Our latest Halloween

Christina the Cat and I had fun at our Moms Club Halloween party last month. It was nostalgic for me since I am guessing it will be one of the last club events that we attend. I've been considering phasing out since life just feels too busy, my kids are getting older, and besides, the town we're moving to doesn't have a Moms Club anyway. One of the interesting aspects to the party was the location. The host, Michaele, recently moved to the area and is a new member of our club. She bought a home that belonged to some other friends of ours, the Keysers. Isn't that a funny feeling when you walk into a home that now belongs to someone else? She was kind to offer up her home to all those kids and a lot of chaos and mess.
Moms Club parties always have great food and friends. Christina had fun playing with the kids and I enjoyed chatting with the Moms. The kids decorated pumpkins with these neat foamie stickers from Oriental Trading. It's a great way to go with young children. I loved this idea. Christina's is the cat with closely set eyes.
Today, we continued the fun by honoring Daniel's request to decorate the Candy Haunted Castle. I bought a kit last year on clearance and we finally had a mellow day to make this together. The only crafty moment I seemed to have was hot-gluing the pieces. That was the only part that turned out well.
As you can see, the icing wasn't thick enough and didn't work to adhere the candies. Let's just say ours doesn't look anything like the example. Daniel was kind to me about it anyway and said it just looked extra spooky with the icing running down the house. Not our most successful craft project, but it's most likely going in the trash tomorrow anyway. You win some. You lose some, but we did have fun.
Then Ben took Katie to lunch at Texas Roadhouse on a Daddy-Daughter date. It made Katie so happy. One of her favorite things is going out to eat. Fast food doesn't count to her.

Christina could barely wait for them to return so that the whole family could go have an adventure. Ben was thoughtful and brought back much of his meal in a box so that I could enjoy a loaded baked potato and steak too. The younger kids sampled KT's leftovers before we headed to Bass Pro for their Halloween fun. The highlight of the store's events was the S'Mores. We all enjoyed one by the massive fireplace in the lobby. I loved this family photo taking by the employee who was the Official S'Mores Maker. It wasn't what I thought it would be since she made them and we ate them.
We also sampled the Dutch Oven cobbler on our way in. None of us cared for it since it was burned. Mostly Christina couldn't wait to see the bass. Here she is telling them something in her cute, animated way. She has two voices. One if really soft, sweet, and feminine. The other is loud and bordering on screaming. We hope the nice voice sticks.
The girls enjoyed coloring their animal masks. Daniel opted out, but then was angry about not having a mask when we headed for the car afterwards. Isn't that outings with kids for you?
Daniel did love exploring in the tents and the boats. I was bummed they did away with their putting green and the ducks area. This photo of him gives me the giggles since I remember him patting the mannequin's chin, explaining that he looks just like Bear in Man vs. Wild.
Christina left her mask on the rest of the time we were in Bass Pro. She likes to copy Katie. The kids and I had fun in the shooting gallery and then we did a little Christmas shopping and browsed. I don't think Ben was able to shop as much as he would have liked though. He loves Bass Pro. This store is just testosterone packed on a Saturday!
I look forward to my quiet afternoons when Christina naps (most days she still naps, but times are changing!) During that time, Daniel played with his neighbor friend, Michael, and I assembled this foamie Halloween Haunted House. This project was much more successful than the candy house in the morning. I was glad Katie finally made time to work on it with me. School and 'recovering from school' has sure kept her busy.
We've started a new Halloween tradition since we made one of these last year too. Nana bought us last year's tree house. I found this year's at Michaels for under $5. I hope to keep this craft going each year.
The boys wanted to help, so I let them put on ghosts and bats. Katie worked diligently adding the sparkly glitter to the mints and candy corn. She also added the glitter on the sparkly base.

Soon Christina woke up and she was thrilled for "Mommy's Halloween Cooking Class." Calling it this helped her wake up more happily. Last week I read about some fun Halloween food ideas on this blog and was excited to try some easy, kid-friendly recipes for our Halloween dinner tonight. Ben kindly bought some of the ingredients for me this week. The kids and I had a ball making these MUMMY DOGS with crescent rolls and tasty Hebrew hot dogs that were cut in half. A definite "make again."
None of my photos turned out well, so I'm adding the photos from the recipe blog. These mummies are adorable and tasty too. The kids opted for ketchup - instead of mustard - eyes, although they're more camouflaged and less photogenic. We also added mustard or ketchup on the side for dipping.

