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Some Rain, Some Fun, and Some NOT Fun

This past week started out rainy and cold (which we all enjoyed after so much hot weather with no rain). The kids were able to do some fun stuff at school (it’s always fun when the holidays are approaching) and Joseph was able to go on a mini field trip to see an orchestra perform. I hosted book club and had fun making some spooky treats. We were gearing up for a fun weekend with the church trunk-or-treat, but then Abigail came down with a gnarly stomach bug. She was sooo sad to have to miss out, but we reminded her that if she rested, she would be more than ready for the school trunk-or-treat…plus there’s still actual Halloween a week from tomorrow. It’s really hard to have to disappoint the kids when stuff like this happens, but it really is best to keep them home when they’re sick…that’s not the kind of sharing we want to encourage, haha. She’s doing much better today and hopefully she’ll be well enough to go to school tomorrow.

She was really excited that she was going to be able to wear her boots and her rain coat (along with her new favorite kitty leggings and her second-favorite shirt). I’ve given up trying to change her mind about picking clothes that match…I have more important battles to fight (like teeth brushing, haha).
Sooooo…I decided to walk the kids to school while it was just sprinkling…then I told myself it wasn’t THAT bad and I could go ahead and go for my three mile walk. Well, the rain wasn’t falling hard, but it was a…coating rain (and I got splashed once by a car driving by *insert eye roll here*). I survived, though!
After I got home and got dried off (and took a warm shower), I prepared better for my trip to the grocery store. put on my rain boots and…
…my big, poofy winter coat. Was I over-dressed? Oh, completely. Did I care? Not an ounce. 🙂
Abigail came home with some Harry Potter stickers!
She then turned her puppy into Harry Potter. 🙂
Texas sunrises are spectacular.
This is just a snapshot into our lives at the moment…yes, Abigail is eating breakfast right as we’re getting ready to walk to school (wearing Halloween leggings and her tie-dyed Bucc-ee’s shirt under her hot-pink Bucc-ee’s hoodie).
The first treat for book club was pumpkin spice doughnuts. The batter was really thick and didn’t even out like I’m used to with the other types of doughnuts I’ve made (I pipe them into my doughnut pan and usually the ribbons of batter will combine together, but this time they stayed very defined), so I decided at the last moment to make a thin glaze and dunk them in it. That seemed to soften the harsh lines a bit and added a little extra sweetness. They still tasted pretty good, so there is that!
I found a cute partitioned tray shaped like a bat that was perfect for chips. I had potato ships with spinach artichoke dip (from the deli department), cheese puffs, and blue corn tortilla chips with guacamole.
I got this idea from a friend. After I made the guacamole, I put some sour cream into a piping bag and used it to make a spiderweb. Then I cut up olives to make a spider. Isn’t it fun? Funny story: I had leftover olives in a bowl in the fridge. At one point during the evening (before anyone had come over), I was sitting on the couch reading when I heard the fridge open…and stay open. I turned around and Abigail was perched inside the fridge (she stepped up into it to get herself a bit higher), popping olives into her mouth, one-by-one. I let her have one more and then made her get out, haha. I think she’d only been able to get four or five at that point, so it wasn’t much harm done. I did tell her that next time she needed to ask and I would get her some. 😉
The night after book club, I went to a game night put on by Relief Society (the women’s organization for my church). I wanted to make another spooky treat to bring along, but didn’t have as much time…so I went for my go-to, super-easy treat: rice crispy treats. I used green food coloring to make them a creepy color and then added candy eyeballs. They were a big hit!
This was right before she came down with her fever (in fact, now that I’m looking at this picture, I’m not sure how I missed that she wasn’t feeling well…I can kind of see it in her eyes). McDonald’s brought back an updated version of the Halloween buckets that they originally released when I was a kid. They’ve been a bit hard to find (I suppose there are a lot of people like us who want our kids to be able to have something we enjoyed as kids…playing off of nostalgia is a great marketing tactic, haha). She was excited she got a witch one.
It’s a pretty cute bucket!
We also popped on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for even more nostalgia.