Halloween Weekend & Ghoulish Grilled Cheese Bites

This weekend we celebrated Halloween in our building!

We kicked off the weekend on Friday evening with a little dinner at home. Shaun and I had bet on the Giants game from last Monday night. The loser would have to cook the winner's dinner of choice for Friday evening. Being the eternal optimist, I chose the Giants, despite their straight losing record thus far for the season. And sometimes - just sometimes - optimism pays off! The Giants won and I got a homemade steak dinner. It was nothing short of salty, tender and completely delicious. Unfortunately it was so good and I forgot to snap a photo. But we enjoyed it alongside a viewing of Homeland!

On Saturday, I was up and out of the house early for a quick trip to Target. It was so nice to have an hour to myself to wander around one of my favorite stores. What can I say, it gets me jazzed. I rushed right home because it was also the kids Halloween party in our building. I had really been looking forward to this, probably more than what is normal for a grown adult. I just couldn't wait to get Penelope dressed up in her costume and see all of the other kiddos dudded up as well.

It was such a great turnout! So many kids and parents!

Everyone was asked to bring a dish, so I decided on grilled cheese bites. I wasn't totally sure how to pull it off at first, but Shaun had the idea to bake the sandwiches in the oven, rather than make each individual sandwich on the stovetop. Since we were {as per usual} pressed for time, I was more than game to try this method.

We made two kinds of grilled cheese: Ahh!merican and Bone Chillin' Cheddar.

They were such a hit that I was barely able to snap a photo!

Before I knew it, the plate looked like this:

Oh and I made the little flags myself with some old scrapbook paper and toothpicks. I can't pass up an opportunity to get crafty AND punny.

Overall, I'm happy to report that they went over so well and I think this is going to be my new party staple. I was expecting the kids to really love this, but I think the adults loved it even more!

Ghoulish Grilled Cheese Bites

24 slices bread, any type

12+ slices American cheese

1 block cheddar cheese (we used cheddar & herb), shredded

1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease 2 baking sheets and set aside. Butter one side of each slide of bread. Cover half of the bread slices with cheese (we used about 2 slices per sandwich). Place on baking sheet and top each one with another buttered slide (Note: the buttered sides of the bread should be on the outside). Bake for 6 minutes. Remove from oven and flip each sandwich. Bake 6 minutes more. Cut each sandwich into 8 pieces. Enjoy!

After an hour or so, P was getting cranky, so we headed home to relax for a while (and catch Beetlejuice on ABC Family! woot!) before Shaun and I headed out to our building's adult Halloween party in the evening, which just so happens to be kick ass. For those of you who have been reading for a while, you may remember some past articles about that. This year, Shaun and I went as Willie and Si from Duck Dynasty.

Pretty redneck, no?

We had a blast at the party. So many treats like pretty Halloween cupcakes:

 

Creepy Franken-fingers...

 

...and my own contribution, pumpkin pie brownie bites (recipe later this week!)

 

 Our weekend was capped off by trick or treating on Sunday. Our building mapped out 3 hours for kids to trick or treat and participating units posted a cute little pumpkin sticker on their doors. Since P isn't quite up to eating Twix and the like just yet, we opted to hang at home, watch football and pass out treats.

This bowl of candy is eerily similar to last year's Halloween haul - of which my six months pregnant self ended up eating the entire thing throughout the blackout duration of Superstorm Sandy. Milky Way Midnight will forever remind me of the storm. Oops :/ 

So that's how we spent our little Halloween weekend. Of course, I'll be back on Halloween for some gratuitous baby photos of Sweet P in her costume! I hope you all had a great weekend and are pumped for the week ahead!

Did you do any Halloween celebrating this weekend?

Do you like getting all costumed up?