Fall is my family’s favorite time of year. We just seem to have the most fun during this Season. You get to break out the new sweaters and jeans, the trees look beautiful, we spend a lot of time planning and decorating for our spooky Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations, it’s football season (Iowa Hawkeyes and the Chicago Bears – Rah, Go Team!), and I try to make every pumpkin recipe that I can find. If you have a great pumpkin recipe, please share it!

We have some fun family traditions in the fall that we all look forward to each year. The kids always help me get out the family calendar and mark the dates, so they can start counting down the days until our fun begins. So, if you are thinking “Hey, we want to have fun too” consider one of these activities. Who knows, maybe one of these will become a new tradition for your family.

1. Fall Foliage Drive or Bike Ride – Traditionally we have love to grab the map and drive through our local forest preserves or if we are feeling adventurous we take the drive the Fall Foliage routes in Wisconsin to see the most amazing colors on the trees. If we are lucky, we’ll find an orchard or fruit stand to grab apple pie and other tasty fall treats. Google Fall Foliage Drives and see what comes up for your area. This year we are totally into biking so we’re going to grab our bikes for our drive up to Wisconsin and bike through the forests for a new experience. Read my tips on how to plan a family bike ride.

2. Visit a Pumpkin Farm – Nothing says Fall like a trip to a pumpkin patch. We have some fun local pumpkin farms that have games and a petting zoo for little ones. It’s a great place to take a photo of your kids for the Christmas newsletter! The colors are outstanding. Now that my kids are a little older, we like exploring the corn maze at night by flashlight. Spooky!

3. Baking together in the kitchen – Whether it’s apples, pumpkins, squash, soups, or Halloween treats, we love to spend time together in the kitchen baking and cooking up our favorite dishes or trying something totally new. This year I’m on a quest to find 5 totally awesome soup recipes. Last year we were into Halloween cupcakes and Halloween pancakes. But cooking together allows us to talk and connect over food, which are the warmest memories you can create for your kids or grand kids in my book. Check out my Cooking with the Kids Pinterest Board for some inspiration.

4. Crafting & Decorating for Halloween – We take decorating for Halloween very seriously at our house. We want to have the most festive house on the block. We go crazy decorating both inside and outside the house. I like to spend time with the kids making a new Halloween decoration or treats for their Halloween parties every year. It’s time we get to spend together creating, talking, and connecting. You can see some of our Halloween decorations that I’ve made with the kids.

5. Neighborhood Treat or Treat Procession – Trick or treating is so much more fun in a group. Our neighborhood started a Trick or Treat Procession a few years ago where everyone would meet and walk together. Our procession had wagons full of snacks and hot chocolate, more wagons to pull the young ones who get tired after 3 blocks, dogs on leashes in costumes, and plenty of cameras and video cameras to capture the fun. While trick or treating as a family is fun … why not multiply that by inviting 3 or 4 families? Now, the adults can have a blast walking around too.

What Fall traditions does your family look forward to every year?

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities

It’s Friday Night, you don’t have any plans, no babysitter, and you’re sick of movie night. You want to do something that is fun for both the parents and the kids. Does that sound about right? Don’t be bored and frustrated with the same old family time activities or lack of social life, fall evening are offer the perfect opportunity to host an impromptu Neighborhood Firepit Party. It’s a simple, fun, and easy way to be sociable and amuse the kids, no matter what age.

Our neighborhood is pretty friendly so if you put a firepit out on the driveway, they will come. Before it gets dark, we put the firepit out, set up some chairs around the fire and that’s all the invitation the neighbors need. They’ll see the intent as they all come home from school and work. If that won’t work in your neighborhood, type up a quick flyer and have the kids hand it out to the neighbors or spread the word as you walk the dog around the block.

