Halloween 2024 Recap

We had a happy Halloween!  The weather was kind of terrible all day and then it cleared up for a fun night of trick or treating.  The kids enjoyed their costumes, we had dinner with neighbors and we got to trick or treat with friends in the neighborhood.  Huge candy hauls were had by all.

Fletcher was a masked man.

Olive the penguin.

Leo the dragon.

Her BFF dressed up as a polar bear and they trick or treated together.

His original mask was light up and so fun.  It ended up being very difficult to see out of so he swapped it for this back up mask.  I was so happy that I thought to grab a back up mask just in case.

Leo the dragon.  He was the cutest little dragon.  He roared at everyone, smiled and grabbed candy as he ran from house to house with all the big kids this year.

Which made me very nostalgic for Halloween 2020 when we had Fletcher the dragon.  I don't feel super sentimental about their clothes anymore, but I'll be saving this dragon costume just in case their kid ever want to be the cutest green dragon.

One of our neighbors had THE COOLEST skeleton decoration.  It was HUGE and so fun.  I wouldn't want to store that skeleton all year, but the kids sure loved it.

Black and white buddies.

Epic post trick or treating candy hauls.  Fletcher's favorite was the house that gave out freeze dried candy.  He's been wanting to try it forever.

The full sized candy bars were Olive's favorite.  She trick or treated our neighborhood with a buddy and then went out one more time with her polar bear bestie.  She wore cute black cat ghost earrings and made sure to pick out a set of them so that we could match.

Perfect Halloween pumpkin cat and real cat.

We carved pupmkins - Leo, Fletcher & Olive.  They turned out so cute.  Leo was very specific about wanting an angry pumpkin face.

This was a yummy iced coffee treat!  The big kids and I both enjoyed it from Walmart.  It was about $2 with a coupon clipped and SO much cheaper than swinging through Starbucks for a coffee treat.

I hope you had a Happy Halloween!  Now on to my birthday and Thanksgiving in November!

Happy 1st Halloween

Happy 1st Halloween, Mr. Mittens!

You're the sweetest guy and we've loved adding in some black cat decor to our Halloween stash.

Olive's vision of a Mr. Mittens pumpkin came true and he loved it.  

Handsome, tuxedo kitty.

However, he did not appreciate her grand plan of being put inside a pumpkin. Noted, Mr. Mittens.

Happy Halloween!  

I hope you have a fun day with your favorite people.  My crew can't wait to trick or treat tonight.

Halloween Hosting Tips

We hosted Kevin's coworkers for a fun Halloween get together this weekend.  I found the cutest Halloween paper goods and our menu was yummy!  We had an African themed menu to help celebrate one of his faculty members + some of my favorite fall foods to fix.

The plates were all from Walmart!  I grabbed the square napkins from Walmart, too and the shaped napkins came from HomeGoods.  I love anything black cat after adding Mr. Mittens to the family.  A bonus of doing paper plates is that clean up is so easy at the end of the night.

We served a cheeseboard and veggies for appetizers.  I ran out of time and had to throw these together so fast after everyone arrived.  I hate that because it's my favorite thing to put together.  No one complained or even noticed.  They were thrilled with the bite sized snacks while we mingled.

Kevin found recipes for an Afrian stew and an okra stew.  He ran them by his coworker and made a game plan for an Afrian themed menu.  Both had very original spices and ingredients that he gathered at the international food store.  It was a tiny bit stressful making two main dishes for a dinner party that neither of us were familiar with, but it worked out great.  Everyone enjoyed both.

I wasn't sure if everyone would love the new recipes so I make a staple homemade chicken noodle soup and homemade bread.  Everyone got a mix of all the foods.  Then I served cookies for dessert.

We had some fun drinks and this moscato was a big hit.  I confessed that I buy moscato or sauv blancs based on pretty labels and pretty bottles not any wine expertise.  They agreed that a pretty bottle was important.  This one wa really yummy!

My dad watched the kids for us and we had time to dust the light fixtures before the party.  Win-win.  Yay for a successful hosting event.

We idd a quick meet and greet with Mr. Mittens and then he got locked up for the party.  He's still working on having good table manners.  He prefers to be the center of attention and be in the middle of everything (just like this post after everyone was long gone).  Silly cat.

I hope you have a sweet Halloween week.  We're hoping for great weather and fun trick-or-treating times with the kids.  They're hoping for CANDY!

Extra Halloween Candy Cookies

I bet you've got an abundance of Halloween candy right now.  Am I right?

I had the kids help me make some Halloween Candy Cookies and Fletcher said they were the best cookie I've ever made.  And he loves all my cookies!

You just need to grab all the candy that you think would taste delicious in a chocolate chip cookie.  Unwrap and chop them up.

We grabbed M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Reese Cups, Hershey Bars, Cookies and Cream Hershey Bars and more.  I chopped up 1 1/2 cups of candy and then cut my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe from 2 cups of chocolate chips to 1 cup of chocolate chips.  Mix it all together and YUM!

