A Tasty Halloween Treat: Boo Berry® Bars

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SpooktacularSnacks #CollectiveBias

It’s coming...11 more days now until Halloween! Yesterday I purchased all of the goodie bags that I’ll be filling and handing out to all of the trick or treaters on the 31st; now I just have to purchase the tons of candy that I will need for the 300 + ghost and goblins that normally knock on my more.

When we moved here 8 years ago, I had no idea just how big Halloween was in our little neighborhood; in our small town. I’ve since then learned and become prepared.

BOO'tiful Stuffed Brownies + A BOO It Forward Surprise

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser.  All opinions are mine alone.  #BOOItForward #CollectiveBias

This past weekend Wayne was gone camping with a friend, so it was just the kids and I. We had a bunch of fun and went to the movies, traveled to soccer games, and went shopping for a special project that I had never done before.

This year, I’m making a #BOOItForward kit and sharing it with someone. I’ve seen people do it before in years past, but wasn’t sure exactly what it was all about, so, I looked it up. There’s a fun little card that you can print (found here) and the whole concept is to anonymously surprise a friend or neighbor with a cute Halloween gift basket and then it’s their turn to “BOO  it forward” to someone else. It's super easy all you need to do is:

Happy Halloween + A Werther's Orignial Treat For You!

Full Disclosure; I was sent samples and a promotional item as a thank you. As always all opinions are 100% my own. 

How was everyone's Halloween? I can't believe it's over already and that November is literally minutes away. I'm kind of bummed because I just feel like I could get into the spooky cheer today as much as normal - for a number of reasons. Anika has been gone at outdoor school this week and just got back today at 1 pm - so she didn't get to carve pumpkins with us last night. Our small town had a big football game tonight, which is fine except that it put a damper on all of the trick or treating celebrating. 

Yesterday Noah had his Halloween party, and this afternoon Emma had hers. They all got sugared up on anything you can think of that was colored orange and then all played bingo in their costumes. I had a little Greek Goddess on my hands. 

After school got out we all got ready and headed over to Noah's preschool/ church for a Harvest party where there were games, food, bouncy houses, and hayrides. My little Goddess, Minnie Mouse, and Ninja Turtle had fun. 

We then came home and did our usual trick or treating in our cul-de-sac. I was worried that I may have actually bought too much candy because it just didn't feel as busy and alive as it normally does - and not as many of our neighbors were participating in the fun (thanks to the football game!) but by 8:30 when we turned the lights off, we still somehow had 310 trick-or-treaters that had walked up our porch. 

I know the kids will still be coming down from their sugar high over the next couple of days, but I had a little treat I want to share with you! Werther's Original recently sent me a bunch of goodies to try - including their new Caramel Popcorn. I was actually going to take some pictures to show you, but my family got a hold of them and literally inhaled them - all FOUR bags. Yeah, they are that good. Werther's also has new Caramel Apple filled candies which are my favorite! 

Werther's has an Unwrap The Magic sweepstakes going on right now where they are giving away a trip to  Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fl. for the 2015 Epcot Food and Wine Festival! How fun would that be? You can enter to win at: www.werthersmagic.com 

In the mean time I'm giving away 2 Werther's Original product coupons so you can head to the store and get 2 free bags of deliciousness for yourself! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

~Melissa

Halloween Snacks Idea + A Chocolate Orange Cake Recipe!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SpookySnacks #CollectiveBias

Hey everyone! Yesterday I had the luxury of staying home all day (with the exception of taking kids back and forth to school) and so I got a little creative and made a few Halloween Snacks. I seriously can’t believe it’s only a couple days away!

I started off making some after-school appetizers for the kids – some spooky spider Wheat Thins snacks and they were a big hit! They’re super easy to make, all you need is 3 ingredients:

Spider Appetizers 

What you need:

Wheat thins – any flavor you’d like

Black Olives

Spreadable cheese

Directions:

1. Spread cheese on desired amount of crackers. If you feel like playing trick or treat a bit you can use a few of the Spicy Buffalo and mix them in with the original flavors
2. Slice olives in half lengthwise (one olive = one spider) Place one half of the olive on the cracker and then slice the other half lengthwise into strips, and then cut the strips in half. These will make the spider legs. I ended up only putting 6 legs on my spiders because I think it fits better on the Wheat Thin, but you could put 8 on there if you want to.

