I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! We had a great, but interesting one.
I really, really love where we live. There are so many wonderful people who live in our neighborhood and I’ve always been so grateful. We’ve lived in our house for 10 1/2 years now, which is longer than any other place we’ve lived (by a lot!) It’s been fun to have our kids grow up here and to watch our friend’s kids grow up as well, although it pulls at my heartstrings a bit.
I always love Trick-or-Treating in our neighborhood because we see so many of our friends and neighbors along the way. Over the years, we’ve had neighbors put on amazing haunted houses in their backyards, some give out hot chocolate, hot dogs and/or homemade root beer and some neighbors like to sit out on their driveways and play music, light a fire in a fire-pit and just have a good time. It’s like a big ol’ party!
We’ve always LOVED going Trick-or-Treating with our kids. To me, it is such an epic childhood memory and I just love experiencing it with my kids and watching them get so excited. We usually Trick-or-Treat for about 2 hours and love every minute….although I always regret all the candy that sits at our house afterward!
Well, for some strange, sad reason, Trick-or-Treating and just the overall Halloween spirit was A LOT slower in our neighborhood this year. 🙁 🙁 🙁 We still saw some of our friends out and about, but there was A HUGE drop in numbers. It almost felt eerie. I was like, “Did everyone forget it was Halloween tonight!?” THEN, I realized that maybe, just maybe our neighborhood that I love so much is growing up and we just don’t have as many kids anymore!??!?
I sure hope that’s not the case, but I’m afraid it might be.
Oh, it just makes me so sad. I dunno, maybe next year it will be back to normal, but this year was totally different. It was also strange because my little boys didn’t want to Trick-or-Treat for quite as long either? They were done after about an hour or so, so we headed home. I guess the lack of Halloween Spirit in the neighborhood didn’t make it quite as fun this year. Sniff, sniff.
On a brighter note, we don’t have as much Halloween candy at our house. Yay! However, my boys were feeling a little disappointed today as they realized how quickly their candy is diminishing. They were saying that they want to Trick-or-Treat for a lot longer next year!
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On the day of Halloween, I spent my time watching my kiddos in their Elementary School parade…
This child of mine was so excited about his poo emoji costume this year! Bwahahahaha! He’s my friendly, happy, spirited child who doesn’t mind standing out or being the center of attention. He’s such a sweet, kindhearted boy too and I’m so grateful to have him in our family.
I somehow missed seeing my little 8 year old in the parade (so sad!), but I helped with his classroom party immediately after the parade, so it worked out okay.
He wanted to be Spider-man for the second year in a row, but last year he was Spider-man Homecoming and this year he’s The Avengers Spider-man, I guess?
Oh, and this little sweetheart could not be more different than his older brother (the poo emoji one.) He’s every bit as sweet, but he’s a lot more reserved and is just such a responsible, hard working, innocent, kind-hearted soul. I have always been so grateful that these two boys have always been best buddies, even though they are so different. They definitely seem to balance each other out and it’s perfect.
I’m also so grateful that they always include their littlest brother in all of their shenanigans. They take such good care of him and it just makes my heart burst.
After I helped with my son’s class party, I took my littlest one to preschool and watched him in his little parade.
He wanted to be Iron Man again, although last year he was more than happy to wear Iron Man pajamas as a costume. This year he wanted a legit costume with muscles. In fact, this year he wanted an actual Iron Man costume. He was disappointed that he couldn’t actually fly or have super powers, lol.
Oh, I just LOOOOOOVE these little boys and I just don’t want them to grow up…..ever.
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Well, today I thought I would share some of my top tips for surviving Halloween and not pigging out on all the candy before, during and afterward!
It is tough, but I’ve definitely learned a few things that have helped me a TON over the years. In fact, I use these same strategies throughout the year with any kind of junk food we may have in the house, not just at Halloween.
- Don’t buy Halloween candy any earlier than you have to! It’s always so tempting to want to buy Halloween candy and bring it home as soon as it shows up in the stores. It can be especially hard to resist the seasonal candy that only comes out this time of year; candy corn, candy pumpkins, Reese’s pumpkins, fun-sized everything, etc.!
- I learned long ago that if I buy Halloween candy early, it will call my name from wherever it’s hiding and I WILL eat it! So, I usually buy my Halloween candy a day or two before Halloween.
- Once you’ve bought the Halloween candy, hide it and DO NOT open the bags! I’ve learned that if the Halloween candy is hidden away, I almost forget about it. BUT, if that candy is sitting out or especially if that bag of candy is open…I will just keep snitchin’ it!
- Do not buy your favorite candies to give out on Halloween! Back in the day, I used to love buying all of my favorite candies….so I could enjoy them too! I don’t do that anymore because it is trouble! It’s just waaaaay too easy to eat too many of those little candies.
- Nowadays, I try to buy all of the sweet, sour, sugary stuff and NOT the chocolatey things. I can resist things like taffy, Sweet Tarts, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, suckers, Sour Patch Kids, etc. ALL DAY LONG. I think they taste good, but I can easily resist them. However, it is so dang hard for me to resist chocolate! It’s especially hard when there are several varieties of yummy chocolatey things…it makes me want to eat
onethree of each! - You can also go the non-food route if you want to as well. You can give out small toys, glow sticks, stickers, pencils, whatever you can think of!
- Nowadays, I try to buy all of the sweet, sour, sugary stuff and NOT the chocolatey things. I can resist things like taffy, Sweet Tarts, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers, suckers, Sour Patch Kids, etc. ALL DAY LONG. I think they taste good, but I can easily resist them. However, it is so dang hard for me to resist chocolate! It’s especially hard when there are several varieties of yummy chocolatey things…it makes me want to eat
- Make sure to eat a healthy dinner and feed your kids a healthy dinner before they go out to Trick-or-Treat! This doesn’t have to be fancy, but it’s sure helpful to have some decent food in the system to off-set all of the sugar! It’s also much easier to not overdose on candy if you’re already full of nutritious food!
- On the DAY OF Halloween, I usually allow myself some candy! There have been some years when I haven’t eaten ANY candy, some years I allow myself a small amount of my favorite kinds and some years I just enjoy whatever I want just for that ONE day. It just depends on how I’m feelin’ each year.
- I’ve found it helpful to DECIDE what I’m doing and then STICK to it! If I’m not having ANY, I make sure to avoid it. If I only want to have a few things, then I decide what those things will be and then I’M DONE. It’s tough, but it’s helpful to set some clear goals.
- After Halloween, I try to get rid of whatever candy we have left that didn’t get passed out as quickly as possible. I usually give it to my teenagers, their friends or just give it away to whoever wants it! Again, if it sits at my house, I WILL eat it!
- After Halloween, keep the candy out of sight, out of mind! On Halloween night, my kids like to sort their candy and then eat a bunch of it, of course. After they’re done, I usually put each of my kids’ candy in separate gallon sized Ziploc bags. Sometimes I will keep all the candy and allow them to have a few every once in while; other times I let them keep their own candy, but I encourage them to ration it out and not eat it all at once! Regardless, I always try to keep the candy out of sight, out of mind! If I can’t see it, I usually won’t think about it and I won’t end up eating it! If I see it hanging around my house, I will more than likely eat it!
I love Halloween and think it’s such a fun holiday! The candy is certainly hard to resist, but these tips save my bacon every year! I hope some of them can help ya’ll as well. I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween and I hope the after effects don’t cause too much damage around your house. Ha ha!
Love the cheeky emoji costume! And great advice for next year. I won’t be buying my favorite candies anymore haha
Ha ha, thanks so much! He sure enjoyed that costume! Ha ha. 😉