They're the easiest, yummiest cookies.  And your kids will love helping you come up with the recipe.

Pretty cookie tip: Chop a few extra candies to add to the top of your warm cookies.  I added in some extra Reese's cups and M&Ms right when the cookies came out of the oven.

Let me know if you try them!

You can also chop up your favorite chocolates and add them to the top of a pan of brownies before you bake them.  That's another great way to use your leftover Halloween candy.

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday, friends!  I hope you've had a nice week.  Happy November.  I just love this time of year - the cooler temps, the festivities and my birthday is this month.  What's not to love!?

Did you catch my blog posts this week?

Muffin Tin Meals - perfect for kids!

Halloween Coffee Chat - I loved the comments!

Halloween 2023

Now onto my favorites from the week:

1. Trick or Treat

We had the best time bundling up and trick or treating our neighborhood.  It was cold - in the 30s and windy so everyone had on all the layers we could manage.  Leo ran from house to house doing his best to keep up with the big kids.  They all got tons of candies and treats.  It seemed like all of our neighbors were out and about so it was a really fun night.

2. T-Rex Goes to College

We surprised Kevin and showed up to his office with a T-Rex.  Leo roared around campus and got some candy.  It wasn't all that long ago that I was taking pirate Olive to visit Kevin at work.

3. Pumpkin Carving

The big kids need less and less help every year.  Leo agreed to some help from me.  Everyone made a pumpkin to match their personality and were so happy with their results.  Their pumpkins turned out so cute!  Kevin surprised them with bat Squishmallows for Halloween.

4. Shopping Buddy

Leo is the best side kick as long as I keep the snacks flowing :)  I started doing some Christmas shopping because I find it much more enjoyable to collect things over a few months versus shopping with crazy crowds in December.  No thank you!

5. Crumbl Cookies

I've mentioned before that Kevin loves Crumbl Cookies and he's made us all fans!  They're gigantic cookies and you really can only get a few bites of them before you're full, but it's so fun to try all the different flavor combos.  This was a really yummy box!  Join their rewards program if you like Crumbl because the rewards add up fast.

6. Market Day

Olive had her monthly market day at school.  The kids are asked to make things to sell to their peers and they spend their class money on them.  Olive asked me to help her make "squish dough" (homemade playdoh) and they turned out so cute - just like she envisioned!  She was inspired by our Crumbl Cookies and we made play-doh cookies.  Don't they look delicious!?  Then she spent a ton of time making clay bead bracelets to sell.  It's so neat to see her learning about pricing, selling, advertising and running her shop.  5th grade has been good to her!

7. Festive Food

I made some yummy things this week for the kids.  I went with easy holiday foods and they were thrilled.  We did a muffin pan meal and candy corn.  I make microwave popcorn and sprinkle some of their favorite candies on top.  They love it!  We look forward to watching a show or part of a movie together in the evenings with a big bowl of candy corn.

8. Halloween movies

We watched all the cute Halloween movies.  And Leo requested foot rubs.  We don't do anything scary so it's all fun and festive movies here.

9. Class parties

Olive's class party was this week and Kevin got to attend.  They did all kinds of fun games and painted pumpkins.  She was silly and sweet and excited for Kevin to be there with her friends.  Kevin loved being there with her and his favorite part was hearing all the wonderful things her teacher had to say about Olive.

10. Bros

Leo has been really into trains lately and I love when Fletcher builds tracks for him.  He surprised Leo with Leo train tracks and now he thinks they should always spell out Leo.

11. Teacher Gifts

You know I love giving our teachers gifts and notes of encouragement.  Here are our November gifts: $10 fuzzy blankets from Walmart with a heartfelt thank you note.  They loved the gifts!  I let the kids pick out the Fall pattern that their teachers would like best.

12. Hard Work

Is there anything better than seeing your kids work so hard in school and see their efforts pay off with "turtley awesome" A+ papers coming home from school!?!

13. Holiday shirts

Old Navy always has cute holiday tees for the kids.  They're super affordable and I loved finding ghost shirts in the boys and girls sections for the kids to wear this week.

14. Fall is my Favorite

The leaves are all looking so pretty and it made my day to see this rainbow peeking through the clouds in our backyard.

15. Farm 57

Coffee dates are my favorite!  We have this cute local shop that sells coffee, treats and gifts.  They also host a food truck night once a week during the warm weather months.  We learned this week that they have a Farm 57 cat - Mama Kitty.  She greets everyone and is so friendly.  She also tries to come in with visitors.  Leo was thrilled and so was I.  She was so sweet.  We had yummy breads for breakfast, visited with our friends and then played on their playground that is right in line with the airport.  The planes fly over so low and Leo loved that!

Linking up with Momfessionals for Friday Favorites

Hope you have a great weekend!  I'll see you back here on Monday!