Thirsty Thursday-Drunken Pumpkin Cocktail

                         

 

I am so excited to bring you today's drink!! I have been working on it all afternoon!  I thought I would use candy corn but then I saw the candy pumpkins...the rest is history!!!  I call it the "Drunken Pumpkin."  It is perfect for sipping while sitting out on your porch (maybe while you hand out candy tomorrow night?)

RECIPE:

1.  Soak a handful of candy pumpkins in 1/4 cup of caramel flavored vodka.  I put mine in mason jar.  It will turn the vodka orange.  It should soak for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

2..  Heat 1 1/2 cup of apple cider in a saucepan.  Add 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and stir until it is dissolved.  Remove from heat and add a pinch of cinnamon.  Stir again.

3.  Using a strainer, separate the candy and vodka.  Pour your vodka into a cup.

4.  Add your apple cider to the vodka and stir again.

This is not a strong drink.  I personally do not care for drinks that taste like alcohol.  As you can see, it makes enough  for a full mason jar.  It is finally getting chilly here (in my part of Texas)...finally!  So I think I will enjoy a warm cup and a Halloween movie wth the kids!

Hugs y'all!

LSG

Wonder Woman Wednesday- Boo Your Kids!!

                    

 I have seen all the ideas about "booing" your neighbors on Pinterest.  You know, when you leave a goody bag on your neighbor's doorstep with a sign that says "You've been Booed!"  Well, what do you do when you live in the country and have no neighbors?  You boo your kids!!!  This was soooo much fun and the kids loved it!  Here's how to BOO your kids:

1.  Buy fun size candy bars and other pre-packaged candy.  I bought other little prizes too like bracelets, plastic spiders, glow in the dark bats.etc.

2.  When the kids have fallen asleep (I mean a GOOD sleep), tape the candy and prizes to their door.  My kids slept with their doors closed at our old house so it was easy.  At our new house, their doors are open so I need to get creative this year!  I also typed a sign to tape to their doors.  Be as quiet as possible when doing this.  You don't want them waking up!

It's that simple!  Now wait for morning time and their reactions!  You  could also do this while they are at school too.  My son is quite the dramatic one so it's really fun to see how he reacts.  Red is the quiet and reserved one so her reaction is more like "Oh yea mom.  That's cool." (in her most dry, sarcastic tone).  You still have plenty of time to get your candy and prizes together!!

Happy Booing!

Hugs y'all!

LSG

PS...I linked to my FIRST blog link party today!!  Go check out some blogs over at The Turquoise Home's Work it Wednesday Link Party!

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10 Tips Tuesday- 10 Quick Halloween Decorations

It's 3 days before Halloween and you have no decorations up?!  I am afraid I don't understand where you are coming from since mine have been up since the end of September.  Each week I added more stuff (mostly from the great store of everything is $1!)  Anyways, I have complied some great cheap ideas to instant "Hallloween" to your house.

1.  Spider Webs:  You can go about this two ways.  1) Don't dust or vaccuum your house all year and you should be set next year! or if you prefer a clean house, 2) buy some bags of the fake cobwebs from your local dollar store or discount store.  It's easy to put up and takes no time at all!  I stretched our across the fireplace in the living room.  We have a big brick fireplace that was perfect especially since the fireplace isn't used in Texas until at least Christmas.  Mine did not come with spiders so I bought some big ones, spray painted them gold and stuck them in the web.

2.  Lights:  I use lights every chance I get.  I have a 100 count orange strand stretched across our fireplace under the spider webs. There's a strand of bat lights hanging across a family heriloom.  Mulitple little battery powered sets are all around the house.  Most of the 10 count battery powered ones I got at Dollar Tree this year!!  There was a skeleton set in a picture for Friday Favorites a couple of weeks ago.

3.  Plastic Skulls and Skeletons: I seriously became obsessesed with these this year!!  I spray painted all of mine!  At one time, I had 3 gold skulls (the sweet pup ate one).  I did my kitchen in black, white, silver/grey theme centered around the table runner I made.  So I have 2 skeleton hands that are silver.  I got them all at Dollar Tree!!

