Friday, November 1st

In previous years, Jim and I have doled out the Halloween Loot a couple of pieces at a time from November 1st until Christmas and whatever is left gets dumped.  It seems like a sound, logical way of approaching the candy situation, but the reality is that the kids ask for it often and I feel frustrated and they feel frustrated, too.  Plus, it's difficult for the adults in the house not to occasionally snack on it as well!  This year, I wanted to try something different and I shared my idea with Jim and he was onboard.  Basically, I wanted to let them eat whatever candy they wanted on the day following Halloween.  Then, the rest of the candy would be dumped - saving aside some to be used as gingerbread house decoration (thanks for the idea, Mrs. C!) and a couple small baggies to have in the car for long rides.

All told, I think it was a huge success.  The kids didn't eat themselves sick on candy, and they really enjoyed sorting out the items to save for the gingerbread houses we would be doing in a month or so, as well as bagging up all of the suckers for the van.  It was really fun to let them indulge and then junk the rest of the candy knowing I wouldn't have endless daily requests/negotiations for the next eight weeks!

A true breakfast of champions - hot cocoa with whipped cream and full size candy bars ;-)

Salty had a vet appointment to find out what on earth was making him so itchy all of the time.  It didn't seem like it could be fleas, since we use flea treatment on him, but it had gotten so bad that he had scratched a couple of sores onto his skin :-(  He was such a good boy, and the girls accompanied me.  They found it so hilarious to "photobomb" this picture I was taking of Salty, since he is notorious for sneaking into pictures I'm taking of the kids, lol. 

Salty isn't exactly a lap dog, weighing in at 75.8 pounds (per the vet scale).  So it was pretty comical watching him try to squeeze himself into a sitting position between the girls carseats!  In the end, the vet searched him from head to toe and declared him free of fleas, but with a case of poison ivy.  I can honestly say that I did not know dogs could get poison ivy/poison oak, but now I do!  He was prescribed a couple medicines to help heal up his scratch-wounds and so help the affected areas not itch so badly.  Hopefully he'll feel better soon.