Tell everyone to bring their own drinks and bring some munchies to share. If you start planning earlier in the morning or the day before, people might have time to whip up something, otherwise I love seeing what people have in their fridge or pantry to share at a moment’s notice. Run to the corner store and buy supplies for s’mores. Tell the odd numbered houses to bring the appetizers and the even numbered houses to bring dessert. Our “go to” dishes to bring – Guacamole and Chips or Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. We seem to always have the ingredients for these on hand, no matter what time of year.

When you have little kids, these parties are great because everyone will keep an eye on the kids. Or the bigger kids in the neighborhood will take them in hand and run some games. Sweet! You can go inside and put them to bed when needed.

The older kids can run around playing hide ‘n seek, ghost in the graveyard, play flashlight flag football or rake up some leaf piles to make forts or just jump in them. Younger kids can catch soft footballs or drive their little cars up and down the driveways. Set up a tent and let the kids play in the tent. Get out the baggo or bocce ball games. If there is a big sporting event on that evening, bring a radio or TV outside. We’ve got a large telescope so it’s fun to bring that out and let the kids take turns looking at the moon.

I also love to do these parties after school has been in session for a few weeks. The parents can talk about the kids’ new teachers, how things are going, and any new after school activities that are keeping your family busy. You can also take this time to see if any neighbors are interested in a Halloween Procession where everyone goes out trick or treating together for more fun or if the neighborhood is interested in a Halloween or Pumpkin Carving party. Why not plan a Neighborhood Halloween Decorating contest, too? (Aren’t I full of ways to plan a party? I’ve found that if you don’t plan these things when everyone is together, they never happen. So take advantage and plan some fun!)

A neighborhood firepit party is an easy way to entertain and socialize with the friends, no matter what age your kids are. Read this post for more ideas on fun activities to do this fall with your kids or grand kids.

Do you live in a friendly neighborhood? How do you get-together with your neighbors?

Image credit: noam / 123RF Stock Photo

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities

The Fall Season officially starts this week and I’m ready. I’m completely DONE with the draught and the hot weather this summer had to offer. I want to visit a pumpkin patch, put on a cute sweater, go for a fall foliage bike ride with the kids, and eat apple cider donuts. (Man, I love apple cider donuts!)

Needless to say it’s my family’s favorite time of year but it’s way too short. There’s really only a few weekends before Halloween and the Holiday Season take over. To make sure the family’s busy schedule doesn’t get away from us, we’re sitting down to make a master plan and get our fun activities onto the family calendar. I don’t know about you, but for me, if it’s not on the calendar it won’t happen. What works for our family is to sit down together and list out all of the fun things we want to do for the month or season. Then we grab a calendar and pick some dates. Once we all have it on the calendar, we can generate our list of any “to-dos” to finalize our plans – making reservations, buying tickets, or inviting other people to have fun with us. Now, we’re ready to have fun!

To inspire and help you get your Fall Family Fun list going, I wanted to share some of my family’s favorite activities for Fall. Most of these ideas are inexpensive and get you outside enjoying the crisp Autumn air. Definitely check your local park districts, libraries, YMCAs, and Children’s Museums for family specific fall events coming up in your area.


15 FUN, FALL FAMILY ACTIVITIES

1. Amass a Leaf Pile – Have the kids help you rake up some colorful leaves and then build some leaf forts and mazes together. Jump in the leaves, play with your dog in the leaves, and definitely take cute photos of the kids surrounded my fall color.


2. Visit an Apple Orchard - I remember picking apples with my parents when I was a kid. While there doesn’t seem to be as many orchards anymore, it’s still a fun activity to take your kids and pick the apples right from the tree. Once you have a full bushel, you can then have fun as a family in the kitchen making Caramel Apples or this recipe I saw for baked apple cider donuts. (I mentioned that I love these, right?)


3. Fall Foliage Drive - Here’s a list from USA Today with the Top 10 Fall Foliage Drives in the U.S. Since you are driving, this is a nice multi-generational thing to do. Call Grandma and Grandpa and see if they want to come along.




