As I’m sure you have heard by now – it’s November. We have only two months left in the year. Hard to believe, huh? At least October went out with a bang! Are you ready to read about a stellar new workout and get an overload of cuteness?

I kicked off my last day of October with a frightfully good workout. Since I knew we had plans for the afternoon ahead, I hauled my booty to the gym to spend some quality time with the treadmill again. But first – a new workout!

The compound moves in a continuous fashion really had me sweating. I loved the use of the resistance band in this workout too. Always fun to mix things up!

Since I had such a sweat going from the circuit (and a little ole thing called a half marathon this weekend), I kept things light when I hit the treadmill. I didn’t mess around with speed work to entertain myself on the treadmill. I just set the speed at 6.2 and kept on running until I hit four miles.

I’m happy to report that my foot finally feels completely normal again. You may recall the top of my foot feeling sore after a long run a little over a week ago. It would still feel a little tender at times, which had me worried. I looked into it and found numerous suggestions to tie my shoes differently.

I followed this guide on Runner’s World and laced my shoes up in a parallel fashion.

No more pain! Who knew such a simple change could work such wonders? I guess trading in my old shoes for the new pair I had waiting for me helped too.

Most of the rest of the day proceeded normally – laundry, play time with the kids, getting work done during nap times, and so on. Then came the night and the excitement picked up considerably.

You thought I was going to dive right into the cuteness, didn’t you? Well, sorry to burst your bubble but excitement for me meant starting the night with a heaping bowl of chili.

I made Kelly’s recipe for chili (because I know she does a good one) and loved every Frito and cheese topped bite. Some things just need the old-school toppings.

Now that you have waited ever so patiently, time for trick-or-treating…

…and the corresponding explosion of adorable.

This season is easily my favorite time of year because I simply cannot get enough of the many family activities.

You can’t help but have some of the kid excitement rub off on you.

Makenzie had an absolute blast trick-or-treating since this was the first year she fully understood the process. Which also meant Peter and I had to be a little sneakier about nabbing a few pieces from her stash. You know you would do it, too!

Butterfinger, Reeses, and Twix make good race fuel, right?

She obviously has plenty. Today I will be sorting through it all, pulling out a small stockpile of her favorites (Dum Dums) and our favorites (above) for special treats, then donating the rest to Makenzie’s preschool. They are taking donations to send to the troops to have for treats and also to pass out to kids where they are stationed. Isn’t that cool? And friendly to the whole holiday maintenance balance thing. Win win situation for all!

• Favorite: Halloween candy? Costume? Holiday?
• What’s a surprisingly simple fitness tip that has made a big difference before for you?

Good morning! I can hardly believe Halloween has come and gone and now it is November. Hard to believe we only have a little over three weeks until Thanksgiving here in the US and then only a little over 50 days until Christmas! Before we move on to prepping for other holidays, though, I must recap our Halloween night.

I could sum it up in two words – fun! And exhausting. That would not make much of a blog post though, so I will add a little more detail. After church and relaxing some in the afternoon, my parents arrived to hang out with us. They wanted to see little M all dressed up and have dinner together. Plus, they would be our candy passer outers while we were out with M (to the total SEVEN kids we had show up – lots of leftovers to handle).

We got M all dressed up, for the third time, and were ready to head out at around 6 pm. Except no one was out yet. No one. So, we did dinner first! I made a crockpot vegetable stew from a recipe my friend gave me, which I slightly modified. You can figure it was easy and healthy with me making it. Fortunately, it was incredibly tasty too.

Italian Vegetable Stew

• 1 red onion, diced
• 2 zucchini, diced
• 1 small package frozen vegetable soup mix
• 1 can Navy beans (or other white bean)
• 1 can Italian seasoned diced tomatoes
• 1 can vegetable broth (low sodium if you can find it)
• 1 can condensed tomato soup
• 1 packet pesto mix

Simple place all the ingredients in the crockpot. Stir to combine and cook on high 4 hours or low 8 hours. I think it could have gone without the condensed tomato soup. Or I would try to find one without HFCS as the 3rd ingredient.

After dinner, we began to head out. Peter, Makenzie, & I…

…and of course the little man came along for the ride as well.

How do you like my “costume”? 😉 I didn’t get many pictures trick or treating because it got dark fast. We started at 7 in the neighborhood next to us. It took a lot longer than we anticipated. We only hit a very small section of it, but there were so many hills and each house had a ton of steps to climb up (or down) to the front porches.

Holy leg workout! Plus, the entire neighborhood consists of one big hill after another. After making the small loop there, we headed back to our neighborhood. We considered just going inside since it was already 8:15, but knew we had to stop by Peter’s brother’s house to say hello and a couple of our neighbors. So we hit up 4 or 5 more houses to visit them, then came home around 8:45. I was beat! Lugging a 25 lb kid around that long gets exhausting. And we can’t forget the jack o’ lantern I was hauling either.

We spent a few more minutes talking with my parents and then quickly went to bed after they left. By the way, I love my mom! She did dishes and cleaned up some to help me out while I was gone. Thank you, mommy!!!

Alright, that was our night. But I can’t leave out the one creepy moment. It was Halloween after all. After visiting one house, we turned around to start heading back down the driveway only to look up and see this…

  [source]

…standing at the end of the long driveway, somewhat across the street, under the street light. Freaky!!! He just stood there staring like Michael Myers until we were down the driveway and moving down the street away from him again. If he started walking after us with the creepy Michael Myers walk or if I had seen him again that night, I think I would have screamed. There’s my Halloween moment for the evening. Now, have a great Monday!

• Do you like scary movies? I used to love them a lot more. They scare me more now than back in the day. I don’t do gory ones at all now…only the psychologically freaky ones.
• Look for my first day of the Q + A series in tonight’s post. ASK ME ANYTHING if you haven’t already.
• Congratulations to Julie on her wedding!!!! Love her and I wish her the absolute best. 🙂 Next time I see you, Julie, you will have been married over half a year! And to think, we talked wedding this past summer. Time flies!