Voila! Easy spider snacks for Halloween.

And if you're pressed for time you can add edible eyes to almost anything to spook it up! I also made a simple kid-friendly snack platter with Wheat Thins, spreadable cheese, smoked sausage, and sliced apples.

 Next up I made a homemade cake…do you know how long it’s been since I made one from scratch?? It seems like I only take the time to do it when there’s a holiday, and then the cake is gone in like a day! I made a chocolate cake with orange frosting and decorated it with a chocolate “Boo” sign and Oreo bats. The recipe is one that I modified slightly from one of my cook books (Chocolate Birthday Cake; Celebrate by Sheila Lukins) only because I didn't have the exact ingredients – and it still turns out amazing!

Chocolate Cake

What you need:

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup unsalted butter – room temperature

2 ¼ cups dark brown sugar

3 large eggs

2 ¼ cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup almond milk

1 cup of boiling water

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1.  Melt the chocolate over a double broiler and set aside.  In a large bowl cream the butter and brown sugar using a mixer. Add the eggs one at a time, and then slowly mix in the melted chocolate.
2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. Begin pouring flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, and then alternate with almond milk until everything is mixed well. Mix well, and then add boiling water and vanilla slowly until mixed completely.
4. Pour batter into greased and floured cake pans, and then bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes. 

Orange Frosting

6 cups of powdered sugar

1/3   cup of milk

2 teaspoons of orange baking emulsion

½ cup of softened butter

1. Mix butter and powdered sugar together, then slowly add milk and flavoring until combined.

Oreo Bats

6 oz. dark chocolate

Black sprinkles

Candy eyes

Oreos – use the Halloween orange ones to make them extra festive!

1. Melt the chocolate over a double broiler and then pour into a disposable pastry bag. Pipe bat-shaped wings onto parchment paper and then cover with black sprinkles. Set aside until dry.
2. Carefully insert a wing into each side of the Oreos. Using frosting, attach eyes to the Oreos.

You can also pipe letters out to later add to the cake. 

After the cake is baked and cooled, cover in orange frosting and then set inside the refrigerator to let the frosting set.  Before serving attach the bats on with a little frosting, and carefully press letters into the cake.

Whew! And there you have it! My version of a Chocolate Orange Bat Cake! The Oreo bats are of course just as fun to eat on their own too.  You can find all of the supplies, including the Halloween Oreos at Walmart in the snack aisle!

What Halloween #SpookySnacks are you making this year?

~Melissa

14 Fun Halloween Treat Ideas

                                                 Check out 14 Fun Halloween Treats
                                                  by Melissa Kaylene at Foodie.com

Hey everyone! Today is a VERY rainy day in Oregon.... the rainiest day we've had in a long time. Luckily for us we have no plans this evening and I've already got my sweats on, cozy socks on my feet, and a apple cinnamon candle burning on the table. The kids just got home from school and I still have no idea what we are having for dinner tonight because I've been happily looking up Halloween things to help get me in the spirit of things. Can you believe that its only 9 days away?

Ever since Anika was born I've loved Halloween. We never celebrated it when I was a kid, but I think it's fun to let the kids dress up and create crafts and treats - we don't do much spooky stuff around here (yet!). I've still got to buy candy and make trick-or-treat bags for all of the little ghosts and goblins that visit our front door. If you've followed along for a while now you know that we get a whole lot of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. It's one of the nice things about living in a small town, everyone knows your neighborhood, all of the kids know each other, so it's almost like a big block party. I'll be making 300 goody bags this year. 

I'm also working on a little cake project that I'm going to share on here next week, and I needed a bit more baking inspiration so I collected 14 different Halloween treats from Foodie.com and decided to share them with you too in case you needed a little more inspiration yourself!

What I love about all of these treat ideas is that they are all so simple to make and the kids would be excited to see any of them out for a party! (Okay, maybe I would too!) 

Tomorrow I'll continue my October celebrations by attended not one, but two Pumpkin Patch field trips with the kids. At least they overlap and are at the same Pumpkin Patch so the day isn't split up. Time to break out the rain boots and hats - I think it's going to be a wet visit! 

What are your plans for Halloween this year? Are you having a party? I'd love to see Halloween food or party ideas that you've done - if you want you can link up your photos and posts in the comment section! 

