Halloween

Halloween is one of my favourite celebrations other than Christmas.  I love the colours orange and black, candy, chocolate, pumpkins and costumes.  I loved trick or treating as a kid and now I love to watch all the little ones come to the door in their costumes. 

To celebrate Halloween Claire and I made some white chocolate Halloween bark.  I found the idea on Pinterest.  It's fun and super easy to make.  After it was done cooling in the freezer we broke into pieces and packaged it in cute halloween bags for her friends.  We headed to a friends house for a play date with all of Claire little friends.  We dressed up the kiddies and tried to take everyone's photo together.  It was a lot harder than we thought to get all six in a photo together.  

Claire making the tags for the Halloween treats

Abby and Henry (Superman)

Abby (skunk), Lily (strawberry), Allegra (Snow White)

After the girls woke up from their naps we carved two little pumpkins we bought from the pumpkin patch.  I bought a carving set from Walmart with two knives, a scoop, marker and stencils.  It was the best $6 I spent, the knives work so well to easily make the right shapes and spare your fingers.  Claire loved using the big scoop to take out all the pumpkin guts and seeds.  As I carved the pumpkin she stirred the seeds in the bowl saying she was making soup.  I'm a bad mom and didn't take any photos of our finished pumpkins or any during the actually carving part.  We had fun making our pumpkins into a bat and cat (even though Kyle was questioning weather it was a cat) 

In the morning I had put a whole chicken into the slow cooker to cook all day with potatoes, onions and garlic.  This way at dinner time we could have a quick supper before going out to trick or treat with the girls.  We ate fairly early, around 5.  Kyle arrived home early at 4:45, so that was really nice.  I also made a side dish from Pinterest I now love, parmesan zucchini with corn.  It's delicious! 

Selfie with mommy

Kyle took both girls out trick or treating.  We got them bundled up with their costumes and warm gear underneath.  Abby dressed up as a skunk.  Claire was a pink princess.  Kyle dressed up as Waldo from Where's Waldo?  I dressed up as a witch.  (It's fitting right?)  We also dressed Makena up in a cute costume I found at Target, Rufferee.  Kyle took the girls to one of the bays on our street and they got lots of candy.  He said they loved it.  Claire had been practicing her halloween chant, "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something go to eat."  We taught her that one.  Claire got scared once when a guy dressed up as the Joker answered the door and she started to cry.  He apologized and had his wife give Claire candy instead.  

Getting ready to go out trick or treating

Excited or what?!?

Makena as a Rufferee

Greyson (Blue Monster) and Claire

I stayed back at the house and handed out candy.  I love seeing all the little ones in their costumes.  I also take tally every year of how many kids we get (it's the teacher in me). Last year we had 235 kids and this year we had 294.  I guess there are a lot of young families that live in our neighbourhood now.  I'm glad I went out and bought extra candy because we would have ran out with the two boxes we had from Costco.  I'm also generous because I like to give each kid two candies, one candy and one chocolate bar.  The girls then went to Kyle's grandma's to show her their costumes.  She spoiled them with gifts. 

The girls slept really well that night.  They were pooped.  I saved some of Claire's candy for her but then quickly gave the rest away so it wasn't calling to me from inside the pantry over the weekend.  I have no will power when it comes to candy or chocolate.