Hallowe'en Hobgoblin

Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday due to all the scary/gory parts.  But one Halloween tradition that is very popular in our area is the Halloween Hobgoblin and I love it.  Every year we get "booed", and this year it actually happened on October 1st.  My daughters opened the front door to head out to school and found three little treat bags with the above sign attached.

They were super excited.  That afternoon we went to Target and got goodies for our own treat bags and they came up with a list of people to hobgoblin.  We bought vampire teeth, pumpkin erasers, Halloween tattoos and a bag of candy, and put together the bags.  Since Little Man's friends are not in our neighborhood, I sent an email to the parents of his friends letting them know that the identity of the "Hobgoblin" is supposed to be a secret, but I wanted at least them know who the mystery candy came so they'd feel comfortable letting their kids have it.

We drove from house to house dropping the treat bags in mailboxes or on the front steps with the kids name on them.  Sometimes they would ring the doorbell but mostly they just made the drop and then got back in the car as quick as possible in a fit of nervous giggles.  We were only caught once.  Little Hugger was dropping off at a friend's house when her friend's brother opened the front door and told her Little Hugger was there.  Little Hugger froze in the driveway - unsure of what to do.  I told her friend we were trying to surprise her, so close her eyes.  She went inside, Little Hugger dropped the bag on the steps and we drove away.

It's a fun little tradition, doesn't cost much , so if you think your kids would like it I encourage you to give it a try (you could always plant the first bag on your own doorstep to get it started).  Our sign is a little blurry after being recopied so many times so I encourage you to make your own, but feel free to use our words.  I would love to start an adult version with seasonal beers/wines other treats

Halloween Candy Buyback

Last week we took the kids trick or treating and even though we only went to 2 blocks worth of houses, they each came home with about 100 pieces of candy. More than I would want them to eat. So rather than them eating it, my husband or I eating it all (cause I would never throw away perfectly good candy), we went to a local orthodontist yesterday and dropped it off as part of Operation Gratitude's Halloween Candy Buy Back program.

Each dentist can decide what they give the kids in exchange for the candy. This one gives one $1 coin for each pound of candy.

The kids love the dollar coins and thankfully agree with me that the troops deserve the treats as a small way of giving them a taste of home and letting them know that people appreciate them and their service.

It's always funny watching my kids sort through their stuff and decide what to keep and what to donate. They each have a Ziploc box that they keep their treats in to pick from for Saturday treat day.

Little Reader is very methodical. She spreads out all her candy, groups everything by type, keeps one of each kind and donates the rest.

Little Man keeps all the chocolate unless it has nuts in it. He's not allergic, he just doesn't like nuts.

Little Hugger takes her time deciding and struggles through it. She keeps all her favorites, and slowly whittles down the rest. Usually it takes a few rounds for Little Hugger to weed out enough to get the box to close. She actually handed in the most candy this time earning $3, Little Reader got $2, Little Man was technically less than 1 pound but they were nice enough to round up for him.

http://www.halloweencandybuyback.com/

Jack o Lanterns & Jack o Peppers

As I've mentioned one of my favorite parts of Halloween is carving pumpkins. Luckily as each year goes by the kids are willing to do more of their own.  A couple of years ago I would end up carving 3 pumpkins.  My husband would do his own, I'd end up doing the kids cause they didn't like touching the goop and weren't able to use the sharp tools.  After everyone was in bed I'd carve my own.  Not ideal but we always wanted everyone to have a pumpkin.  Anyway, here are this years jack o lanterns....

My husband's is the top one.  He does the same face every year, but I guess now that my daughter's are following my lead and going away from traditional face jack o lanterns, it's ok.  The mummy is mine.  Little Reader did the witch and carved most of it herself.  Little Hugger did all the stenciling and prep work on her cat, but I had to do the carving.  Little Man didn't do much aside from tell me how he wanted his carved, but that's ok he's only 3.

We got lots of compliments on our collection from the trick or treaters and Little Man especially liked pointing out his scary pumpkin to anyone who commented on them.


