Thursday, October 29, 2015

Halloween Dinner

Hey everyone!
For all you last minute people out there looking for a fun dinner to do for Halloween, hopefully this will help give you some ideas! 
At the end of September, I had this great idea to do a themed dinner every Sunday of October in honor of Halloween. I was going to pick a fun movie, and base our dinner around that. Then life happened, people got busy, and my dream was never realized. But I wasn't going to give up! I wanted to do one fun dinner before Halloween to really get in the spirit. 
Apparently everyone else had some of the same ideas I did. When I went to the store for supplies, almost everything I wanted was sold out. (That's what I get for waiting so long) Still determined, I changed plans a little bit and this is what we ended up with:


I originally wanted to use spider rings as napkin holders, and have fun printed plates. But the spider rings were gone, and so were the plates. No worries! I just went to the party isle and picked up some good ol' black and orange plates. (I think I like the bug better anyways.)  I made everyone a place card with a fun name on it. You can get these cute FREE name tags here. I also made a menu for the night. Thank you Microsoft Word! You never let me down ;) 

This was my "spooky spaghetti" and "witch fingers". The instructions on how to dye the noodles are on the36thavenue.com or just click here . When I saw this idea on Pinterest, I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread! It doesn't stain your mouth or alter the flavor of the noodles either!  Of course, I wanted to make my spaghetti like the dish I saw on the blog... the noodles were black! But was there any black food coloring around when I went shopping? Of course not! (See? I guess other people wanted black spaghetti too!) But, I think the purple spaghetti is still fun!


This is my "mummy bread". When I was at the store I went to the bakery section in search for some french bread. Yep.. they were SOLD OUT. So I got an Italian bread loaf instead. The size is slightly smaller, but I actually like this kind of bread more than french bread. So it ended up being a happy mishap! These are super easy to make! Slice the bread into any shape you want them to be. Then add butter and garlic salt to your liking. Next, take sliced olives and place them on the bread for eyes. For the mummy "wrap" I took pre-sliced mozzarella cheese, cut it into strips with a pizza cutter, then placed it randomly all over the bread. Finally, broil it on high until the cheese is melted. Yumm! 



This was our "night crawlers" dessert. More commonly known as "Worms and dirt". Simply layer chocolate pudding, with crushed Oreos on top, and stick a few worms on top to make it look like they are crawling out of the dirt. Could dessert go as I planned? Nope! All of the regular gummy worms were gone too. But these sour gummies worked great!

At the end of it all, it was a fun dinner, and everyone enjoyed the food! I hope you guys have a fun Halloween!



Monday, October 5, 2015

Kick off to October!

Hello everyone!
I hope you are as excited for the upcoming holidays as I am! It always takes me a few weeks to accept the fact that summer is over and we are going to move into cooler weather. But, as soon as I can start doing fun activities (like the one I will tell you about in a minute) I get over it, and move on with life. 

So I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (otherwise known as a Mormon). As members of the church, one of our top priorities is family. To help encourage family time, leaders of our church have emphasized having family home evening once a week. Basically one night is dedicated for just family time. Typically, people use Monday nights for this, but our schedule is so crazy, it really just depends on the week! 

This last week for family night, I wanted to do something fun to get into the Halloween spirit. I had two activities planned. The first one was to "boo" two houses in our neighborhood. Basically, you buy or make a treat, put instructions on what to do, and doorbell ditch your neighbor. Just don't forget to leave the goodies on the porch! The treat comes with a cute sign you put on your door or window to let people know you've already received a treat. Then, they make 2 copies and give treats to 2 more neighbors. The goal is to have kind of a domino effect. If the first 2 people do it, then another 4 will get treats, then 8, 16, and so on. Am I making any sense? I found a super cute FREE printable to use from happinessishomemade.net. Or click here to get to the website to print your own.



This is how mine turned out. The first page has the instructions on what to do, and the second sheet is what you put in your window to let people know you've already been "booed". It was a lot of fun leaving these on the doorstep, knocking nice and loud, then running away before I got caught. My husband was driving the getaway car. Yes, I was close to rolling my ankles a few times, but it was worth it! Now, I'm hoping they will keep the chain going and lots of people can get treats this month!
The second activity I found at my local Micheal's craft store.


I looked all over their website to try to get a link for you guys to see the kit online, but I couldn't find it anywhere! I'm sorry...
After taking treats secretly to some people, we came back and decorated this beauty! I know it doesn't look as good as the box, but it was so much fun! It came with the purple and black frosting, orange fondant, and candy to decorate. the house was pre-assembled which was nice too! It took some team work, but I am very happy with how our house turned out! And bonus, we now have a new decoration we can use this year!



Anyways, I hope this may give you some fun ideas of things you can do with your family this month! Thanks for stopping by!

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