Halloween Festivities

The Buckeroo

The International Man of Mystery

The Swamp Monster

Another Halloween has come and gone. It was fun. Sort of. I can't say that I'm particularly sad that it's over. It's not my favorite holiday, but I try to make it fun for my kids. I decided to go the low-stress route this year with costumes. We have a bin of dress up clothes that I keep in the attic so we got it down and let the boys figure out their own get-ups. 

Specs wanted to be a cowboy. Tank didn't really want to go trick-or-treating, but I persuaded him to use the same costume he used for Dictionary Day at school last year (his word was incognito). Monkey wanted to stay home and pass out candy. Since I wasn't keen on my 11 year old being home alone and opening the door to a bunch of strangers--mostly kids, but still--I made him go with us, but I let him wear a mask and be scary. I'm not a big fan of masks (this one has a long story behind it) but it was a compromise.

Stretch was enjoying a steak dinner with some friends from church so he wasn't around.

We started off trick-or-treating with a bunch of friends, but the group was moving pretty slow with the little ones so we ended up just doing our own thing. I wanted to make sure to get home and get the kids to bed by 8:00. My husband is away on business this week so I am handling things on my own. While he's gone I have to get up at 5:45am to make sure everyone is ready before taking Stretch to his early morning bible study class.  Prompt bedtimes are a must this week.

I knew Halloween itself would be a bit stressful, despite my low-key approach, but I wanted it to be special for the kids. I just had to plan ahead a little. Tuesday we carved our pumpkin. Tank did most of the hard work cleaning it out and Specs designed it this year since he seemed to care the most about what it looked like.

Tuesday I also made a candy-corn themed dinner: Candy corn pizza (just cheese pizza with mozzarella, cheddar and Colby-jack cheeses in rings so it looks like candy corn when you slice it), candy corn fruit cups (pineapple, oranges, whipped cream) and candy corn punch (recipe HERE). This is slightly ironic since I don't even really like candy corn, but since the meal involved no actual candy corn other than a garnish on the fruit salad it was all good. Perhaps it wasn't the most balanced meal (and a little heavy on the whipped cream)--but hey, it was a special occasion.

And since we didn't have enough sugar with the meal, I made a Frankenstein's monster cake for our dessert. I know--not candy corn themed, but I was feeling too spent to attempt candy corn cheesecake. 

I guess Halloween was pretty good even though The Great Pumpkin passed us by again. I may even be persuaded to like it a little more now that I have discovered Cadbury Screme Eggs (my favorite Easter candy at Halloween? Yes please!). At any rate, it's over until next year.

Now bring on Thanksgiving!