4. Visit a Pumpkin Patch – Take your camera and get some great photos of your toddlers in the pumpkin patch.




5. Go to your Alma Mater and catch a football game. Why not plan a trip to see your old college team play football? If you can meet up with family and friends, all the better. We try to catch the Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City or when they come to Chicago to play Northwestern or Northern Illinois. The kids LOVE the tailgating.




6. Family Bike Ride in your local Forest Preserve


7. Fall Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt – Grab some cameras and head out to your local forest preserve to capture some great photos of nature as it changes for cold weather. Here’s a great list of what to look for on your fall scavenger hunt from GoExploreNature.com.





8. Creating & Decorating for Halloween – I’ve got so many cool decorating and craft ideas on my Halloween Board on Pinterest. Follow my board and plan a fun afternoon creating some silly spookiness.


9. Throw a Family Friendly Halloween Party – fun for kids and/or adults




10. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession – get a few families to trick or treat together for even more fun.




11. Decorate pumpkins. This seems like an obvious thing to do but this year why not try to decorate or carve your pumpkins a little differently? Paint them. Put a mask on them. Stack them. Light them up with different colors. Make them gross instead of cute. Last year we made a pumpkin vomiting out his guts. It was the hit of the neighborhood. Here’s a great round-up post from the How About Orange Blog with a ton of pumpkin decorating ideas.


12. Neighborhood Flag Football Party – play some flag or touch football outside then come inside for some great eats!




13. Flashlight Corn Maze Adventures – Now that my kids are a little older (tweens!) we love corn mazes. Especially at night. With flashlights. It’s spooky!


14. Give back as a family. Fall is a great time to think of others in need. As a family, volunteer at a local food pantry, run your own neighborhood food drive before Thanksgiving, start collecting and donating toys for kids in need, rake the leaves out of an elderly neighbor’s yard, or organize a Halloween costume parade at a local nursing home. They love to see the kids dressed up.




15. Camp in the Backyard. Cool nights. No bugs. Campfires and s’mores. Sounds like fun, right? And, you can use your own bathroom.

What do you look forward to most in the Fall? What is your family’s favorite Fall activity?

For more fall family fun ideas, check out my Fall Family Fun Board on Pinterest.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities

The college and NFL football seasons have kicked off, fall weather is in the air, and it’s the perfect time to throw a family-friendly Football Themed Party. We had family in town last weekend to see the Iowa Hawkeyes play at Soldier Field in Chicago. It was a blast! But afterwards, I realized that I should have made some football themed cupcakes or decorated the house for our football weekend. So, to inspire myself for a future football party, I found some super creative ideas online. Whether you’re throwing a party for family and friends to watch that special game or you have a child who’s dying for a football themed birthday party, you’ll score big with these party ideas. Psst! I have a lot more Football Party ideas on my Sports Themed Party Board on Pinterest. Check those out, too.

DECORATIONS

These free football party printables from the Hostess with the Mostess blog are awesome. She has some good looking snack recipes on the site as well so check those out.



These aren’t free but I love the retro design to these Football Party Printables from LilSugar.com.


How cute are these football juice box covers! Kate at the AndEverythingSweet blog tells you how to make them.



Jackie Fo shows how to grab some Astroturf flooring from your local Home Repair and Hardware Store to make a cool looking tabletop on her blog. She has some really cool decorating ideas so check out her site.

You’ll find some great kid-friendly decoration ideas here, as well.

FOOD

These Football Pizza Pockets from PicturetheRecipe.com look so yummy.



This Touchdown Taco Dip looks impressive but isn’t that hard to pull off.



Love these football cupcakes from The Baker Chick.


A healthier dessert alternative would be these Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Footballs from Christy at the From Glitter to Gumdrops blog.

Which idea would you make at your next football themed party? What are your ideas for hosting a football themed party?

I’ll share ideas for games and activities for your football party in my next post, so check back. Or, I have a lot more football and sports themed party ideas on my Sports Party Pinterest Board. Come follow me and get pinspired!

