food, crochet, merriment
This Halloween moment…
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from our lives.
A simple, special, memorable moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and keep close to my heart.
If you are inspired to do the same–leave us a link in the comments.
Happy Halloween weekend my friends.
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Oh, it is indeed an adventure to carve pumpkins with big kids. Think what you like about what it is to let a child work on their own Jack O’ Lantern for the first time—pumpkin seeds and bits and slippery insides everywhere–I know.
But let me just tell you–all these little kids in great big, grown up bodies can indeed make the same mess if they set their minds to it. And sometimes…
some of the mayhem looks…um…dare I say…deliberate. It also seems that every year the pumpkins themselves get way bigger. You know what THAT means…
so. do. the. knives. Now there’s spooky.
Oh, how do I leave these people unsupervised?!!
Fact is, once the nasty, really sharp things were put away and the little carving tools came out–these people were quite fascinating to watch. Everyone was concentrating so hard on what they were doing, that it was easy for me sit back and observe a bit.
Funny–isn’t it, how kid’s, even big kid’s personalities really come out…
when left alone…
with a great big, silly, old pumpkin?
For years now–my sister’s Halloween party has always included the bobbing for apples thing. It’s a no kidding, not for the faint hearted, do or die event–let me tell you. The kids all want to do it. The guys all want to do it. And…even some of my daughters want to do it.
Y.I.K.E.S. is all I can think of to say.
Oh, I thought of one more thing–
I just don’t think I’ll ever want an apple this badly…
maybe if it was Cheetoes…
nahhh…..
One of the lovely things about this Halloween-ish time of year, is that glorious treats like molasses cookies and candy corn are everywhere–well, at our house anyway–which is just how it should be in a well ordered kingdom {ahem}.
Being surrounded by little people–as we are, creates a particular challenge when making caramel apples–because they are just too big for the short folk to manage. Slicing them helps, of course, but still–I can’t bear the waste…it pains my tender, caramel-apple-loving soul.
So look what we’ve discovered on the pages of Disney’s Family Fun magazine—Mini Caramel Apples–and zero percent blasphemous waste!! Wa-flogging-hoo!
This is simple stuff here too. You’ll need butterscotch chips, sucker sticks, sprinkles, a good melon baller…
and of course—apples. You, my darlings, are going to love this.
Scoop the apple into tons of teeny, tiny little balls. This was so fun and you can actually get quite a few out of one apple–which is what I did.
Break the sucker sticks in half and poke them in the skin side of the apple. I made a tiny cut in the peel with a paring knife first so that the sticks went in easier.
Melt the butterscotch chips over medium heat and dip the apples in. You can roll them around and cover more of the green–
but I kinda liked how it looked with this much color showing. Do whatever floats your boat–it’ll be fine.
Before they set, dip the bottoms in your favorite sprinkles, toffee, or chopped nuts….
and let them set in the tiny paper cups–if you want. Now just try to tell me these bite-sized sweeties aren’t the cutest thing you’ve ever seen…go ahead try. I triple dog dare you.
See? You can’t.
I told you.
Remember the fabuloso “yarn” we made a few weeks back out of old T-shirts? Well, I’m happy to report that all that old stuff was given new life. Seems only fitting that if something is going to come back from the “dead” as it were–they should do it close to Halloween…
and reappear as a couple of sweet pumpkins–don’t you think?
I used the pumpkin pattern found at Planet June from a couple of years back. Of course, to work with this stuff–you’ll need a bigger hook than is suggested in the yarn pattern. The H hook felt the most comfortable to me, but you’ll have to mess with it.
Seriously, I do hope you’ll try playing with this fun stuff, because there is just something cool and spooky about bringing something back to life.
Beats Frankenstein any day.
heh.
