Great lets do this one too - You are listening to sweet insights with Ali and Amy, where we talk about life candy and coaching from a real estate agent and a life coach to a candy store owner, we have a little bit of everything we are, both moms living busy lives, and we share all of our raw, authentic selves with you. Hope you enjoyed today's episode. And it's Oh, my goodness, my it's Leota. So it says, dear sweet Leota, beloved by all in regions beyond now, but having a ball, that's my favorite, because it lights up. You can't really see here you go. Um, it was, I thought it was coming and going to be big and beautiful, like, instead it like near my treats that I give out for Halloween, and yet, here it is, like, tinier than my microphone. So you ordered it online, thinking it was going to be big. Yes, I love when that happens. I love it. It happens to me often because I don't look as sizing, because I'm like, Oh, I measure this. This is just, it's a Halloween decoration. It should be what it looks like it should be. Yeah, no, that we have bins of, I call it fall decor, so it's Halloween stuff mixed with like stuff you could have better Thanksgiving. Yeah. And the kids asked Greg, if so in our furnace room is where we have all the bins, like our Christmas bins, or Christmas trees, all that stuff. And he kind of went, that's a hard bin to get to, and it never came upstairs. So we hosted Thanksgiving, no decorations. The kids like, love Halloween and definitely want to decorate. And so my mom was here yesterday. She had stopped in from driving to my aunt's house, and she stays over because it like, makes her drive better, like shortens, and we decided to clean the cold cellar. So you know how much I love reorganizing and purging. So my car currently can't park in the in the garage because it's full of stuff we're giving to charity, like an overhaul, like the kids came home and couldn't even believe it's the same cold cellar. And so when I start one room, it always attaches to another room. So we decided to do the furnace room, and we moved all the bins and all the Christmas trees so we now can access the thanks for the Halloween decoration. Yes, it was so funny. My husband was out, and he came home, and we had barricaded ourselves into the furnace room. So he's trying to open the door and see in, but there's too many bins in the way of the doorway that he can't and you can tell he's like, What are you doing in my space? Like, that's I organize those bins, and I'm like, those bins are not organized. My idea of organized and yours are two different things. And so now I know where all the bins are, and I moved them. And so now we maybe this week, can actually decorate awesome, and we, we decorate too. Like, well, I decorate, um, my kids used to decorate with me. They don't anymore, but um, so I have a big like, blow up archway. So Well, I guess first, let's back up, rewind to October, like the beginning of October, and I put fall decorations, like pumpkins everywhere and sunflowers and fall things like, do you store them in bins? Yes. So to equate how much decor you have. How many bins are there? Okay, so for fall, there's one, and for Halloween, there's one, okay, well, two for Halloween, because there's outdoor blow up, there's outdoor blow ups that have their own container. But I just bought two new ones this year, like two new blow ups. So because we again, we have an archway, and then we have, like, another blow up, but, and then we have permanent lights that just got put up. So they'll be up for Christmas, because I decorate for all the holidays, because I love it, permanent lights that change color, like, so you can make them orange. That's what Greg wants. So excited I got GAVI. So for anybody looking for something coming for Christmas, if you're not a Halloween decorator or whatever it has everything. Like, if you're a fan of, I don't remember if it's the Patriots or somebody that's not patriots, but there's another football team in there. They're like, Here, here's our light colors for this team. Um, you can design your own stuff. But, like, there's everything. There's like, morning meadow, cosmic sky, fire, like, basically gates of hell, like. So for Halloween, we have all kinds of options. There's like four Halloween options, plus there's like the fire one, and then there is another, I can't remember what the name is. It's not gates of hell, but, like, that's what it reminded us of. So anyway, we're gonna. Like kind of theme our stuff around haunted mansion, because we have this spooky archway that the kids walk in, and then we have, like, the stretching pictures from the wall from the Haunted Mansion. And then my, my itty bitty little Leota, um, but yeah, all kinds of fun decorations. And sometimes they have, like, the flame for your lights. Like, you know, the fake flame light bulbs. We have those. Like, I have all kinds of fun things, impressive. So this is how un Halloweeny I am. Haunted Mansion, is that like a movie? Haunted Mansion is a movie, but it's a ride at