4.  Creepy Fabric:  I used this stuff everywhere!!  There are pieces draped across family heirlooms, coffee/sofa tables I even hung some on my porch!  Again, it all came from the Dollar Tree!  I bought the dark grey and black colors.

5.  Easy Bunting:  This was my first attempt at bunting.  I love it and have already decided to use some of my fabric scraps for Thanksgiving and Christmas ones.  You can buy the pre-cut triangles at most craft stores.  I heat pressed "EEK" on mine.  You can use stencils and paint (I am just not that good with stencils!) I then hot glued the triangles to ribbon I bought at the dollar store.  See how easy that it is?!  See the picture above...that's the one I made!

6.  Pumpkins:  Seriously?!  The easiest of all!  Go the grocery store, home improvement store, craft stores... everyone has pumpkins!!  I like to use real pumpkins.  Get them in all shapes and colors.  I even found a couple of black glitter pumpkins in the dollar bin at Target back in September.

7.  Free Printables!!  I made some of my own.  But I also visited several blogs and found super cute ones that I could just print and frame.  Some of my favorites came from "Tatertots and Jello" and "Yellow Bliss Road."  

8.  Candles:  Again super easy!  We all have them.  I use a mix of scented, non-scented and battery powered.  I like to light candles at night and turn off all the lights in the room.  The ambiance of the candle glow just makes me feel warm and fuzzy (on 85 degree "fall" nights).  Make sure to get pumpkin scented or something that reminds you of fall!  Right now I have candy corn scented candles!!

9.  Witch's Hat:  I bought a couple of cute ones.  If you have a chair or bench on yor porch, hang the hat on the back of it (or sit it in the chair).  You  can add a witch's broom and it looks like a well-mannered witch came over to visit!

10.  Paper Silhouettes:  You can buy pre-cut ones, have the kids cut them out or use your paper cutting machine.  I found a pack of 15 pre-cut spiders at The Dollar Tree and taped them to our front porch doors.  It looks like a pack of giant spiders are parading across the french doors.  You cut out bats and place them in the windows. 

                         

Mom Monday-Halloween Fun with the Old Lady!

What do I love more than Halloween?  Kids' Halloween books!!!  They combine my love of Halloween with my love for children's literature and my passion for bringing literature to kids.  As you may know I am a pediatric speech pathologist by day.  I love using books in my therapy sessions.  Today's blog is brought to you by the mom and speech therapist sides of me.:)

                           

Who doesn't love the old lady books?! I have one for just about every season or holiday.   If it was written and published, I have it! These books are greatness and the kids love them!!  Over the years, I have come up with some fun activities to do with this book. All have been kid tested!

1. Bat Puppet:  You could always make an old lady and "feed" her all the characters.  But sometimes that is more labor intensive than just getting out glue, wiggle eyes, construction paper and a paper bag.  Plus kids love puppets!! I like simple easy crafts!!  This puppet can be made with toddlers all the way up.  To start you need: brown construction paper, white construction paper, 2 wiggle eyes, a lunch sack and glue.  I use "tacky" glue for the eyes but all the other pieces get regular glue.  Cut 2 wings and two triangles (ears) from the brown paper.  Cut two small triangles (teeth) from the white paper.  Glue the wings and ears to the back making sure they are visible from the front.  Glue the teeth under the flap and the eyes go on the flap.  There you have it!  It's done!

      (I made mine a little different.}

       

2.  Bat Hunt:  This actvity is perfect for rainy or cold days.  You can do it with just about anything!  I picked up some plastic bats at the Dollar Tree.  Last year, I found at package of 10 glow in the dark bats at Walmart.  You can set this up a few different ways. One way is like a scavenger hunt.  Give clues to find the bats.  The other way is just hide the bats in the living room or kitchen (or the WHOLE HOUSE) and let the kids find them!  Be sure to count how many you hid.  Otherwise you will be finding bats while you're hiding Easter eggs!

