31 Days of Halloween: Pumpkin Shaped Pancakes

Day 9: Pumpkin Shaped Pancakes

We are keeping it simple today.

We LOVE to use cookie cutters to shape our pancakes in our house. It was a given that we would do pumpkins too!! I found this cookie cutter in Julian a few weeks ago.

 



My only words of advice...

* Make sure you use non-stick spray on the cookie cutter before you use it.

* A thinner, runnier batter is better to use so you can make sure the pancake spreads easily. A thicker batter will have a harder time filling the cookie cutter and it will rise too high making it harder to cook.

We had a nice stack of these over the weekend and the girls loved them!!

31 Days of Halloween: Mummy Cupcakes

Day 8: Mummy Cupcakes

 

Have you all seen those adorable mummy cupcakes on Pinterest? Since we are waiting to have an actual cake for the party, we decided to try these out for Madelynn's birthday.

 

We made 24 regular chocolate cupcakes.



Then I took my trusty bag of icing and attempted to make the cupcakes into mummies...FAIL! Believe it or not, this was probably the 6th on that I made. Trust me, they were much worse.

 

Haha.

I eventually just came to terms with the fact that this was as good as it was going to get. We added chocolate chips as eyes.

We shared this plate with our neighbors!!

Alyssa and Allison loved them.

 

Then we sang to Madelynn for the 10th time that day. :)

 



I would love to see your pictures if you try them also!!

 

Good luck.

31 Days of Halloween: Pumpkin Station

Day 7: Pumpkin Station

 

In San Diego they have what are called Pumpkin Stations. As a Midwestern girl, I think they are just over-priced glorified pumpkin patches, but the kids know no better. So we went!

 

These lovely Pumpkin Stations are often located in mall parking lots and are FREE to enter.

There are small rides, bounce houses, and inflatable slides that cost $3 a child/per ride. That is $12 for ONE ride (for our family of three children). For an only child, I can see where that would be okay. For two children, alright, whatever. I'm sorry, $12 a ride just seemed silly, but we did it anyway. The girls each rode 4 rides and had a blast.

Alyssa and Allison were in love with the large inflatable slide. Madelynn, however, caused a huge traffic jam on the way up!!

 

Other than the price, we all had a lot of fun.

 



 

 Madelynn's favorite ride was the train. She loved ringing the bell.

 

xoxo

31 Days of Halloween: Apple Dump Cake

 

Day 6: Apple Dump Cake

 

Since we had so many apples from the apple orchard, I decided to make a quick apple dump cake before dance class one night as a special treat. It was quick, easy and tasty.

 

Forgive me for not having a set recipe, I like to just throw it together. I'm sure you can find the recipe online.

 

I cut up enough apples to easily cover the bottom of my baking pan (about an inch high). The apples from the orchard were a little on the small side so it took quite a few of them.

I mixed together about 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 cup of sugar and some walnuts into my already greased baking pan.

Then I poured a whole box of yellow cake mix over the apple mixture and added a stick of butter.

 

*Some recipes ask for melted butter, but this works just fine for me.

I added extra walnuts to the top.

Bake at 375 degrees until golden brown.

 

Best served with ice cream!! :)

Enjoy!



31 Days of Halloween: Neighborhood BOO Baskets

 

Day 5: Neighborhood BOO Baskets

 

I just love doing these neighborhood games!! Who doesn't enjoy getting surprise goodies and being able to put together something special for another family? Too cute!

 

I found these printables at The TomKat Studio which I love, love, love.

 

It's a great site for party planning and inspiration.

 

 

We filled a big black bucket full of all sorts of goodies...candy, toys, bubbles, pencils, glow sticks, chocolate. We also added a small box of our fresh rice krispie treats as well.

 

I figured the big black buckets would be better for people in San Diego than a pumpkin or other basket since the kids could use it at the beach or any sand box.

 

 

It was so much fun taking them to the neighbors house, leaving it on their door step, ringing the doorbell and RUNNING AWAY!

 

Since I was the first one to start the game and we live in a larger neighborhood, I made three baskets and chose not to put the sign on our door. Maybe now my girls will get a special surprise too!!

 

Here are the printables for you to use also, but please stop by The TomKat Studio and see what other fun things they have to offer.

 Happy Friday, everyone!

xoxo

 

31 Days of Halloween: Rice Krispie Treats

Day 4: Rice Krispie Treats

 

My girls go crazy for rice krispie treats. It's the main snack in our snack jar and the thing are constantly asking me to make for them. I had originally wanted to try out the treats that look like candy corn, but then I realized how much more work it would be to make three separate batches and with the food coloring. No, thank you!

 

With three little girls around my legs, we went with a more traditional route.

 

We followed the basic recipe:

1 stick of butter

1 bag of marshmallows

6 cups of Crisp Rice Cereal

(any brand will work...just sayin')

 

 

We melted down our butter, added the marshmallows and incorporated the Crisp Rice Cereal. Then we put it on a cookie tray to cool.

