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Monday, October 26, 2026

Ghosts, chocolate, stamping and pizza!

Last week we had Alaina and Ruby over and as usual, we had fun together!

Our first craft was something made of air dry clay. If you've been here for a while, you probably know I'm not a fan of Halloween, and usually decorate with a Fall/Thanksgiving theme.  However, my friend Kim at Exquisitely Unremarkable did a post recently with some little ghosts that were so cute, I decided to make them with the girls.



We started with white air dry clay, took some and rolled it into a ball, then flattened it with a rolling pin. We draped that flattened circle over a ball that was resting on a jar, used a straw to make little circle eyes and left them to dry. They used the scrap clay to make pumpkins and Alaina added a braid to hers.





Here they are drying - we'll come back to them later.






We had lunch and then made some Fall candy. These were peanut butter meltaways, made by melting white chocolate, milk chocolate and peanut butter together.




The melted chocolate was put into squeeze bottles and then each of the girls filled candy molds.  Then they went into the frig to get hard.





We played our favorite marble game...





and took a little walk outside, where we got to say hi to Winston, our neighbors dog.




Another thing I had seen on Kim's blog was something about rubber stamping.  It reminded me that I had a tote of stamps, ink, glitter...  so I got it up so the girls could play with all of it.



They loved it and want to do it again.





Here's some of their work.








The chocolates had gotten hard and popped right out of the molds.






Aren't they cute?





We packaged them up in cellophane bags to take home.





Here they are with their ghosts, pumpkins and a tiny cat.





The ghosts get put over a little battery operated candle so the eyes glow.





We went out for supper to a pizza place. Our pizza was so cheesy, as the girls were demonstrating.  But it was good!  We had lots of fun - and thanks to Kim for all her inspiration!

Sunday, October 25, 2026

Fall at the Gardens

I've shared our visits to Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park several times.  Our daughter and SIL have given us a season pass for a few years, so we are able to enjoy frequent visits there.

We always try to get there in the Fall because they decorate it so beautifully. I can't even wrap my head around how many pumpkins and mums they have all over the gardens.

Here's a few photos of how beautiful it looked this year.




This sculpture is at the entrance.  It's one I enjoy, because you can see different silhouettes depending on the angle you are looking at it from.



A few pictures of the towers full of pumpkins that are scattered all through the park. They make good use of mums, kale and gourds too.











This is a sculpture of a weaver spider, which is always there, but seems quite fitting this time of year.















These pumpkins were huge!


































Do you see the heron out there?






It was a perfect weather day; sunshine, temps in the high 60's, and a lovely place to enjoy the Autumn beauty God gave us.

Thursday, October 22, 2026