The night before Halloween I decided to make a Halloween themed dinner that I saw on Pinterest.  I wasn't sure if my kids would eat it as they're not really fans of stuffed peppers but they ate them this time.  Here are our "jack o peppers".

Here's a link to the recipe I used.  I didn't time it right to use the crockpot though, I put them in the oven at 375 for about 30 minutes and they came out perfect.  The only change we made was adding some shredded cheddar on top (I may mix it in next time)

Homemade Halloween Costumes

Linking up to the Handmade Halloween Costume Contest.

Two years ago my oldest daughter decided she wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for Halloween.  Great.  Little Man was only 1 so too young to have much of an opinion so I got him a monkey costume from Old Navy - love those two piece fleece ones.  

Ok, then for the challenge - Little Hugger decided she wanted to be a tornado.  What??? How the hell am I going to pull that off?  I kept hoping she would change her mind, but she didn't so after a few trips to different fabric stores and phone calls to my Mom for guidance, here is our tornado.....

The fabric was something I lucked out finding at a fabric store - Hancock I think. I bent a couple of dry cleaning hangers to rest on her shoulders and hold the fabric up.  Then we tied on various farm animals, equipment and even a little barn to look like they were swept up on the tornado.  I found gray turtleneck onesie and gray tights for her to wear underneath and we messed up her hair to look more windswept.

She loved it and certainly got lots of points for originality when trick or treating. Oh and just to complete the theme, I sewed some wings on Little Man's monkey costume, so he became a flying monkey.   

Fall

I love fall - definitely my favorite season. I love the colors of the leaves (as you've probably noticed from my recent photos), the sound of crunching leaves as we walk to/from school, the smells of fall in our house - baking pumpkin muffins, apple pies, bringing some of my heartier recipes into the dinner rotation.

Really the only thing I don't really like about fall is Halloween. Don't get me wrong, I love the candy, I like carving pumpkins but I never really liked dressing up, I don't enjoy scary/horror things, and have a severe phobia of spiders - even the fake ones. Put all that together and well, I'd just as well skip it altogether - or stay home eating fun size Hershey bars.

But of course we have kids, so that's not going to happen. Lots of people in our neighborhood decorate their yards and our kids wanted to too.  I told them I wouldn't decorate the outside, but inside we hung up some Halloween crafts they've made at school through the years, and helped them make a few more. Compromise.

This year we were invited to a Halloween party which thankfully my husband is on call for so we're skipping that. This weekend we have a kids birthday party to go to. Since the birthday girl loves to dress up, she has asked that the guests dress up (parents encouraged too). Normally I would skip it, but then yesterday I was playing with Little Man and he had me put on a cape I had made for Little Hugger when she was a witch. I had also made her a matching skirt. I tried that on and since it had an elastic waistband it fit too. So I'll wear some black put on the cape, skirt and hat and for once not be a total stick in the mud ;).

But no, I won't be dressing up for Halloween.  I'll talk a quick walk around our block with the kids, and let my husband take them all beyond that, while I stay home and hand out candy. 

So in this case balance comes in compromising enough to not stick out like a sore thumb, but still not beyond what I am comfortable/willing to do.  

A Good Friday

Friday morning I dropped Little Man for his field trip to the pumpkin farm. He was so excited!! Maybe more excited to ride the big school bus than to actually go to the pumpkin farm. As we were waiting for everyone to arrive, I started to see that pretty much every kid was accompanied by their Mom. It wasn't required that parents chaperone but I was starting to feel a little bad that I hadn't volunteered. At the same time I knew that Little Man would be more independent and more likely to eat his lunch if I wasn't there. And this was going to be my only chance to go for a long run without any time pressure. He was perfectly happy to go off without me and soon enough has happily on his way.