I'm not a huge fan of marshmallow chunks in my treats, but Johnathon is. I found these adorable little 'Mallow Bites' at the store and tossed in about 1/4 cup.

The purpose of these treats is to,

a) enjoy half

and

b) package up the other half to include in our neighborhood "BOO" baskets

 

So we decided to jazz them up a bit.

I took a plain jar of icing and added food coloring to make it orange, went crazy on the treats and topped it all with sprinkles.

I debated using our pumpkin shaped cookie cutter, but opted for boring squares because that left us more to share as a family. :)

I just wanted to talk for a moment about why I wanted to do the 31 Days of Halloween. With three little girls, homeschool, appointments and the normal stresses of life, I wanted to share just a few of the things we do in our house every holiday that take very little time. I figured, if I could get these things done with my crazy life and three kids, then any mom should be able to do some of them too. Some of the days will feature fun and creative projects/recipes and other days will feature quick and simple things that take 5 minutes or less.

Yesterday was a much better day for Madelynn, but it was for all of us as well. It just felt like everything lined up just right and all of the dishes got done, laundry was a piece of cake, my back never started hurting and everyone had a smile on their face. These kind of days hardly EVER happen. :)

 



31 Days of Halloween: Jell-O Worms

 

Day 3: Jell-O Worms

It was my full intention to share with you my creation of Jell-O Worms today.

 

However, I fought the worms and the worms won!

 

THIS was my inspiration.

 

And what I got instead was more like worm guts than actual worms.

 

I went through the whole process...

 

I followed the directions as if I was making Jell-O Jigglers and put it in a cake pan.

I then placed a whole package of straws in the pan and to keep them from floating, I placed some flatware on top.

 

Easy enough, right?

Wrong!

 

It was horrible. There I was with all three girls surrounding me with excitement on their faces and duh, duh, duh...DISAPPOINTMENT!

 

The Jell-O came out of the straws all right, but in a big nasty mess.

 

I went to the store today and bough replacement Jell-O for a new batch of worms, but can we get real for a minute?

 

I have a little girl who will be three years old in a matter of days and the only thing worse than a 2 year old is a 3 year old!! She has been having the worst fits lately and I just couldn't justify rewarding her with this treat on such an awful day, but I also couldn't do them without her. So, we will wait until tomorrow and start a fresh day.

 

For a moment I thought about just making the worms for the sake of the blog, but...

 

I am a mommy first and mommy blogger second.

Plain and simple.

 

Stay tuned and I hope to share pictures of our second batch later this week.  

About a month ago I spent two weeks feeling simply horrible. I was seen by a doctor who tested just about everything possible and today I got the results...healthy!

 

She is unsure on how to proceed with me so she is sending me off to a neurologist.

Your prayers are greatly appreciated.

 

With that being said, my illness caused us to get a little behind on our school work. We are officially one whole week behind schedule. I am not too worried about it because we have a long two week break in December an I know we will get caught up, but I am just upset with myself. It's very important to me that we stay on schedule and keep on top of everything. Rest easily, we will get there.

 

We are in our 9th week of school and the girls are reading up a storm. Mostly three to four letter words, but  I am so proud.

 

Life has been so crazy lately, in fact, that we up and forgot all about Alyssa and Allison's dance class last night. {forehead smack}

 

No worries, they will attend a make up class later this week.

 

Happy Hump Day!!

I, for one, am SO glad to be half way through our week.

31 Days of Halloween: Apple Orchard

Day 2: Apple Orchard

 

Johnathon and I decided to try something new this year and take the girls to an apple orchard for the very first time.

 

Around 11am we started the hour long drive to Julian, California.

 

We spent the first hour or so walking down their Main Street and enjoying their many craft stores, eateries and, of course, the atmosphere.

 

We  decided to have a quick lunch before we headed to the orchard.

 

 \

Madelynn insisted on being ornery and not letting me take her picture...little stinker.

Finally we get a picture with all five of us.

On our walk back to the car, we stopped by a little window and ordered our slice of fresh apple pie with a scoop of ice cream.

 

Alyssa, Allison and I enjoyed our apple cider while we waited on the pie and Johnathon took Madelynn into a nearby store. 

The orchards were a short drive from their Main Street and were easy to find.

We settled on the first one we came to, but there were others to choose from.

 

The bags were $10 each and you could walk around and fill them as you wanted. There were aisles and aisles of apple trees. 

The girls were a little disappointed that they couldn't climb the trees, but they had a good time seeing who could find the largest apple.

Most of the apples were on the small side, but that's perfect for what we need. The girls are always asking for an apple and these are just their size.

 

It was funny watching Madelynn help herself to a little snack while we walked the aisles. I tried to explain to her that she couldn't do that, but that was a pointless conversation.

 

Alyssa and Allison had so much fun. It was worth the hour drive to see the smiles on their faces.

And then it got hot.

Very hot.

 

The girls were starting to get fussy so we took our two bags of apples and headed for the car.

We all had a blast and can't wait to go again next year.

 Tomorrow, for our 31 Days of Halloween, we will be making Jell-O worms.

Yum!

 

xoxo