Halloween

Nicole and I will be moving to Arizona next year so we are trying to do as much as we can with my parents, siblings, and their families this year, especially around Holidays. Nicole had the idea to have them come to our house for dinner, some goodie making, and Trick-or-Treating. After everyone arrived Nicole sat all the kids down at the table to make candy necklaces. I think that the kids had a pretty good time making them, but I'm sure they had an even better time eating them. After the kids made their necklaces, everyone who wanted to got to make a caramel apples. This was another one of Nicole's great ideas. We got different kinds of apples, a bunch of caramel (obviously), and some extra goodies: mini chocolate chips, mini M&Ms, white chocolate chips, coconut, and the leftovers from the candy necklaces. There were some rather creative apples. And I don't know about anyone else, but mine tasted wonderful. For dinner we decided to get pumpkin shaped bread bowls and have clam chowder. It was the first time that Nicole and I had ever made clam chowder, but man was it DELICIOUS! It was gone pretty quick. After dinner we all got our respective kids dressed up in their costumes and got ready to go Trick-or-Treating.

Things started out a little rough when Andrew tripped on his new McQueen Trick-or Treating bag (it is almost as big as him) and tumbled down the stairs. He got a little scrape on his nose and forehead, but he wasn't going to let a little fall stop him from going Trick-or Treating; he had been looking forward to it for a long time. We decided to go around our apartment complex first, and then up a couple of the side streets. I think that all the kids (and the adults) enjoyed themselves.

And the kids made quite the haul of candy. I think the funnest thing for the parents is when you have to go through the kid's candy and make sure it is okay for them to eat (you all know what I'm talking about--what's your favorite candy?).

When we were done Trick-or-Treating, it was about 9:00pm, so we wrapped things up and called it a night. A huge THANKS to Nicole for putting together a wonderful Halloween.