Halloween Recap

 I made this.  It cost me zero dollars.  Wilberforce can't complain about that, can he?

More on the cheap-o signage tomorrow.

But first:  Halloween!  Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I love seeing the little monsters dressed up like little monsters.  I love the cool weather that usually comes with trick-or-treating.  I love stockpiling goodies during October.  I love decorating with cozy fall colors.

I want to tell you a secret.

But I can't.  It's embarrassing.

Ok, I'll tell you.

Sometimes, when I buy candy to hand out to the monsters, I only buy candy with color coordinating wrappers.

There.  I said it.  I stage my trick-or-treat candy bowl with coordinating candies.  Those little Hershey's kisses are the best with their beautiful fall colors.  And Clark bars, besides being quite fitting in the Clark's candy bowl, have lovely Halloween-esque wrappers.  The Hershey/Mr.Goodbar/Krackel grab bag is always a good one, too.  However, I've found that if there isn't any chocolate in the candy, they usually don't have Halloween wrappers.  Example: Skittles, Starburst, Sweetarts, Sprees...delicious little candies, but I can't have neon colored wrappers in my beautiful candy bowl!  Are you kidding me?

My house is not the place to come for sugary, fruity candy.  But I've got handfuls of color-coordinated chocolates for you!

I have a problem.  Step one.  Only eleven more to go.

Anywho, I used my Pinterest addiction to come up with some cool porch decorations for Halloween night.  Behold:

 Tissue paper flowers!

I had quite a few little monsters steal my candy, then tell me "I like your deck-or-ray-shuns!" before they ran down the porch stairs.  A bunch of moms loved the tissue paper flowers.  I even had one mom lean against the wall by the front door while her monster picked out candy and say "It's so beautiful on your porch...can I just stay right here and enjoy it the rest of the night?"

Our Clark pumpkin was a hit, too.  I caught more than one person whipping out their phone to take a picture of it.

Don't mind our milk cooler.  Did you know milk men still exist?  We get a half gallon of fresh milk in a glass bottle delivered every Monday.  How cool is that?  

Somehow that reminded me of butternut squash.  It's another thing I've started to look forward to in the fall. 

Doesn't that look tasty?  I tried baking squash a few times last year, but could never get it quite right.  Then I found the perfect squash-baking recipe on, you guessed it, Pinterest.  How did I survive without Pinterest? 

Here's the scoop:  cut a medium butternut squash in half.  Scoop out the seeds and nasty guts.  Place face down on foil lined cookie sheet (see that picture? do that).  Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.  Flip the squash over, add seasonings, bake for another 15 minutes.  Eat.  The end. 

We use all kinds of herbs and spices on our squash.  Sometimes we'll throw on some pumpkin pie spice and almonds.  Other times we'll use chopped shallots and rosemary.  Last time Wilberforce wanted to "do something crazy" so we dumped some ground mustard, celery salt, and pepper on it - delish! 

We keep it healthy - no oil or butter.  Just seasonings.  In the past month I've baked at least six squash.  I think I'll go buy some more tomorrow.  

We baked a butternut squash on Halloween night, along with baked chicken.  Mmmmmm....fall. 

All in all, this Halloween was a great one.  We saw lots of adorable costumes, handed out boat loads of candy, and enjoyed our cozy evening at home!