Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween: Cupcakes, Pumpkin Carving, and Treats Oh My!

This year Halloween kinda crept up on us, so we had a lot of last minute things to do. Luckily, the grandparent gifts were done way ahead of time, thank you to Xazmin for some inspiration for the pickle jar jacko'lantern candle holders. Making them was quite an ordeal. Imagine large amounts of tissue paper and Mod Podge all over, and by all over, I mean the 3 year old and not the glass jars!
First thing on our uncompleted Halloween to do list, was make cupcakes for our family party. Daddy and ER worked on these together, and the lesson learned this time around? Marble cake is not the easiest to work with when you're in a rush. Trying to mix chocolate batter into yellow cake batter in itty bitty cupcake liners when you've still got cleaning to do is definitely not a good thing!
ER had several special tasks, mixing and mixing while Daddy read the directions and tried to stay two steps ahead of ER being one, crumbling and crushing cookies was the other.
We made worm cupcakes, modeled after Bobbi's at Casa Camacho. Ours did not turn out quite so pretty. I was too lazy to get out my frosting tips, but they were still a lot of messy fun to make. Brad was very involved with the gummy worm placement.
He also helped tint the frosting to the perfect shade of orange and made the lines for our pumpkin cupcakes based on Susana's at My Family My Forever. We barely had time to clean up before Grammy and Papa, Uncle Dave, and Grandma Norma were at our front door.
The next few pictures are for Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jody, who we can't wait to see when they visit in December. They wanted to treat ER for Halloween, so we picked up a set of Littlest Pet Shop Animals for ER for them. She got the Pet Clubhouse for her birthday, but has been wanting some extra pets to add to her collection. Thank you Uncle Jeff and Aunt Jody! Now we have lots of little friends and new accessories to play with.
ER's got lots of other fun treats too, thank you Grandparents, Uncle Dave, and Annemarie! She loves the books, stickers, clothes, and stuffed animals. Out of all the candy she got, I think she was most excited about the candy bracelets and necklaces from my Godmother Annemarie. Uncle Dave, we can't wait to read one of our favorite books, If You Give and Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff, while holding onto our very own Mr. Mouse!

FYI parents Kohl's Care's for Kids current featured author is Laura Numeroff and you can get one of her popular titles in hardcover or a plush animal characters that go with each book available, each just five dollars. This is a great way to add to your child's library, and kids always love retelling the story and going on new adventures with book characters they are familiar with. They make great gift combos, since you can get a book and toy for ten bucks.

Numeroff's books are especially good for preschoolers and kindergarteners, they'll love the fun stories and how one thing leads to another. Many a child came into my kindergarten class being able to recite her tales. I used to do a writing activity with first graders, where they had to model a story in the same format as Numeroff's. It was always very popular with the kids and even the ones who had trouble with writing liked creating elaborate tales about If you give a ______ then s/he'll probably ______. It is also easily modifiable into a collaborative kindergarten class book.
We had our families come over early so we could visit and have dinner together before our town's trick or treat time began. Ours are from 5:30-7:30 and I like having a set window of time. It's early enough so that it's still daylight and a bit warmer for the littlest kids. It's also great to have it over so that you don't have to worry about kids knocking at your door at nine at night.
But candy time had to wait a little bit more, because we hadn't even carved our pumpkin yet! Brad had to rush to get it done before he picked up dinner from Potbelly. It's the first time we've had their sandwiches, and they were really good and quite reasonably priced. I love a good turkey and mayo sandwich, the toasty goodness made it so yummy!I barely had time to finish my last crumb before it was time to go. That's our neighbor Brian giving ER one of her first treats! Even though it was just after 5:30 it was already pretty cold, can you tell by how much my mom is bundled up? By the end of the night ER was in her mittens, but still trudging along until her bucket was nearly over flowing. Only one house that made spooky noises and had very elaborate decorations scared her and we made it back home in time for her to still pass out some candy. We got a lot from the various outings we went on, and over bought between the packages we picked up and my mom brought. I have no idea what we're going to do with the mountains of candy we now have. I hope it doesn't all end up having to be burned off on the elliptical☺

16 Friends Said:

Val said...

Precious Memories. So cute.

Val said...
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♥ Noelle ♥ said...

so darn cute! i love her orange polka dot dress and black leggings!! stylin lil babe ♥

Bobbi & Noe said...

Thanks for the linky!

Your family is so adorable- I bet you get that alot! I just wanna pinch your daughters cheekies :)

k-e-household said...

I looove her polka dot outfit too! leggings! So cute.
We are realllly into Littlest Pets here too. I am going to have to hide them before our toddling cousin Erik visits in December--there are just too many little pieces!
I wonder how your community implements a set time for T&Ters. Ours happened to start around 5:45 and the last ones came at 8:50. Its always the big kids that come late.

***Sharon*** said...

Love that orange polka dot shirt!!! And the pumpkin cupcakes....may have to make those for Thanksgiving!

Huge LPS fans here as well.... you have to admit...they are pretty darn cute!

Kim @ Life of a Modern Mom said...

Looks like you guys had a busy, but such a fun Halloween. Molly went tricker treating this year too, it is so fun to watch them at each house. :)
We went to Kohl's and stocked up on the books and animals for Christmas presents. We love them over here, Molly laughs at the great pictures. :)

gina rahman said...

Wow, looks like you had a great Halloween.

Sorry should introduce myself.

My name is Gina and I run the CYSD challenge blog along with Alison.

You left a kind comment on Vickies blog about her entry into the halloween challenge, asking where she got her Franny Digital stamp.

Come and visit YSD http://www.yourspecialdelivery.co.uk/challenge-page.html to take the image and maybe enter the challenge too.

You could win more digital freebies.

Challenges run every 2 weeks with the next challenge on the 7th November

Thanks Gina

gina rahman said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
gina rahman said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jenny said...

So fun! I love the pumpkin cupcakes! Cute idea.

RoS said...

Don't forget the books that Aunt Margie sent!! ER had a ton of stuff!

Anonymous said...

Great job on the cupcakes ER! Hope you saved me one :) Great photos as always

Anonymous said...

Looks like you guys had a great Halloween. Great photos!
I love ER's polka dot outfit, princess costume is darling too. We love Potbelly. Stumbled upon one when we first moved to this area....now there are three! You won't believe this, but I went there 2x today...both kids had to go to the doctor @ separate times...so I took Andrew for lunch & both kids for dinner. I asked Potbelly employee if I won a prize for two visits in the same day, no such luck. Great sandwiches & ice cream. It's a hike to our Pediatrician's office....but I'm glad there's a Potbelly close by. :)

Jill Boydston said...

Oops, not sure if you know it's from me. Jill :)

Vickie said...

I love ER's orange outfit!! So adorable!!

Good idea about the jars. Yeah...mod podge would be all over the girls not the jar:)

The orange cupcakes look good and cute.

Looked like you guys had a good Halloween and yes it was a bit nippers. brrrr.

Jason took the girls and I stayed home and passed out the candy. Which is kind of nice. We do not get a lot of people so I was able to play on the computer.

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