Pumpkin Spice Bread

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023454210/
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Spice-Bread-2/Detail.aspx

Ingredients:
2 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (16 oz) pumpkin  ( If you're feeling adventurous, you should try baking down  your Halloween Jack o'lanterns)
3 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
1/2 cup water

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease two 9-inch loaf pans. Or in our case we were also making individual muffin sized pumpkin breads out of  our Jack O'lantern tins.

Mix white sugar, brown sugar, and eggs in a large bowl; stir in pumpkin and mix well. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, cloves, and allspice in a bowl; add alternately with water to pumpkin mixture. Pour into prepared loaf pans.

 

Bake in preheated for 60 to 65 minutes or until done (check by inserting a toothpick and it comes out "clean". Cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Verdict: Oh man these smell amazing while baking!! and they taste just as good as they smell :)

Candy Corn Nails

enamelgirl.blogspot.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023488730/

So, Obviously I love Halloween and so do my girls. On the Sundays in October we've decided to paint their nails Halloween themed for the following week while they are at school. Last week  Hannah had spider webs and this week she chose candy corn. We started with a base coat of white and let it dry.

 Using the tip of a toothpick I made the middle section yellow and then let that dry and the bottom orange. We did opposite of the other blogger because Hannah insisted this is what candy corn looks like and well, it doesn't make a difference. This is a little difficult because her nails are sooooooooo tiny. But we love it and that's all that matters :) On her thumbs we put tiny candy corn pieces, it was cute.

"Ghost Balloon"

marthastewart.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915022251055/

So we had a play date the other day and the girls were doing science experiments. With Halloween  not too far away we decided to do the "ghost balloon" which teaches the kids about gases.

What you'll need:
water bottle (or glass bottle)
Balloon
4 TABLESPOON Vinegar
2 TABLESPOONS Baking soda
funnel or piece of paper.


Directions:
put 4 tablespoons vinegar into the bottle.  Open the balloon as wide as you can and using either a funnel or make shift one fill the balloon with baking soda. Cover the lid of the water bottle with the balloon being careful not to spill the baking soda in..yet.

When you're ready  dump the contents of the balloon into the water bottle  and watch as the baking soda mixes with the  vinegar and chemically reacts by making a gas that it then trapped into the balloon giving the illusion that the balloon was blowing itself as if a ghost was doing it ;)

The girls favorite part was when the balloon started to fill with  the gas I picked it up and started saying, "oh please don't pop on me...please don't pop!" it did not- but it ended up in teh sink just to be safe!

No sew Halloween tutu

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915022394358/
http://www.etsy.com/listing/75428940/doll-tutu-party-pack-6-doll-tutu-party?ref=af_you_favitem

These are super easy and cute to make! With Halloween right around the corner the girls were looking for fun things for their American Girl dolls to wear and be festive.  We picked up some tulle at the store last weekend and since I was coming down with a cold, this was the perfect time to start.

What you need:

Tulle
Elastic
sewing machine or needle and thread)


Alright so the term "no sew" is kinda tossed around because well, there has to be some sewing or how would the elastic stay together? Start by measuring the elastic around the dolls waist. Cut it and sew it back together. Measure the tulle against the dolls waist to however long you want it to be. Fold it in half and cut it into strips.

Once you're ready place the tulle under the elastic and pull the ends through the top (look at the pictures because I think the cold is kicking in and I'm not as detailed as I could be.

See the top has a hole? the bottom will go through that.

Continue all the way around, changing colors when you need to.

My other American Girl items:
Witch Costume
school supplies
feel better kit  (Just like McKenna's!)
Gymnastics accessories
head band
Minnie Mouse ears
sleeping bags
sleeping mask
pillow dress
accessories
pet accessories

**If you found this funny, useful or both, please follow me. I get a little lonely! Thanks :)

Pumpkin Pizza

familyfun.go.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/243968504783471555/

I actually made this last night for dinner, but I am coming down with a sore throat and before I had a chance to work on my blog I went to bed :)

Halloween is my FAVORITE Holiday and thanks to pintrest I'm in full Halloween mode now! I saw this pumpkin pizza and just had to make it. I started by making my favorite pizza dough recipe and letting it rise. After the dough rose the first time I  rolled it out on a floured surface, placed it on a pizza pan and shaped it into a pumpkin form. I then let it rise again to give the dough a little thicker. Once it was done rising the second time I added our toppings.

 The girls like Cheese and olives :)

**If you found this funny, helpful or useful please follow me, I get kinda lonely!**

American Girl Doll Witch costume

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023357551/
http://www.rosiesdollclothespatterns.com/18-inch-american-girl-doll-clothes-patterns-witches-costume/?doing_wp_cron=1338757606

So when you click the original source it brings you to a website that wants you to buy the pattern.  If you're not willing to mess up at least once like I did on making my own, I recommend buying the pattern and saving yourself the annoyance. I went to

http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023593865/
agplaythings.com

* I printed off Josefina's Camisa's dress pattern, cut it out and made these alterations:  

* Added length to the dress (to the ankle of the doll)

* I only used the BACK of the dress pattern ( cutting BOTH front AND back on a FOLD). On my first attempt with using both the front and back I learned that it was way too wide. I used the crush velvet for fabric because it's a little stretchy and so I was able to cut both front and back on the fold.

* For the sleeve I traced the top of Josefina's Camisa pattern, folded the new paper in half and drew a longer sleeve with the dip for the costume.

Now, my daughters didn't want the bats on their costume or the colored inside, so I had it pretty easy. Once  I had the pattern pinned and cut out onto fabric I began pinning and sewing it back together. My tip to you is the pin the dress onto the doll BEFORE sewing so that you can see how it will fit and make alterations as you go- otherwise you'll sew and try on and pin and cut and sew more than you should have to.

For the witch hat (it is kinda smaller than the doll's head) I used the felt you can buy at Michael's for a quarter. I recommend buying 1/3 yard at JoAnn's and making it bigger- unless your kids (like mine) don't care and think little things are cute). Anyway, I traced the plate and cut it out. Next I took a second piece of felt and kind of curved it to make a cone and cut it out for the top part of the witches hat and sewed it up.

I tried to trace the hole size of the hat- it did NOT work out that well- I had to cut my rim down (which is OK because I just lined that seam up with the seam of the pointy part). Pin your top part to the rim of the hat and sew closed. To make the hat more decorative I added Halloween ribbon to the hat before I sewed the top to the bottom. Then I added a bow to the back to hide the seam.

My other American Girl items:
school supplies
feel better kit  (Just like McKenna's!)
Gymnastics accessories
head band
Minnie Mouse ears
sleeping bags
sleeping mask
pillow dress
accessories
pet accessories

**If you found this funny, useful or both, please follow me. I get a little lonely! Thanks :)

Hello Kitty pumpkin

heyokity.blogspot.com
http://pinterest.com/pin/195765915023223998/

Alright, ours is SIMILAR to this pumpkin- not "dead on" perfect, but Hailey likes it and that is all that matters to me. When we were at Grandma's this past weekend she got them each a small pumpkin of their own (because apparently it's not enough that we grew 15+ in the backyard). Anyway  I convinced Hailey to get a white pumpkin so we could turn it into Hello Kitty.  Now the original bloggers witch hat is nicer- because it's fabric. We didn't have that and had to improvise with construction paper.
This is really self explanatory: we took black and yellow sharpies and colored Hello Kitty's face onto the pumpkin. Then we cut out the hat and ears and tapped them onto the pumpkin.