3.  Bat Count:  This one is for the little ones.  Use bat erasers and work on counting.  You can make it a little harder and hide some in a big bowl of uncooked pinto beans.  Kids love to dig with their hands!  For early elementary kids, you can use the erasers to solve hands on math problems.  "I have 3 bats.  I gave you two. Now how many do I have?" is just one example.

4.  B for Bat:  Cut a large bat from a piece of black construction paper.  Then cut out pictures from magazines that start with the letter "B." 

5.  Night or Day? Talk about bats!  Kids are never too early to learn!  Talk about animals that sleep at night like us and ones that sleep during the day.

  

I am sure there are a ton more ideas but this is a good start!  Enjoy being a mom and have a little fun with the kids.  The laundry will be there tomorrow!

Hugs y'all!

LSG

Friday's 5 Favorites: Cute Pumpkins with No Carving!

Carving a pumpkin is not everyone's cup of tea. It's gross, messy, time-consuming, and, if you don't like pumpkins, it stinks! But it's fall and there is some unwritten rule that I need cute pumpkins in my house (Pinterest pressured again!) My dear sweet lab (yes there's sarcasm there) keeps eating my pumpkins outside so I needed some small ones inside. As much as I love white pumpkins, they need a little pizazz too.  I worked this week on decorating a few to add to my extensive Halloween set up in the house.  Here's what I came up with.

1.  MONOGRAM PUMPKIN:

This might be my favorite!!!  I painted this pumpkin with chalkboard paint.  You can spray paint it any color; I just liked the look of chalkpaint.  I spray painted a wooden "W" with gold spray paint.  Once everything was dry, I took my glue gun to adhere the "W".  This pumpkin is sitting on our bench on the front porch.  LOVE IT!!

                  

   

2.  SPRAY PAINT AND PEARLS:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my Halloween color scheme in the living room-black, cream and gold.  I took the small pumpkins (also called gourds) and spray painted them gold.  Once it dried, I took my glue gun and some flat backed pearls, and went to town! I love the way it turned out!!!  I have a few more fake pumpkins that are about to get the same treatment! Seriously it took longer for these babies to dry than it did to decorate them.

                       

3.  WASHI TAPE:

Another easy 5 minute pumpkin idea the kids could do!  I found a pack of turquoise colored washi tape at Hobby Lobby on sale.  Since our sitting room off the kitchen is brightly colored, I added a few bright, non-traditional Halloween colored items like lime green skull head.  This pumpkin would fit perfectly in that room once done.  I chose a white pumpkin (the only one the dog did not completely eat!). I started my strip of washi tape at the stem and went down toward the bottom of the pumpkin.  I did this all the way around with different strips.  My pack came with chevron, polkadots and a solid turquoise roll.  I added a gold bow to the top.

                             

4.  RIBBON:

This pumpkin is so easy, a monkey could do it.  I used another pie pumpkin since I was putting it on the mantel.  I bought to two spools of ribbon in black and gold.  One ribbon was wider than the other so that I could layer them.  I wrapped the wide ribbon around the pumpkin and hot glued it to the back.  I took the thin ribbon (polkadots!!) and wrapped it around the gold ribbon, making sure that stayed in the middle of the gold ribbon.  I put a few sporadic dots of hot glue to hold the thin ribbon.  That's it!!  I did add a bow around the stem to hide it a little.

       

5.  PUSHIPNS:

The last super easy , non-carving alternative is to use pushpins (or thumbtacks).  I found a box of 100 at Hobby Lobby by the counter.  I took my last white pumpkin and stuck pins every place I could.  I started with a pattern but that got out of control quick.  It gives it a nice polkadot effect.  And we know how much I LOVE polkadots!!!

                           

 

There you have it folks!  5 alternatives to carving pumpkins that won't break the bank or take up an entire weekend!  Most of these ideas that kiddos can do too!!  Just be careful with the glue gun!  Then when you are done, enjoy the pumpkin recipes from Wednesday and the Cheesecake Pumpkin Martini from yesterday's post!  Happy Friday friends!