Disney. Yeah, I've been on the ride at Disney. I have not seen the movie. Okay, yes, so we have some stuff from the ride, but the Leota is from wellingly. I think she's on the ride too. But it's more about the movie. And there's two versions of the movie. There's the old, crappy one, and then there's the new one that came out. And like, age range wise, it What age is this movie appropriate for? I'd say your kids could probably, well, Kenzie might be younger, depending on how scared she gets, but like the Haunted Mansion one, the original one with Eddie Murphy, is a family movie. The other one might be a little bit scarier, maybe, but they're still meant to be family movies. I think. Did you just see the hair? If you're watching the video instead of the listening, the dogs are full fledged fighting, and every once in a while, like, hair flying in the air. Yeah? It's like, literally, like kangaroos next to you. You should have Whack a Mole. Um, yeah. So anyway, that's our Halloween decoration. So along with the dogs, decorate or the dogs dress up, yeah? So, right, I tried to dress them up. They're not very cooperative, because they can pull things off themselves. I feel like if they were a little dog, it would be easier, but because they're large, they also bite things off each other, so they just don't want to cooperate. But I had a Starbucks costume, like I had a barista costume for one of them last year. I know that's so cute. When we had our first dog, we had a Santa Claus outfit that we felt like would multitask Christmas and Halloween, so she would come trick or treating with us in her Santa outfit. And so the funny thing now is, is that these dogs are so much bigger than our old dog. Our old dog was 6.7 pounds, and the black and white one that looks like our old one is 11 pounds. We call her our fatty patty. Um, she um, so she doesn't really fit in it, but when she did when she was younger, again, this problem with two is the one would eat it off the other one. Oh, my goodness, yeah, seeing that would be our problem. So I don't know what I'm going to do this year. You dress up. I do sometimes it just depends. And if I'm going to a party, then yes, if it's like a costume party, or sometimes we've done escape room Halloween parties, like, where everyone plays a part. Like, that. Sounds fun? Yeah. Super fun. I avoid Halloween parties because I don't enjoy dressing up. Oh, really, it's like, intimidating, like, I feel like, like, what you choose is like, and I felt it that way, but like, I didn't even like Halloween when I was little, because I, like, felt this intimidation around like or stress and anxiety around what do I choose to dress up as? Right? And so my husband always felt like he was, like, told what to dress up as. So he's very since the kids were very little, he's like, go to the Halloween store, pick anything you want. You get to be whatever you want. And now, as they get older, that's becoming more and more expensive. Yes, it is, oh yeah. And so are your kids dressing up that like in going out for Halloween? Yes, and, but my daughter doesn't want to wear the same thing to school as she does out for trick or treating. And then they also dress up for cheer for one of their practices. And she just went to a birthday party that was themed Halloween. And she doesn't want to wear the same costume to anything like she's very much. So luckily for this birthday party, she went down to our tinkle trunk, if you will, and she found Alison's costume from last year. She thought we had a costume a cop. She's like, where's my cop costume? And I'm like, Dude, you outgrew that years ago. You can't wear that anymore. It's gone. But she Austin was a banana last year, which I don't understand. In grade seven, he decided to dress up as a banana. And I'm like, you are going to be made fun of so badly. And I think it's such a funny costume that like, you can't be made fun of. Right, like it's he did I tell you about him eating a carrot at school? Nope. He said to me, did you see Cody? I think she just licked the camera. Um. So he said to me, the other day, I bought these big honking carrots at Costco, and I told him to just peel them and take them for lunch. And so he said, at lunch, he's just, like, eating a garret. And he's like, people looked at me and started laughing, and they, like, wanted to make fun of me, but he was like, legitimately, what are you going to say? I'm just eating a garret. Yeah, right. I can just sure this. Oh my goodness, kids are so mean. And so let's talk about that. So you said the kids are going to dress up for Halloween, and your daughter is being bougie and can't wear the same costume to her four different parties. Um, but like, my kids are older, and they're still going to go out for Halloween, and I'm encouraging it, because they're going with their friends, they're going to have a good time. They're not getting into trouble. Like it could be worse. So I'm hoping that people are calling this Halloween, and you know, if the older kids are coming to your