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Celebrations · Family Party Ideas

Yeah, today is the first official day of Autumn! Unfortunately we don’t have any leaves to jump into yet to celebrate but this is my family’s favorite time of year. The weather is cooler, the trees look beautiful as they say goodbye for the year, we break out the spooky Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations, it’s Hawkeye football season, and we go gaga for Apple Cider Donuts. (Man, I love a good donut.)

To make sure we don’t miss out on a minute of favorite seasonal fun activities, we create a Fall Family Fun Plan or a bucket list of activities we want to do this Fall. We pick a night and at dinner everyone throws out ideas of what they want to do and we then schedule our activities on the calendar. We now know if we need to buy tickets to anything, get invitations out, or have the house clean by a certain date. (Oh yes, our social calendar dictates when the house gets cleaned.) Once our activities are written in stone (OK, just in the planner – but in PEN!) we have some fun times to look forward to.

Below you’ll see a list of my family’s favorite activities to have fun in the Fall. Most of these ideas are inexpensive and get you outside enjoying the crisp Autumn air. For more inspiration as you create your Family Fun Plan, check your local park districts, libraries, YMCAs, and Children’s Museums for family specific fall events coming up in your area.

Top 10 Ideas for Fall Family Fun

1. Apple Orchard/ Making Caramel Apples
2. Fall Foliage Drive
3. Visit a Pumpkin Farm
4. Leaf Pile Forts, Mazes & Piles
5. Bike Ride/ Photo Scavenger Hunt in your local Forest Preserve
6. Creating & Decorating for Halloween
7. Throw a Halloween Party – for kids and/or adults
8. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession
9. Neighborhood Flag Football Party
10. Flashlight Corn Maze Adventures

I’ll be writing more this Fall on how to have the most fun doing any one of these fun activities so check back often.

We found this article at the DomesticCents.com blog on Frugal Fall Family Fun Ideas that we wanted to share. I love their photos and Scarecrow idea.

I hope this list has inspired you to get out your calendar and start some planning. Check back for more ideas and tips on how to have more family fun this fall season. I’d love to hear what you love to do with your family, so leave me a comment.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities

On Thankgiving, did you ever have to sit at the Kids’ Table? I distinctly remember being banished to the dark, dank basement to eat with the other messy kids on major Holidays. I didn’t like it. So, I was thrilled when I saw TipJunkie.com’s post on Kids’s Table Decorating Ideas. Some of these ideas are so cute and creative!!!!! If our kids table had looked like this, I would still be sitting there as an adult.

So, get crafting and your kids are sure to be thankful that they aren’t eating in the dark, boring basement.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Fun Ideas · Family Party Ideas · Holiday Fun · Holiday Traditions

Looking for some fun ideas to do with the family around Thanksgiving? Here are a few of my favorites as well as some great ideas from other Mom bloggers.

Get Active! Our town hosts a Turkey Trot 1 Mile and 5K race every Thanksgiving morning. While we usually travel out of town to visit family on Thanksgiving so we have never been in town to participate, several of our neighbors run as a family every year. It’s a great way to burn the calories before you pack in the carbs!

Bake Up Memories. We have a family tradition on Thanksgiving Day. After we gorge ourselves and the boys go watch football or take a nap on the couch, the women folk go back in the kitchen and make our favorite Holiday cookies. Each person brings their favorite recipe and we bake, bake, bake. (It keeps us awake and standing so we’re burning the Turkey dinner calories, right?)

When we started this tradition it was fun to see what Grandma’s favorite cookie recipe was when she was a kid. Now that she is gone, we still make those cookies to remember her by. The other benefits of this tradition are that everyone goes home with a plate of assorted cookies. Freeze them and pull them out for your Holiday parties. If that’s not a stress-bustin’ tip, I don’t know what is.

Here’s a post I wish I had written! Check out the great A to Z Thanksgiving Family Fun Ideas from Cindy Bultema at the SheSparkles Blog.

Marie at MakeandTakes.com offers some fun ideas for Turkey Bowling and Turkey Bingo.