Until tomorrow -

~Melissa

Compensation was provided by Foodie via Mode Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of Foodie”

A Spooky Cookie Disney Junior Halloween Party

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.

I finally have the pictures up from our little after school party we had on Monday! The kids had a great time and it was a fun way to ring in the festivities for Halloween! Emma had been begging me for a very long time to have a party for her, and I told her we would, but one thing after another always happened and I kept putting it off and putting it off, so we finally held a party and combined the two: a Disney Junior  Doc McStuffins themed party for her as well as a pre-Halloween party.

Picking out decorations was easy – Walmart had a huge supply of Doc McStuffin decorations and party favors, as well as plates, cups, etc. I took the colors theme and meshed it with Halloween – and used purple, orange, and black streamers and tablecloths. I also picked up a Doc McStuffin costume to wear – there was one style in the toy aisle as well as others in the Halloween costume aisle. I purchased several Doc McStuffin toys and goodies to use as prizes for the kids and even grabbed a box of Doc. McStuffin Band-Aids so Doctor Emma could fix up her friend’s stuffed animals. 

The weather has been so great I set everything up on our back deck and covered the entire area with spider webs – creating a spider web “roof” above their heads. Since the weather has been so warm we’ve had a bunch of stink bugs hatch and are hanging out everywhere – they kept flying into the spider webbing all over the place, which was a little frustrating but the kids thought it was cool and creepy. I guess it was a Halloween party bonus!

 Having an after school party I knew we’d need some snacks, so I kept things really simple and made cheese pizza mummies out of English muffins, pasta sauce, mozzarella cheese and black olives. I also made bloody mummies with hot dogs wrapped in pizza dough and drips of red food coloring baked in. For treats I had a platter of brownies, mini donuts, rice cereal treats and cookies, adorned with sour gummy worms. I also had a platter of grapes with more sour gummy worms peering out of them. 

Anika was in charge of the games, so they broke out the radio and played freeze dance – when the music stops you have to freeze and whoever is the last one moving is eliminated. They also played balloon toss and “Hot potato” with frozen ice hands. (I took a latex-free glove and froze water in it). 

 After the games and snacks died down the kids all played for a little while – some danced, other’s played with their prizes, Doctor Emma made sure everyone was okay – and then I broke out the cookies.  I had three different kinds of cookies pre-baked and ready for decorating in pumpkin shapes and Band-Aid shapes. Four different colors of frosting were mixed up in spooky colors as well as a huge variety of sprinkles and eyeballs.  The kids all took turns a few at a time decorating cookies to eat and take home to their families. I bought small cupcake boxes to keep their cookies in so the frosting wouldn’t get damaged on their trips home.

Six o’clock was here before we knew it and parents came to take their sugared up kids home. All three of my kids had a fun afternoon with their friends!

If you are contemplating having an after-school party for your kids – here are a few tips that I have learned over the years:

• Pick a theme – it doesn’t have to be a huge theme or anything fancy, but it will help simplify everything when you are shopping. It doesn’t even have to all match up! Emma wanted Doc McStuffins and we were doing a pre-Halloween party. It worked great finding a correlation with the two of them.

• Figure out your food – I’m all for creating fancy complex appetizers, but I’ve learned that when it comes to kids, just make it simple, fun, and you don’t even have to make all of it. They really don’t care.

• Think of some activities, but don’t set them in stone. – I knew we were going to have prizes and I knew we were going to decorate cookies, but I just let the rest of it happen naturally. It’s good to have a few ideas to give the kids, but more often than not they’ll find their own activities and will be running around you in circles shouting and singing or playing make believe.

• Make sure to set a time limit – you don’t want kids to get too tired and have meltdowns after a long day at school. 2-3 hours seems to work great for me.

•  Don’t stress!! – I always do this and I don’t know why. I find myself rushing around the house all day trying to clean it so that parents don’t see the laundry piled up or dishes in the sink, but you know what? After three hours with 5-10 kids in your house no one will notice the dishes in your sink because they will be trying to dodge the toys and wrappers left on the floor!

Do you have any other after school party tips? Make sure you check out the Halloween costume section at Walmart and keep your eyes open for the Minnie Mouse and Doc McStuffin in-store display! Thanks #CollectiveBias and #JuniorCelebrates for letting me share our party with you!

~Melissa