Dealing with the Big Haul

For Halloween this year, we participated in several area events.  Because our surrounding area is very rural, neighborhood trick-or-treating just isn't a possibility for us.  (Although for the past two years a very dear friend of ours has invited us to her neighborhood to ToT on Halloween, but we have missed out both years due to illness.) 

Anyhow, because we live in the boonies, our town offers ToT'ing downtown.  A block on Main Street is closed to traffic, area businesses set up booths to pass out candy, the entire town shows up for a bit of ToT'ing fun and the kids come home with an extreme amount of candy!  The kids also received candy from their classmates at the MMO Fall Party as well as candy from our church's Halloween Festival.

After removing inappropriate candy (Pixie Stixs, gum, anything chewy), I combine all of the candy into one big basket.  This is what we were left with after removing about half of what I consider non-age appropriate candy...

Not one to give my kids an extreme amount of candy, Isaac and Kathryn are allowed to pick out ONE piece after cleaning their plates each evening.  Will we have candy until Valentine's Day?  Nope! We've already packaged up all of our lollipops to include in our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  And whatever is left after Thanksgiving will be shipped to Uncle Wes to share with his Air Force buddies.