoke again.
The second time we had a smell issue we were flipping a house that had 19 uncared for cats in the home with feces/urine seriously in every single room. The smell was HORRENDOUS. We could barely get trades to come in and work there. We gutted EVERYTHING…including the drywall up to 4ft on the wall…still reeked after MONTHS and fresh air blown in and everything. Had to hire a smell company and the TSP solution was recommended. We wiped down every wall in the whole house with that. We followed it up with a three day ozone treatment and duct work mop/scrub. That finally did the trick after 4-5 months of trying to get rid of cat smell.
Good luck! I bet in a few weeks with some of those tricks you'll be smelling clean again.
I burnt Pita Bread in the toaster over in college! My whole apt stunk for days. The maintenance staff had to bring industrial fans to air it out. My roommates framed a picture of it as a joke to keep in the kitchen.
so cute! What breed is Bo Jankins? He looks like golden doodle but it's smaller…? We are thinking about getting a dog and Bo is just so cute!