door, there's worse things they could be doing. I love the older kids who dress up. Yeah, what I don't love is like, if they don't look dressed up, like if they make an effort and dress up, I'm always so impressed and like, stretch on childhood as long as you can. But it's the ones that like, are trying to trick or treat in their street clothes that I'm like, come on. Like, like, if I'm going to give you candy, you go work harder for that. Yeah, yeah. So that's my thing. And I feel like some of the kids dress up like epic, like the makeup on their face all the things is so good. I'm very excited about my kids choices this year, because they embrace the multitasking that I introduced when I got the dogs Christmas costume. So Kenzie is her friend. Is being, I there's like a spin off of it, but she's being like, I think the Lorax, and she's being the Grinch, but they have clothes over top, so I think they're like girly versions or whatever. But then she can also pull out the Grinch at Christmas, which is super fun. And my son and his friend have, his friend said he would only go trick or treating if they went and blow ups. It's actually the dogs pushing my camera going out. Really, really nuts. Yeah, it's the dogs. Um, so my girls wrestle somewhere else. Um, my son and his friend wanted blow ups, and his friend would only go out if they had blow ups, so they bought blow up sharks. And our cheer team is the sharks, so the one is a blue shark. And we've seen people with the same costume that like go to our cheer combs and wear them. So Austin has decided that, because no one will know it's him, he's going to go to our showcase and wear this costume. And then we decided when these things came that even though you order them for your height, Greg can fit in one of them, even though he's six two. So we asked the other boy, because we ordered them together, we were like, are you okay to just wear this for Halloween? But we'll buy it and we'll keep it. And he was like, of course, because Greg is now going to wear the gray one, so now we have a gray shark and a blue shark that we can wear at cheer comps. I love it, except now that you've already exposed them and outed them to all of our listeners, they're going to know it's them, right, but the teeny but I don't think teenagers listen to us, so I think he's worried that the cheerleaders know it's him. I don't think he cares that the parents know it's him. Okay, fair. So I think we're okay. It's super cool, um, and so you guys still dress up in school. Um, we're not allowed to do that here anymore. So it's funny because my daughter switched schools this year, and I thought at her new school that they were they had like, orange and black day, but she is telling me that they dress up at school, and I always thought they didn't. So I don't know if she's going to be the only one who dressed up, or if the other people will be too, but definitely at our old school, they actually, so where my son goes to school, they actually have a Halloween dance. So during the day, they cycle in the grades, and they get to go to the gym during the day and dance during like the day, and they get like treats, and they get to dance. And it was usually put on by school council, and it's been like a school tradition every year, and it's so fun. I actually thought they were going to stop it this year because of misbehavior, but apparently it's back on. So hopefully they behave well, so that they don't cancel it, because I think it's a fun tradition for the kids. I used to go. Dressed up. It was like one of the times where I would embrace a Halloween costume, and I would go because when my kids were, like, in kindergarten and stuff, to watch them dressed up in Halloween costumes, dancing is the best thing in the world. Oh, I know. And so we used to have one at the elementary school. It would be a dance, and the kids could dress up for the dance, but they're, yeah, they have orange and black day, and they don't dress up on Halloween in school anymore, the elementary school too, or just because your kids are out of elementary No, I don't think the elementary school was allowed to, but you're right. I don't know if they are have reintroduced it since my kids have been there or not, but I know COVID obviously played a part in all of the changes to it. But anyway, yeah, so they, I don't even know if they do orange and black day at the middle school, and we're now in high school for one of the grades, so I you know at best, people might wear a headband or do something. I don't even know what they do. There probably nothing, because it's high school, and it wouldn't be cool, yeah, so hard to say. I'm not sure what will happen now. What do you guys do for candy treats? Like, are there healthy options that you give out because of who you are and what you do? Or like, Are you the ones that give out toothbrushes or apples? No, but we have neighbors that do we have a neighbor that's a dentist that gives out toothbrushes. And bless my sweet children. When they were little, they would