Halloween

No need for warm, fuzzy costumes in Houston!  Quite the change from NYC, where we had to be prepared for temperatures ranging from mild to cold on Halloween.  The forecast here was for temperatures in the mid-80s, so I made sure that the costumes I ordered weren't going to melt our dear children.  And, yes, if you are reading this carefully, that does mean I waited to choose and buy the kids' costumes until so close to Halloween that we knew the weather forecast!  I didn't do it so I'd know what weather to expect, although maybe I should claim I did so I don't have to admit to being a complete procrastinator!  In my defense, I am getting old.  And September and October were very busy months for my overworked and aging brain.  I was tackling one celebration/event/visit/vacation at a time.  It's all good.  I live in the land of a million stores and a million more online that are eager and willing to ship me anything I want in a hurry!

We had been asking Leighton for ideas for a while, but there didn't seem to be anything he really wanted for himself or Riley.  Just the usual suggestions of costumes that somehow go together.  He likes that a lot.  And food costumes.  He likes those, too.

2 years ago, he was a hamburger and she was a hot dog.

Last year, he was a banana and she was a strawberry.

He keeps wanting them to be bread and milk, but I haven't found great costumes to buy for those.  Yes, I know, I could make them.  But I am not sure I am up for that challenge just yet.  I'd rather punch my (memorized) 16 digit credit card number and have 2 cute costumes arrive on my doorstep a couple days later, instead!

We almost went for 2 different colors of m&ms, to stick with the food theme of the past 2 years, but then I came across these and couldn't resist ...

Leighton was Outrageous Orange and Riley was Tickle Me Pink. 

But, let me rewind to the beginning of the day because there was more to our Halloween fun than just costumes.

I packed Leighton a fun Halloween lunch for school.  He had pumpkin and spider deviled eggs, mummy English muffin pizzas, and ghostly bananas.  I was up late making them (there's that procrastinator thing again!) so excuse the poor picture quality.  And the note had already been to school and back before I had a chance to get a picture of it, so it's a little crumpled up.

In the morning Riley and I went to a Halloween play date.  She had fun eating Halloween treats, making a cape, decorating a card, and playing with the other kids.

When I pick Leighton up from school, I always give the kids a snack to eat on the way home.  After the fruit, they had witches broomsticks.

I wanted to make something fun for dinner, but didn't get completely organized on time.  Dinner was still full of Halloween fun, but the healthy-and-nutritious-before-all-the-candy factor was definitely lacking!  Oops!  The kids had some Halloween shaped mac and cheese (I was going to make my own sauce and just use the noodles but ran out of time, so I at least tried to give Riley the noodles plain but she demanded the orange ones like her brother!), bocconcini eye balls, and some mummy sausages (the tops looked more like sombreros once baked, but Leighton thought they looked like mummies when I was wrapping them up, so that's all that matters!).  Don't worry there was some vegetables involved as well.  And neither of them were interested in the super salty mummies other than to just look at them.  So really it was just noodles and cheese and vegetables.  Sounds healthy enough, right?!

After dinner, it was time to get in the crayon costumes and head out for some trick or treating fun.  We went to a few houses on our street and then wandered up through the neighborhood to the same church where we went to the pumpkin patch.  They were holding a trunk-or-treat, which seems to be popular around here.  Lots of people park (and even decorate, in some instances!) their cars in the parking lots, open up their trunks, and hand out goodies from there.  It makes for a fast way for kids to load up their buckets, that's for sure!

When we got home, we handed out some of our own treat bags (filled with glow sticks, tattoos, and pumpkin book marks) before heading inside to eat up some of the candy the kids had collected.  This is what Leighton looked like - can you say, Sugar High?!?!

And then it was time for bath.  And in order to get them excited enough to leave their overflowing treat buckets alone, I filled the tub with glow sticks and turned out the lights for a fun Halloween glow bath.

Happy Halloween!