TheMotherHuddle.com also had some very cute ideas for Thanksgiving family activities. I love the Ornament Exchange idea!

What fun activities does your family do on or around Thanksgiving?

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Tags: Cooking with the Kids · Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Fun with Grandma & Grandpa · Holiday Fun · Holiday Traditions · Ideas for family projects

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and you know what that means … get out the fat pants! No, I mean ROADTRIP! It is that time of year when we all pile in the car with our suitcases, non-perishable Thanksgiving dinner contributions, and the dog and head out to Grandma’s House for Thanksgiving dinner. Since we’ve made the Thanksgiving Roadtrip to Iowa every year for 10 years, I thought I would pass along a few tips that my family relies on to make the trip go a little easier.

Roadtrip Car Essentials:

Snacks - No messy or crumbly snacks. Unless you want to start an all-you-can-eat snack bar under the back seats. Little, individual size snack bags work perfect. Grapes are good, easy to eat and no peel to worry about. No juice boxes. Put drinks in drip-proof sippy cups or sports bottles so they don’t leak or get squirted everywhere. Tip: If you end up eating breakfast in the car as you head out, make sure you don’t order anything with biscuits. They crumble everywhere! I’m talking to you Sausage, Egg & Cheese Biscuit.

Water Bottles – Always have a bottle of water in the car. Even if you don’t drink it, it’s nice to be able to rinse off your hands or that binky that fell in the back seat and is now wearing a dog hair fur coat.

Garbage Bag – Always have a bag in the car to throw out trash. Trust us, you don’t want to hold a snotty Kleenex or ketchup covered wrapper or banana peel for 4 hours. (Been there. Done that. Not fun.)

Pillows, Snuggle Buddies, or Neck Wraps – If the stars are aligned and Holiday fortune is smiling on you, your young kids will fall asleep for awhile. (When they are older, they put their iPod headphones on and they may as well be asleep.) While most kids are resilient and flexible, they shouldn’t have to kiss their navel while they are napping. Give them some support.

Antibacterial Wipes/Hand Sanitizer – You have kids. Need I say more?

Boredom Bag – You’ll need plenty of entertainment to keep the kids (and adults) amused during the long car trip. In my next post, I’ll share some ideas on how to fill that Boredom Bag for younger and older kids.

What items do you take on your Holiday Road Trips that you can’t live without?

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Traveling with the Family

Friday night rolls around and you want to do something fun with your family, right? However, you’re tired, it’s cold out, and you didn’t plan anything. No worries! Use this list of easy ideas to have some extra special fun with your family this Fall! Best part, you can use whatever you have at home already. No shopping necessary and these ideas work with kids of all ages. Have fun!

1. Disco Dance Night – Turn the dance music up real loud and dance the week’s stress away. Good fun and good exercise.

2. Neighborhood Fire Pit – Put the fire pit on the driveway and have the kids round up the neighbors.

3. Camp in the Great Indoors – Too cold to camp outside? Camp inside. Cook the s’mores in your fireplace.

4. Family Slumber Party – Put the PJs on, get your sleeping bags, and play games.

5. Bring Game Night Back– Get those games out of the closet and rediscover some fun.

6. Family Movie Screening – Make movie night more special by watching yourself on screen. Get out the wedding video or watch the movies you’ve taken over the last few years of the kids and haven’t watched.

7. Wii Tournament – Challenge the family to Bowling, Raving Rabbids, or Mario Kart.

8. Bake cookies – Take turns licking the batter and making some favorite recipes. Bake Holiday cookies, freeze them and have them ready for upcoming Holiday parties. Now that’s organized!

9. Create your Holiday Newsletter – Have everyone write their section for the Holiday newsletter or better yet, film it this year and send out a CD or post the video on YouTube.com. People will love seeing 3-year-old Michael talk.

10. Family Room Picnic – Lay out the blanket, grab your paper plates and eat dinner on the family room floor. A change of routine makes an ordinary dinner seem extraordinary.