run down the driveway like, waving the toothbrush excited. Like, I don't think they're excited about that house now, but they used to be. It was so funny. And I was like, I remember getting a toothbrush and being devastated. So it's funny because in my clean out last year, I last night, I uncovered that I had bought from Costco one of those, like, sets of, like, mini play dohs, and apparently I bought it for a birthday party, I think, and I didn't remember that I had leftovers. So I've set that aside this year to to add to and I'll probably give that with candy to some of the littles, just because I don't want to throw it out, like it seems like such a waste, like it's little cute containers of Play Doh, so I probably will throw that in the bucket to hand out. My kids are now saying that I don't we always go trick or treating with our kids, and although I don't like dressing up, we would always be the parents that would dress up and Trick or treat. So usually Greg would be Superman, and we've talked about that before, and I always had a snow white costume, and I would be snow white because we just invested in some really good costumes, and we would just always be the same thing. A couple years ago, my girlfriend gave me, lent me her costumes, that was peanut butter and jam, nice. So we were peanut butter and jam, and a lot of the neighbors made fun of us. I love it though. I think it's great, and we just embrace it. It's fine. And so, yeah, but now we're led the kids are say that they're too old for us to go with them. Yeah, that makes me sad. But I also like the idea of handing out candy at home and seeing all the neighbors dressed up, because that's super fun too, right? I know. So I always have the debate, where do I want to be? Do I want to be handing out treats, or do I want to be walking the streets? And I always have a mix. I always want to be part of it, because the kids are getting older. Obviously, my daughter, I haven't gone with her in years, because they're way too cool for me, and I probably couldn't keep up with them anyway. Seriously, probably just run through. Well, I've seen them running through the subdivision when I go with my son, so I don't know if they're going to want to go by themselves. Like it's usually a bunch of parents. We all get together, and then we walk and talk and let the kids do their thing, and we're really just there to hold their candy when it's too heavy, right? Yeah. And then, okay, let's talk about, what do you carry your candy in pillowcases? Typically, yes, yes, yeah. That is that what you did when you were little too Yes, yeah. So in my strategy is always to, like, if you can empty the pillowcase, like, do a drop off at home and empty the pillowcase, because when people see a full pillow case, they give you less candy than an empty pillowcase, right? That's fair. So I bring another bag and we get them to dump it in. I mean, because if they're too heavy anyway, like, and they're dragging it like, that's not good for the pillowcase. It's not good for the kid, not good for anyone, because then the complaints start happening. So often, I'll bring a bag and then either take it back and drop it off home, depending if we're doing a loop or have the car somewhere nearby. It depends on the weather too. If it's a crappy night, I'm sitting in the car and I'm driving behind them, oh yeah. If it's like. Wet or snowing. I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want anything to do with a car on Halloween, I am so afraid of, like, all these people in like, dark and like, like, You couldn't pay me to get in my car on Halloween. Like, I don't want to, like, I just It terrifies me that someone's going to get hit by a car. Like, I'm like, no cars allowed, but I would, I would like, if I was to put it to a poll, I would say, majority of times, weather is great until Halloween night, and Halloween night is always raining, snowing, super cold, like we can have the warmest fall of our lives. But welcome Halloween. It's going to be bad weather. Yeah, it's so common. I remember trick or treating in the snow and having boots and mittens and snow pants on and like or the rain and just being absolutely soaked, yes, and as a kid, you don't care, because you're getting free candy. Probably when in our house, because our kids are both celiac, Greg scores on Halloween, because, literally, they come home and we just, we literally, like, it's such an interesting thing when you're a kid that has like a food allergy or a sensitivity or like a disease, like my kids have that, like we literally, they come home and we sort and chances are they get half of what they bring home, if that Greg usually gets more. I mean, that's fair for him, he's done a lot of work all year. It's true. It's true. But so for me, I get shafted because their candy has already been cut in half, yeah. And so their ability like, they're wanting to share with me. So when they were little, a lot of times I would buy like so that they wouldn't be devast like, because it's hard for kids to like