These easy CHEESY FINGERS were my favorite dish, if you can even call it that. I generally have string cheese and I keep slivered almonds in my freezer. You can adhere the nuts with cream cheese, but I opted for sour cream since I was using it in the next recipe. I also stretched the cheese by cutting them in half both lengthwise and cross-wise. Don't forget to add the knuckle marks. They looked really cool.

I made a variation of this since I wasn't up for the work of seven-layer dip tonight. My kids love cottage cheese and tomatoes, so I made it with a SPIDER-WEB of sour cream on top. The added black spiders made it look creepy.

The last dish that I made was by far the grossest. In fact, NONE of the kids would touch it. To make them more bite-size, I used hot dog buns and cut them in half. To make the WORMS, you thinly slice hot dogs and place them in boiling water for a minute or two. They curl up and look perfectly Halloweeny. Then you mix them with BBQ sauce and place in a bun. Ben and I enjoyed them anyway. I also had some leftover angel hair with carbonara sauce that I served as BRAINS. It was fun to have soda for a treat too. KT called it brain juice. I had to work to keep my appetite with all this gross stuff on the table. We all enjoyed a creative Halloween dinner!

By this time, we were running ate. Usually I don't plan creative meals right before trick or treating, but tonight's dinner was worth it. We hadn't even gotten costumes on or prepped the front door when we heard the first door bell ring. Our neighbors had come before we were ready. After they left, we hustled. Here are kitty Christina and Harry Potter ready to knock on doors.
Since they weren't cooperating for photos, I suggested they knock on our door for some candy. I loved this picture of us all.
Trick or treating brings back great memories of my childhood. We walked down Warrington and up Amhearst streets. Then we went to pick up Cate, a neighbor and ward friend who wanted to join us. About half the houses (or less) in our neighborhood participate and celebrate Halloween. It's kind of a bummer.

A funny moment tonight was at a neighbor's haunted house. I had to talk Daniel into going in. Mostly it was dark and spooky, but in the last room, there was a mannequin on a chair. Cate told me it wasn't real. Well, at one point the creepy guy moved and I screamed, scaring the two little kids even more. When we came out of the spook alley, I admitted to all the adults in costume that the screams came from me. Kind of funny. I am a scaredy-cat and have always watched the scary parts of movies muted. It drives Ben nuts, but I just can't handle those intense parts of movies. Daniel told Ben at bedtime that he was scared and going to have nightmares because of the haunted house Mom made him go into. He put on Primary music to help him calm down. We'll see how tonight goes.
We drove over to another neighborhood where we have lots of friends and there's great Halloween spirit. I wanted Ben to join us this year, so we turned off our house lights so he could take a break from passing out candy. It was fun to see our friends at their neighbor's kiddie carnival. The kids played games, won prizes, and then headed to one of their neighbors that often gives out full-sized candy bars. Some received the big bars and some didn't. That bugged my kids. Here are Daniel and Ryan M. both as Harry Potter. How cute are they?

After trick or treating in that neighborhood, we took Katie to Cate's house to let her Mom continue with the big girls since they could stay up a bit later. Ben and I took the little ones home to get ready for bed. It was almost 9 pm and they were pooped. Me too. I thought it would be fun to let the kids eat a little candy while we drove around to see the cool Halloween decorations. Ben hadn't seen some of the homes that go all out! There's a neighborhood with tons of inflatables and lights. It was something we hadn't done before. Fun. I'm inspired and hope to add at least one inflatable for next year. And maybe some orange lights. And maybe some....I'll stop now.

Although we never carved pumpkins (for the first time ever) this year, we sure had some fun this Halloween. How could Walmart run out of pumpkins? Ben and I ran out of steam to hit another grocery store so we improvised. The kids didn't even seem to care. Plus, I had all these other ideas for fun today and I had my fake pumpkins with lights anyway.

Hope you all had a spooky time too! Whoooooo.