Nick took the girls trick or treating on Main Street that morning and I stayed home since I couldn't bring a toilet along. It was all I could do not to cry as they loaded up in the car and drove off. I wanted to go with them so bad and watch my girls enjoy their trick or treating experience. I guess there's always next year. By the way, Shasta went as a Bee and Shelby went as a Ladybug. I thought it would be fun for Nick and me to go as Entomologist (Scientists who study bugs) and Nick thought it would be funny to dress as giant flyswatters and/or bug spray, but we never pulled anything together. That's pretty much how every year goes. We think of clever costumes and then don't do anything about it. Oh well. I try to do Halloween on the cheapest budget possible so it's hard for me to put more money into it. I got Shasta and Shelby's costumes for $4 each. Woot woot! And I didn't buy a single bag of Halloween candy because I already had a massive bag of suckers from a different event. Go me!
I love doing a festive Halloween dinner, but since I had been sick most of the day I didn't have much of an appetite that evening so I decided to do it the next day. We attended a family Halloween party Saturday morning so I didn't think it would take away from the festive dinner to do it Saturday night instead of Friday night. But more on the dinner later.
Halloween night Nick and I took the girls trick or treating around our complex. It was really anticlimactic. The first four doors we knocked on (decorated and porch lights on) nobody answered the door. I felt really frustrated about it. I was worried my girls would be discouraged and confused about what we were even doing since this is the very first year we've taken either of them door to door to trick or treat. But really it was silly for me to worry about that since they were just happy to be outside on an adventure. I would say 50% of the houses in our development didn't have lights on. Then among those that did have lights on I would say about 10% didn't answer the door and at least half of them just had candy dishes sitting on the doorstep. Oh, and of those with candy dishes on the door step, 75% of them were empty. I wasn't worried about my girls not getting more candy, but it was kind of sad to see Shasta's disappointment as she looked into the bowl and announced, "it's empty". But we still had fun. Nick and Wedge went back home after a while because Nick was worried that we left our house unlocked and the blinds open and his precious Playstation sitting in view! Ha! So he decided he'd rather hand out candy. Yes, I know, we were one of the houses that had a bowl of candy sitting on the doorstep. But only for about half an hour.
Watching Shasta hand out candy to the trick or treaters that came to our door was probably my favorite part. She was so darn cute. She felt so proud to hold the bucket of candy and I loved hearing her tell them "you're welcome" when they said thank you and "Happy Halloween" as they walked away. She was completely content handing out candy that it never even dawned on her that she could knock on doors too. When I asked her if she wanted to go trick or treating she was worried about who would give the kids candy that came to our house. It took a little bit of convincing because she wanted to wait until after all the trick or treaters were done coming to our house, but once we started knocking on doors she was pretty excited. I wasn't sure she would ever want to go back home, but telling her she could hand out candy again helped!
(We put the baby gate across the door so Wedge couldn't run out and attack the kids!)
As for our festive Halloween Dinner. I wanted to do a pumpkin theme, but I was pretty unorganized. The day before Halloween I still hadn't even decided on a menu plan. I knew I wanted to have everyone eat out of a pumpkin, but I didn't know what to serve in them and I didn't know what else to do to go with the theme. I thought about making pumpkin shaped rice crispie treats, but I had just made a pan of rice crispie treats earlier in the week and I knew we would have them at the family Halloween party on Saturday so that didn't really appeal to me. That's pretty much where the pumpkin theme stopped. Although our dinner didn't end up having much of a theme, it was still fun and creative!
On the menu:
~ Pumpkin guts served in pumpkins (Broccoli cheese soup served in pumpkin shape bread bowls)
~ Eyeballs (grapes)
~ Werewolf Urine (lemonade)
~ Dirt and Worms (Pudding, cookies, and gummy worms)
Shasta loved helping set the table and prepare what she could with the meal. It was so fun to include her in on it too. And she was so willing to try her dinner. She didn't like the soup, but she tried it all on her own and that's all that matters to me! Who knew it was all in the presentation?
I love Halloween. It's so easy to be festive and make it fun. I think next year I'm going to make a rule that everyone has to come to the dinner table in costume. Nick may not like it, but the girls sure will!
No comments:
Post a Comment