Halloween and Dry Ice

My kids' Montessori class held their annual Halloween luncheon today.  On the menu:

• cheese sandwiches cut into ghost and jack-o-lantern shapes with red pepper pieces for accents
• frozen banana "ghost" pops
• carrot "fingers" using ranch dressing to attach pepper "nails"
• cupcakes with skeletons on the top (the skull made out of marshmallows)
• cupcakes with candy corn decorations
• apples made into creatures using olives for eyes, strawberry slices for mouths (attached with toothpicks) and pretzels for arms
• apple slices made into the shape of mouths
• little pizzas made to look like mummies

and...

• a witch's cauldron of fruit punch (ginger ale, cranberry juice, orange juice and lime sherbet - a recipe from my childhood) with gummy eyeballs floating in it, sitting atop a block of dry ice to get that "spooky" effect.

All of them were fantastic and the kids loved them!

The last one (the cauldron) was my assignment.  I had never worked with dry ice before.  My first encounter with it included a superficial burn on my fingertips as I tried to haul it from the freezer case at the grocery store several days ago.  Good grief, that was painful!  I had totally overlooked the sign on the top of the freezer case: Do not directly touch!

So I got it home and popped it safely into my deep freezer.  "All set," or so I thought.  This morning, as I packed up my supplies for the party, I pulled the bag of dry ice from the freezer.  Empty!  It was totally empty!  $15.60 worth of dry ice totally evaporated in my deep freezer!  Turns out, at temperatures above −69.5 °F (which I'm pretty sure is beyond my deep freezer's capability), CO₂ changes from a solid to a gas with no intervening liquid form, through a process called sublimation.  Just as regular ice evaporates in heat, dry ice disappears when exposed to air, even in a very cold environment.  Excellent.

So, already late to school, I paraded into the grocery store with my two kids, dressed as a bumble bee no less, to get more dry ice at 8:30am this morning.  But the result?  Spectacular.  The kids loved it!

Please note: if you're planning on doing a similar project, do not forget that the dry ice does NOT go into the drink.  Place it in a tub with some hot water to get the "smoke" going, then place a separate tub of punch on top of the dry ice.  Keep adding hot water to the outer tub to keep the smokey effect going.

Happy Halloween!

National Costume Swap Day Is Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is National Costume Swap Day - what better way to have a green Halloween than to recycle last year's costume?

Find a place to swap costumes here: Find A Costume Swap

A Random Act of Kindness in Market Street

Dear Market Street:

My 3 year old was asleep in the front-carrier and my 6 year old was riding in the shopping cart this afternoon in your Colleyville store when a very nice employee approached and informed me that my 3 year old was missing a shoe. 

As the little one was strapped to my front, I hadn't seen the little red Crock drop.  He offered to find it for me.  I didn't know where it had dropped, so I thanked him but told him no, that I'd backtrack and find it later.  I didn't want to take him away from his work.

Ten minutes later he approached me again in another part of the store - and he was carrying my son's shoe!  I was shocked. This man had searched for the shoe (possibly into the parking lot), then searched for me.  He said  "you literally have your hands full. I couldn't NOT help."  

This man made my day.  Inexplicably, tears pricked my eyes.  I felt like giving him a big kiss on the cheek but restrained myself and instead shook his hand and thanked him.

I also shared the story with the store manager as I left the store.  One can't let random acts of kindness go unacknowledged.

Thank you for hiring such great people.  I'll definitely shop again.