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!

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.

Friday Funny

 

Cooking Thursday

Here's another good treat, perfect for Fall and so easy to make.  It only takes a few ingredients to put together and it is yummy!

Apple Pie Cheesecake Puffs

2 sheets puff pastry, thawed and at room temperature
1 can apple pie filling
1 container whipped cream cheese - cinnamon flavor if available (If not available, stir cinnamon into regular whipped cream cheese to taste

cinnamon sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Spray non-stick spray into 9 wells of a cupcake tin.  Lay one sheet of puff pastry over those 9 wells.  Use another tin and place this one on top of the other one with the pastry in it.  Press down so the second tin fits into the first one, creating wells in the pastry. Remove second tin, then cut across the muffin pan in squares to separate each piece of pastry.

Take a knife and cut the apples in the can of pie filling so the pieces are smaller.  Put about 1 tablespoon of filling in each well of the puff pastry.
Place about 1 tablespoon of the whipped cream cheese over the pie filling.

Take the second sheet of puff pastry and lay over the filled squares. Once again, cut across the muffin pans to separate the pastry into 9 squares.  Press each square around the pastry well, sealing to dough that is already there to the best of your ability.

Brush top of dough with water, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly browned, then remove and serve.

Wordless Wednesday

 

A Day away

Last week Bob and I took a drive to Indiana. We went to Shipshewana, Amish country and spent the day there.

As we got near, we started seeing Amish farms, with lots of sheep, horses and cows.

We stopped at the Amish grocery store, and enjoyed seeing the horses and buggies in the parking lot.

There were lots of Amish people on bikes.

Shipshewana is really decorated for Fall.  All over town they decorated hay bales.

And look at these cute pumpkin scarecrows!

They were so creative!

We even took an Amish buggy ride. I was surprised that the Amish would do this, but it was fun to ride the buggy and talk with this Amish man.

This is an Amish school house. If you look on the left of the picture, you can see all the kids bikes.

These horses are pulling a piece of farm equipment.

This clothesline is connected to a pulley that pulls the clothes high up to dry.

As we left, we enjoyed this scene with buggies and bikes on the road.

We had such a nice day, and ended it with a very good Amish meal. We went home with full stomachs!

Some fun with Cassie and Connor

Last week we had a fun Saturday with Cassie and Connor. We started with a walk down to the neighbor who is selling pumpkins. It's where we went the week before with Alaina and Ruby, so we had to do the same for the younger ones.

It's a big decision for little kids!  But here is Cassie with the one she chose.

Here's Connor with his!  We walked down with a wagon, so we didn't have to carry them home.

Then we went on another adventure.  There's a park about 20 minutes from our house that has a huge slide, built into a hill. It was a beautiful day, perfect for a drive and some fun outside.

Check out this slide!  Cassie said "It's the biggest slide I ever saw!"

Heather went down with Connor.

Cassie wasn't sure at first, but once she went down once, she was all about doing it again.

Connor had an unfortunate ride down this slide, but he was soon up and playing on some of the other equipment.

This beautiful stream borders the park.

And next to it was a little free library!  So the kids found some books to look at.

We took a little walk along a trail.

and did a little more playing. Cassie had to go down the big slide one more time before we left.

We thought it was a great place to spend some time and decided that Bob and I would go back and hike some of the trails there too.