Hugs y'all!

LSG

   

   

 

Texas Tuesday-The Lone Star Jack

For today's Texas Tuesday, I wanted to do something different.  Usually I blog about some great place in Texas to visit.  In this blog, I wanted to bring two of my favorites together: Halloween and Texas!  So that brings us to this guy!  Yes, the sticker says it's Oklahoma grown!

              

It's been a few years since I carved a pumpkin.  The last time I carved a pumpkin, my daughter was 4, and accidentally called 911.  Cue the policemen at the door and mama answering with a pumpkin knife in her hand.  Yea, that was a fun afternoon!  Now that my kids are older (and we no longer have a house phone), I thought I would give it a try.  But I did not want a traditional jack-o- lantern.  I needed a simple design.  I needed a cool design.  I needed one that represented our family.

First, we cut the top off and cleaned out all the goop!!  We saved the pumpkin seeds to roast later!

              

              My lovely assistant for 2 handfuls of pumpkin guts.  Then he was done!

Once all the goop and seeds were out, I traced the face on the pumpkin.  I let the little guy help pick the design.  I had a few ideas that he could pick from.  When I finally got the design traced, it was time to start cutting. The lovely assistant did not want to touch the pumpkin anymore but he had PLENTY of opinions on how I should carve the pumpkin.  However, I blocked the 8 year old's opinions on how to carve and.... this is what we ended up with.

            

              

I still need to preserve our pumpkin.  He is staying inside since our dog loves pumpkins!  To preserve the pumpkin, you can find various ways online.  I am going to soak ours in bleach water for 1-2 hours.  I will add a teaspoon of bleach for each gallon of water.  You  can also put one of those silica packets (like those packets that come in new shoes!)to keep away mold. I used a votive since that was what I had but candle heat dries out the inside of the pumpkin.  Tomorrow I will be going to look for a battery operated one!

Hope you enjoyed my pumpkin carving journey.  This one inspired me to think of other ways to incorporate Texas into other pumpkin pojects!!  I think I might feel another blog coming on!l

Hugs y'all!

LSG

  

   

Wonder Woman Wednesday-Easy Halloween Cookies

One thing you should know about me is that I love to bake!!  It's also not something I get to do very often.  I bought two chocolate cake mixes this past weekend with the full intention of making the most delicious triple layer chocolate cake with orange icing and Halloween sprinkles.  After they sat on my kitchen table all weekend, I finally put them up in the pantry last night as I whispered "Maybe next weekend."  

With "Pinterest pressure" running rampant (yes, it's like peer pressure except you're not in high school and random strangers are unintentionally pressuring you to be a rock star mom), I am sure many of us have a Halloween board full of yummy treats we will never make.  Am I right?  So I am here to give you my favorite "easy peasy" cookie recipe that can make it look like you spent all afternoon in the kitchen. I have been making this cookies for years!   They  are so super easy.

You can start this recipe however you choose.  You can use the "pull apart" cookies that you slap on a cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes (GUILTY!).  You can use a mix, which is what I am doing today.  OR you can be supermom and make your own sugar cookies from scratch.  Any way is fine.  If you use the pull apart kind, at least sprinkle flour some on your shirt to make it seem like you have been baking all day.  So if you go with the prepackaged mix, chances are you will need some water, butter and an egg or two.  But other than that, this is all you need. Make sure to have a couple of toothpicks handy too!!

I chose cream cheese frosting because well, who doesn't love cream cheese frosting on their cookies? But you can use just plain vanilla/white frosting.  After the cookies have baked and cooled, slather a little frosting on each cookie.

Take your black icing and draw 3 circles (think the Target symbol!)

Start a toothpick in the center dot and pull toward the edge of the cookie.  Do this all around the cookie.  This should pull the icing causing a spider web look.

You can add a cute little plastic spider.  I didn't have any small enough.  Now you have cute little spider web cookies that look like you have been in the kitchen all day.  No one has to know they took 10 minutes! 

Hugs y'all!

LSG