What does your family like to do on Friday night to have fun?

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Fun Ideas · Family Game Night · Friday Night Fun

It Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead today. It’s a wonderful Holiday that reminds us to remember and cherish the memories of those we have lost. We built our family’s Day of the Dead shrine and tonight at dinner we will have fun talking about what we like most and miss most about our family, pets and friends who are no longer with us.

Read Why I Love Day of the Dead and then read How to Teach Your Kids About Day of the Dead.

Whoever you are remembering tonight, have fun and remind your kids that you are never gone from this earth, if someone remembers you.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Celebrations · Halloween Family Fun Ideas

How cool is this! I just published a post earlier today about Halloween Family Traditions and I mentioned that I had seen people online talking about the tradition of Getting Booed, but I had never heard of it. Well, I just came home and saw that we were Booed! (So, now I know that someone other than my Mother reads the blog.)

Yeah! Some incredibly nice friend or neighbor left us a Halloween bucket full of candy and an inflatable black cat which my daughter has now adopted and named Meiu. (“Say it with a French accent, Mom.”)

OK, we’re ready to carry on this tradition. I’m off to create the Boo basket we’re going to give and print our Boo signs.

Halloween is so much fun, don’t you think?

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Fun Ideas · Halloween Family Fun Ideas

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. What’s not to love about fun, treats, costumes, parties, and spooky chills. We have a few family traditions we do every year and I’ve seen a few more online that I would love to adopt. Read on and plan some fun for this week.

1. Decorations. If you haven’t decorated the house yet for Halloween – get on it! One of my favorite parts about trick or treating is seeing how everyone spooks out their house. I love the creativity. Whether you prefer fall elegant to grotesque to friendly ghosts and monsters, let’s see your Halloween spirit.

2. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Watch it. Love it. Need I say more? It’s on this Thursday night on ABC at 7 p.m. CST. (Scared Shrekless is on at the same time on NBC. I haven’t seen it so can’t recommend it, but I’m going to DVR it.)

3. The Nightmare Before Christmas. I am a huge Jack Skellington fan. The kids still get a little creeped out by this movie so it’s a tradition for my hubbie and I to curl up on the couch and get our annual movie fix. Not all family traditions need to involve the kids. (We made Jack Skellington Cupcakes this year. See how.)

4. Read Halloween Stories before Bedtime. We love to read Halloween stories in anticipation of the big day. Read my post on the Best Halloween Books for Kids (as voted by my kids). I just read about how DesignMom.com and her family have a tradition of reading Halloween stories by candle light. I love it! We’re going to read by the flickering flames tonight.

5. Neighborhood Halloween Procession. Our neighborhood trick or treats together which makes if more fun for kids and parents alike. We’ve got some wagons to pull the younger ones who get tired. We’ve also got some thermos’ with hot chocolate if it’s cold.

6. Boo Your Neighbors. Now, I have never heard of this tradition but I saw a post on it the other day and it sounded pretty cool so I thought I would share. (I’m probably the only one who hasn’t so don’t laugh at me.) Basically, you make up a goodie bag for a friend or neighbor. You then leave the goodie bag at their house with a poem and sign that they have been “Booed.” The neighbor then is supposed to reciprocate and “Boo” someone else. This post explains it pretty well. You can download some very cool Boo signs and instructions for free at TomKat Studios.

7. Day of the Dead Dinner. This is the day after Halloween but every year we celebrate Dia de los Muertos in our house honoring and remembering our loved ones who have passed on. We build a shrine in our house where we display photos of the people and pets we want to remember. To celebrate at dinner, we usually make one of Grandpa Kirchner’s favorite meals and as a family we talk about our favorite memories of Grandpa and our pets who have died. It’s a nice way to keep memories alive and share stories about what we remember and what we liked best about those we miss.

What Halloween traditions do you enjoy with your family?

