Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone! I know this is a bit late, but this week has been extremely busy. We did enjoy a fun Halloween night with Matthew. We dressed him up as a monkey. It seemed fairly appropriate considering his favorite stuffed animal is a little monkey.

He was so excited to get dressed up...

Paul and I had originally planned to just take Matthew trick-or-treating to a few of the neighbors' houses in the area. They see Matthew from time to time and like to ask about him, so we thought it would be fun to pay them a visit. Matthew enjoyed trick-or-treating so much that we ended up taking him to the next neighborhood over to ring some doorbells. There were throngs of children out and about. They were all under the age of 10 and dressed as firefighters, dragons, princesses, and various action figures. They all looked super cute and were enjoying pointing and commenting on the costumes of every other kid who was out and about.

We tried to teach Matthew how to say "Trick or Treat!"

That did not go over so well.

He would just run up to the door, ring the bell and then start waving frantically while yelling "Hi! Hi! Hiiiiii!!" He would then proceed to babble about something very animatedly while the poor person would attempt to give him a treat. He really was not at all interested in the candy - just the social aspect of the whole night! He loved watching all the other little kids and even was stopped a few times by other youngsters his age who would start lightly touching and pointing at his outfit while he did the same right back to them. Too cute.

Paul and I definitely had more fun than we thought we would.

And if you're looking up for a yummy way to use leftover candy, we put it in a pretty fabulous snack mix to take to a party. We're bringing it to a football get together this weekend. My child is hyper enough without pumping him with excess sugar, so we'll hand it out to some engineers and see if it makes them a little more social.

Snacks like this keep your dentist in business. So by making it, you are supporting local businesses. Which is great for the economy. What a patriot you are!

Scarily Delicious Halloween Snack Mix

adapted from Food and Wine

2 cups coarsely broken pretzels

1/4 cup light brown sugar

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/3 cup dry milk powder

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1 bag Reese's pieces

1 Hershey bar, broken into small pieces

Note: This is just the candy that I chose to use. You could definitely just use about 12 ounces of chopped up whatever you have leftover from Halloween. I really like the peanut butter-pretzel combination, so Peanut Butter cups are especially marvelous.

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil.

Stir together the melted butter, sugars, and milk powder. Stir in the pretzels and gently toss to coat. Spread onto the baking sheet and bake until fragrant and light brown, about 20 minutes.

Let the pretzels cool completely. Break them apart and toss in a large bowl with the candy.