I drove over to Busse Woods in Elk Grove Village planning to run their 7.7 mile trail. I had walked the whole thing years ago when Little Reader was still in a stroller. Today was much colder 48 when I arrived but with the leaves changing it was really pretty. At one point I misunderstood the trail markers and ended up going the wrong way. I thought the trail would join up with the main trail, but it never did so I had to turn around and go back the way I came. In the end I ran 9.3 miles (with .1 mi intervals of walking every .75 miles). I managed it in an hour an half. I checked the results from last year's Hot Chocolate and that's about average for my age group so I feel a lot more confident about the race, knowing I can do it.

I ran the whole thing in a sweatshirt and shorts and while I warmed up some as I ran I definitely need to get some cool weather running gear.

After stretching out and warming up I went to IKEA for lunch and to take advantage of being able to be there without kids. They already have their Christmas section set up and I saw the greatest little "why didn't anyone think of that before" item? Those silver ornament hangers have always bugged me, these green ones are great.  I don't know how well they work since I haven't used them yet - obviously - but I wanted to buy them now in case I don't make it back to IKEA before Christmas.  I love/hate that big blue box. 


I picked up Little Man and he had had a great time on his field trip. A lot of the kids had fallen asleep on the ride home and looked a little groggy. Little Man came off the bus with a huge smile on his face. He had a pumpkin and a caramel apple and was in a hurry to get home to eat his apple. He told me all about the different things they did, and proudly said that he ate his lunch. He managed to bite all the caramel off his apple and only eat a tiny bit of apple.


After school we took his sisters to drive around and Hobgoblin their friends. We've been doing it for about 3 years now and they love it. If you aren't familiar with the Hobgoblin it's kind of a Halloween Secret Santa. You drop off Halloween goodies at 6 friends houses and then they are supposed to pay it forward to six other people and the chain continues til Halloween. You post the sign in your window so people know you've been "booed". They had a lot of fun picking out goodies to put in our bags (vampire teeth, Halloween pencil and eraser, glow sticks, and a couple of pieces of candy). Since it's supposed to delivered secretly, I drove them around and they rang the bell and ran back to the car to try to get away before their friend saw them (which caused lots of giggles).

My husband made it home for dinner after having business dinners a couple of nights this week. Little Man enjoyed telling everyone about his field trip. He got the new iPhone and we were all having fun coming up with silly questions for Siri.

Ok, on the surface this may not seem like a post that would go with my theme, but really it was a good day of managing to provide fun times for each of the kids, a relaxing evening with my husband and still a good day for me. See? Balance.

Hallowe'en & Operation Gratitude

My kids have been looking forward to Hallowe'en for quite a while. They picked out their costumes ages ago (and thankfully never changed their minds).  The weather was cool, but not so cold that they needed to cover up their costumes with jackets and sweaters.  Lots of crunchy leaves on the ground to set the mood. The kids had a great time.  My older ones finally wanted to venture beyond just our block for trick or treating so after I took all three around our block, my husband took our vampire and butterfly to venture further while Bob the Builder and I stayed home and handed out candy.  He won't eat any of the candy anyway so it worked out better for everyone that way.  My daughters came home with full buckets and tales of the scary houses they saw and friends they bumped in to along the way.

While we waited for pizza to arrive I had them start sorting through their candy. Our local orthodontist buys candy from the kids ($1 per pound) and sends it to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you're looking to get rid of some candy, I'd definitely encourage anyone to participate in these programs. Most kids end up with more candy than they could/should eat, so why not support the hardworking men and women of the armed forces by helping them get a care package full of candy.  I know they appreciate and they certainly deserve it.

There is a group called Operation Gratitude that coordinates some of the buy back programs and lists a lot of information of different dentists, but you can also google "Hallowe'en candy buy back" and find others that aren't listed with OG.  They usually have certain drop off hours and our particular guy gives the kids the gold coins which they always get a kick out of (much cooler than regular old singles).  I think my oldest has about 3 pounds worth to donate, my middle one maybe one pound, and I will be donating all of my youngests' probably 2 pounds worth - his sisters added some old goody bag treats to his donation bag to help him.

Hope everyone had a happy Hallowe'en.