News Taffy

Halloween is almost upon us, and we've been in full swing autumn fun! I had a cardboard house that I got at Hobby Lobby that I got on sale and was in the midst of transforming into a very detailed haunted house to keep candy in for Halloween that I wanted to show you all, but, alas, some little hands got into some big markers and let's just say we'll be transforming the house into something Christmas-y instead.

How do you celebrate fall and Halloween? We started with hanging strands of orange and yellow maple leaves over our curtains and lights. We shoved some into fake plants and speared several pieces of candy corn taffy with wooden skewers to stick into plants. Talk about temptation, right? We have several fall cookie cutters, but some work better with playdoh than cookies, so we made both! We made up some chocolate chip cookie dough to use our open metal cookie cutters, and pulled out the playdoh to use the kind that only smash the shape into while the cookies baked. (My favorite cookie cutter tip: spray your pan and lay down the cookie cutter. Then, press cookie dough into the cutter, then pick the cutter up. This works about a billion times better than trying to roll out cookie dough, cut it perfectly, pick the cutter shaped dough out, and make it over to the cookie sheet, especially with little hands that like to eat cookie dough around!)

We carved out our pumpkin in a happy face since London refused to have a "scary" one, and washed and dried the seeds to bake. I baked mine on 375 for about 15 minutes after coating them in olive oil, a little Cavendar's, and paprika, but no seasoning can be wrong with pumpkin seeds!

Because of a very annoying issue going on with my sewing machine, I can't sew the girls' Halloween costumes, and it is already Oct. 25. It should be interesting to see what they'll end up as.

Other than that, we've been making a lot of soup, apple pie, gathering acorns (for play, not food), and consuming anything that may have pumpkin as an ingredient. This is my very favorite season, only shadowed by midterms and allergies. Can you believe there's two months until Christmas as of today?! Okay, okay, I'll take it slow, but I can't wait until I get to post fun Christmas crafts. Happy Halloween everyone! Make it a safe one!