comprehend that, right? So when they were really little, I would buy a lot of gluten free candy, more than I needed for handing out so that if everything they brought home, because, like, I feel like, for example, the majority of houses, when you're like, three and four, they give you Smarties. Like Smarties is like the go to because they're like all little kids like Smarties. And Smarties have gluten in them, whereas M M's don't. But people stay away from Eminem is because of peanuts peanut allergies. So I'm like, give me the peanuts please, because those are gluten free. So I found when they were really little, they got a lot of Smarties. And I feel like I almost think that some houses have like, the Smarties they give to the little kids, and then they give something else to the bigger kids. And so as they get bigger, I think it's working out better in their favor. But I remember trading them, like, Give me all your Smarties and I'll give you some Maynards or something. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, because you buy cheese sticks for little kids, because they're easy for them, like cheesies, like you can buy, there's so many things, like, we get Welsh gummies sometimes and give them out, or, like, juice packs or something. I mean, the problem with juice packs and pops, let's so heavy. And as much as the kids are like, it's a score, I'm like, who ends up having to carry them around the whole time? 100% chips are light. But we literally bought up some bags of Halloween chips for school lunches. Literally, they are getting smaller and smaller, like even the chocolate bars compared to when we were little. Like, it's just smaller and smaller every year. I want to add on to those. So for anybody else that is celiac or is avoiding gluten. The Canadian celiac Association provides a fantastic Halloween treat list, so you can look through and see all of the Halloween candies that are gluten free, which is really handy because a lot of Halloween treats don't have the nutritional information on the individual packages. The other thing that's important to notice. So at special occasions like Christmas and Halloween, manufacturers use other suppliers to make their products. So for example, Kit Kat, an actual Kit Kat bar, is not gluten free. It's got cookie in it, not gluten free, but the little treats that are like the cool little monster shape Kit Kat. Halloween treats are actually made with rice and chocolate, and they are gluten free. So Kit Kat, at Halloween is gluten free. Kit Kat the rest of the year is not only if it's a shape, though, not if it's in the normal bar form. Exactly. I think that they sell the normal, like in Ontario, I don't think they sell the normal mini bars like we got at Halloween. Oh, they do here, they do in the book, yeah. So I've only seen the little monstery guys. Do you have the monster you guys there? Uh, yeah, we have those too. But yeah, it's normally, like the big mix boxes that they do, like that have Coffee Crisp and everything. In them that have the bars in them. So maybe you can link in the like on Instagram, that link of the Halloween treat list that would, yes, I will. And then everyone's actually that, yeah. It was actually awesome. The the lady who had the birthday party was really concerned about what Kenzie could eat. And I was like, Oh, I have a PDF. I'll just send it to you, and so it made it super easy for her, because she was making Halloween loop eggs. So it was great to have that. And I really found that, like, more and more people are being very conscious and kind about my kids celiac disease, and really making an effort to make them inclusive. I think more people are learning about celiac disease, and it's so important that we share these things, because it is a very isolating disease in the fact that food brings people together and treats and celebrating. And as someone with celiac disease, or maybe a peanut allergy or whatever, celiac disease hasn't been very known, though, so like a lot of people are like peanut allergies is like it either contains peanuts or it doesn't. Celiac disease is a little bit more complicated because of the cross contamination and people's understanding of wheat, barley, and you know, all the different labels that can be in gluten and so it's really nice. So if you know somebody who is celiac or you know someone who's gluten sensitive, keep that in mind, that it can be a really isolating disease. And you know, at these festive times of the year, there's a lot of times they feel left out. And so it's nice if you can be inclusive and go the extra mile and know that you're giving them something that they can eat or stuff like that. Absolutely no, I appreciate that. That's a really good point to make, and hopefully everybody has a great Halloween. Um, I hopefully the show will post at the same time as Halloween, so we're not late, and we fingers crossed, fingers crossed for good weather for everyone. Yes, absolutely. Alright. Well, that's all the time we have today. See you next week, bye.