What a great weekend! Usually, I do not work on Fridays, but with all the snow, Matt out of town and having to take Ben to the doc’s, etc. I was behind on hours, so my mom watched the kiddos and I went into work. It was one of those days where the stars aligned and I was super-productive. And in the middle of the day, mom and the kiddos showed up because we were having a Halloween Chili cook-off at work. It was a fun event and I look forward to doing it again next year. I did not win … don’t think I got even a single vote. Competition was pretty stiff … and I got a great new recipe for Chicken Chili. Yay.
Saturday everyone got up early for some reason and we had some breakfast and before I blinked we had to rush off to take Tabby to her first dance class. I will not say that it was an unmitigated success. She went AWOL twice and showed up in the parent’s viewing area saying it was time to go. But we sent her back in and I think she ended up enjoying it.
After dance and lunch, sister Kelly and I headed out to do the grocery shopping with Ben while Tabby took her nap and Matt carved pumpkins. 
Once we got home, we went on a cooking marathon, making bacon squash bites (yum!), Halloween Supper, and pumpkin chocolate chip squares (that turned out more cakey than I think they were intended to be due to a crying baby and a stand-mixer on auto-pilot). Dinner turned out fabulously and so did the pumpkin, which took Matt around 5 hours. Seriously.
After dinner, we drove the kiddos over to visit their sitter and she gave them candy and plied us with wine and cheese. Then it was back to our neighborhood where Ben stayed with my parents and eventually fell asleep and Tabby, Kelly, Matt and I went trick-or-treating. Tabby did very well with her script and only grabbed a huge greedy handful once or twice. She also refused to wear a coat.
The night ended on a total sugar-high heading into a bit of a meltdown, but overall, a very successful Halloween. Sunday … well more on Sunday later.