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Halloween Family Fun Ideas

This past weekend for our Halloween fun activity, we decorated cupcakes. I had seen so many incredibly cool cupcake designs on other sites that I wanted to see if we could recreate them. The goal was to make them for the kids’ school Halloween parties this Friday, but guess what? They’re gone already.

There are a million cupcake recipes out there to make the cupcakes from scratch (go ahead, Google Cupcake recipes and prepare to be overwhelmed) but we made life a little easier and just chocolate cupcakes from a mix. We were in the mood to decorate, not bake. So, how did we do?

Jack Skellington Cupcakes
I love the movie Nightmare Before Christmas so when I saw these Jack Skellington cupcakes on the Disney Family.com site, I started to drool. I thought it was easy to do and the instructions were very helpful however, my daughter got mad because she couldn’t get the face to come out right. You need fairly good icing control. Her cupcakes looked like a cool ghoul, but not exactly like Jack.

Spooky Owl Cupcakes
Owls are the “it” animal this year, as I said in my post Owls are Hot! Hoo Hoo Knew? So, my daughter, who was a big fan of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole wanted to make these cupcakes. You can find slightly different versions of these owl cupcakes on a variety of different sites (as I said, owls are hot) but we chose this photo at TheCupcakeBlog.com as inspiration.

We used, chocolate frosting, Oreos, white frosting and M&Ms. These cupcakes were super easy and my kids could put them together like pros. We frosted the cupcake. Split open Oreo cookies for the eyes and “ears.” Once the Oreos are split, take the piece without the white center and break them into “ear” shapes. Then put M&Ms on for eyeballs and an M&M turned sideways for the beak.

The only two issues we had were that the Oreos were hard to break open. I remember as a kid you could just twist them apart so I don’t know what’s in these cookies now but the centers are like super glue. These needed to be pried open with a knife or they would break in pieces. Also, when we did get them to break open cleanly, the white center part had black crumbs all over it from the other side of the cookie. It didn’t look like a nice, clean, white eyeball. So we used white frosting on the inside of the cookies which actually made it easier for the M&M eyeballs to stick. All in all, a great recipe for the kids.

Spider Web Cupcakes
Our inspiration for these easy spider web cupcakes came from Bakerella.com. We did it in reverse with white frosting on the cupcake and a black web. We also used M&Ms for the spider since we had them out anyway.

Finally, we just got out our collection of sprinkles, almond slivers, and other toppings to create our own ideas. Creating bats, cats, tarantulas, and werewolves was a pretty fun afternoon with the family.

Have you made any cool Halloween cupcakes that you’d like to share? Send me a link to your photos and I’ll post them on the blog.

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Tags: Cooking with the Kids · Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Halloween Family Fun Ideas · Ideas for family projects · Kids Birthday Party Ideas

It’s the weekend before Halloween and all through the house, there wasn’t enough spookiness, not even to scare a mouse. So what are you waiting for …

You’ve still got time to have some Halloween-themed fun with the kids this weekend. Here are 6 ideas to get your fun on.

1. Corn Maze – I never really got into corn mazes until I found out you could do them in the dark. With flashlights! Why didn’t anyone tell me this sooner!?! I wouldn’t recommend that you take toddlers to the corn maze at night but for older kids (and some weird adults like myself), this is a blast. If you are in a group of 4 or more, split into teams. Give each team a flashlight and a compass and see who can get out of the maze first. Look online to find the largest corn maze in your area and make it a night.

2. Pumpkin Farm – Pumpkin Farms are fun for the kids but they are priceless to adults for the photo ops. There is nothing better than photos of your kids standing amidst a field of orange pumpkins. Go now. Don’t forget the cider donuts.

3. Halloween Baking – I have seen so many cute Halloween treat ideas online that I am paralyzed by what to tackle first. We are going to tackle cupcakes this weekend but I am totally into Bakerella’s Halloween Cake Pops. I have to make these Spider Brownie Bites. But wait, look at these Spooky Sweet Pops. Ah! I can’t decide. (BTW, Bakerella has a new Cake Pops cookbook out. I’m going to get it this weekend, because I need more food porn.)

4. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession – My neighborhood rocks. We do such fun things together. When we moved into our first house, the neighbors who lived behind us showed us the fun of a Trick or Treat Procession. You get a bunch of friends and neighbors and go trick or treating together. What was cool about their procession was that they had wagons full of snacks and hot chocolate, wagons to pull the young ones who get tired after 3 blocks, dogs on leashes in costumes, and plenty of cameras and video cameras to capture the fun. While trick or treating as a family is fun … why not multiply that by inviting 3 or 4 families? Now, the adults can have a blast walking around too.

5. Costume Frenzy. You’ve got the school Halloween parties coming up on Friday so this is your weekend to finish the kids’ costumes. Whether you are buying or making, get it all done this weekend so you aren’t panicking at the last minute. If making, have fun working together on the construction. We’re making a gingerbread and gladiator costume this weekend. (For even more fun, go back and look at past Halloween costume pictures for some nostalgia and big laughs.)

6. Day of the Dead - If you live in a town with a large hispanic population, go online and see if there are any Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos exhibits to check out. Chicago’s National Museum of Mexican Art hosts the largest Day of the Dead exhibit in the country. It’s AWESOME! We go every year to get inspired to make our Day of the Dead shrine even cooler. Never heard of Day of the Dead? Read why I love it and think it is a great Holiday to share with kids.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Halloween Family Fun Ideas

Check out the article I wrote at HybridMom.com on 5 Tips for Organizing School Paperwork.

A big welcome to any new readers from HybridMom.com! I love meeting new people and helping families inject more fun into their daily lives with simple, creative and memorable ideas.

While you are at HybridMom.com, check out their list of the Top 20 Fall Family Activity Blogs. Check out one in your city so you don’t miss out on any chances for “Chocolate Cake Moments” with your family. (I hadn’t even heard of the site they listed for Chicago. I learn something new every day.)

Which family activity blogs do you use to find fun ideas for your family? Let’s make our own list here.

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Tags: Back to School Tips · Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Fun Ideas · Parenting Tips

Yeah, today is the first official day of Autumn! This is my family’s favorite time of year. The weather is cooler, the trees look beautiful as they say goodbye to the year, we break out the spooky Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations, and we go gaga for Apple Cider Donuts. (Man, I love a good donut.)

We make sure we don’t miss out on a minute of fun by creating a Family Fun Plan. We pick a night and at dinner everyone throws out ideas of what they want to do and we then schedule our activities on the calendar. We now know if we need to buy tickets to anything, get invitations out, or have the house clean by a certain date. (Oh yes, our social calendar dictates when the house gets cleaned.) Once our activities are written in stone (OK, just in the planner – but in PEN!) we have some fun times to look forward to.

Here are some of our ideas for having more family fun this Fall. If you are looking for more ideas check your local park districts, libraries, YMCAs, and Children’s Museums for fall events.

Top 10 Ideas for Fall Family Fun

1. Apple Orchard/ Making Caramel Apples
2. Fall Foliage Drive
3. Visit a Pumpkin Farm
4. Leaf Pile Forts, Mazes & Piles
5. Hiking/ Photo Scavenger Hunt in your local Forest Preserve
6. Creating & Decorating for Halloween
7. Throw a Halloween Party – for kids and/or adults
8. Organize a Neighborhood Trick or Treat Procession
9. Neighborhood Flag Football Party
10. Flashlight Corn Maze Adventures

We found this article at the DomesticCents.com blog on Frugal Fall Family Fun Ideas that we wanted to share. I love their photos and Scarecrow idea.

I hope this list has inspired you to get out your calendar and start some planning. Check back for more ideas and tips on how to have more family fun this fall season. I’d love to hear what you love to do with your family, so leave me a comment.

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Tags: Fall Season Family Fun Activities · Family Fun Ideas · Holiday Traditions