Gooey Chewy Caramel Popcorn Balls

Chewy popcorn balls are a Halloween tradition for us.  I highly recommend eating them while watching a Halloween movie.  Like maybe a cheesy 90's one with a cat named Binx and references to 'yabos'. 

If you know what I'm talking about, I love you.


These popcorn balls are very sweet and heavy on the caramel.  If you like a higher popcorn ratio you can add an additional half bag of popcorn. These stay soft and chewy even once cooled but need to be eaten the same day.  The popcorn gets "stale" after that so unfortunately these aren't great to make ahead.

This is a recipe you'll want to read through before beginning because if you don't live at sea level you may need to do a little calculation to find the right temperature for cooking your caramel. 

That said, I've made these several times without a candy thermometer, just cooking about 5-7 minutes and they've been fine every time.  They may just stick to your teeth a little more.  :)   I live 4500 ft above sea level so I can't vouch for that happening if you live at a very different altitude, but so far these have been foolproof for me. 

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Candy Corn Krispy Treat Bites

The Christmas music is playing at my house today and the 4 boxes of Christmas decor are all hanging out in the laundry room waiting for that pesky Thanksgiving holiday to be over.

 (kidding.  but not entirely.)  

Christmas is great.  People are nice and I get to buy lots of things and travel and husband gets to take off work.  I am religious so more than anything I love that most of the Christian world focuses on the Savior at this time.   What's not to love about it?

That said, I'm obviously having a panic attack about all these Halloween treats that I made last month that I REALLY want to share with you.  ((But that I also REALLY want to get out of the way so holiday baking can begin.)

 Get ready for a posting marathon my friends!

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Hidden Candy Corn Cupcakes

I learned something today.  Which is,

 If you don't like random people talking to you and staring at you, don't go out in public with a kid dressed up like a mad scientist with white-dyed hair standing 6 inches out in all directions and freaky black eyebrows. 


Obviously.

 Right?


Next year I will pre-arrange my grocery shopping and other errands around children's Halloween parties and the need thereof for them to be dressed like freaks and thus the center of attention.

Don't get me wrong I love this holiday but strangers talking to me and watching me makes me nervous.  The little alert in my head says STRANGER DANGER- STRANGER DANGER.

Also it takes 45 minutes to grocery shop instead of 10 and I'm not great at small talk.


Since I'm pretty sure your kids won't get enough of a sugar high today I thought I'd make you some cupcakes.  You have to cut into the middle first though, for the surprise!

Have a very happy and safe Halloween my friends!!

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Vampire Bat Bark

Halloween is in... 1 1/2 days, and I still have tons of treats to post. No matter what I do, I seem to always be behind these days. The pictures just keep piling up.  Life has been so crazy lately I can't blog every day or two like I want to.  This week for example I've been busy watching my 2 year old throw up all over the table at Chick-fil-a, cleaning up my 4 year old after he peed his pants at a movie night at our friends' house, and biting back curse words while attempting to make my husband's Halloween costume with my electronic cutting machine. (yes... I said husband's costume there.)

Also I've been listening to Taylor Swift's RED on repeat for several days, and buying sparkly champagne colored shoes.

These things are necessary to lift one out of a depression when the temperature plummets down into the 30's.

What's up with that? 

I hope you all have a very Happy Halloween on Wednesday! Don't forget to pick all the poisoned pieces of candy out of your kids bags.  I hear this year that means Reeses, Milk Duds, and Kit Kats.  At my house anyways.  ;)

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Trick or Treat Skewers

Wanna talk about how many bags of candy you've bought to "put away for Halloween"  (but then actually eaten and had to go buy more) ?


Yeah, me neither.


But if you miraculously have some candy laying around, this is a cute idea for it.  You can even wrap the whole stick in a long piece of clear wrap and tie it with a spooky ribbon.

If you live in a friendly neighborhood where your neighbors like you and don't think you're the witch from Hansel and Gretel that likes fattening people up, you could even make some of these to give out on Halloween.


Cause obviously giving children sharp sticks along with their sugar high is always a good idea.

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Candy Corn Bark

I've been such a bad blogger lately.  I blinked my eyes and it went from September to October 19th.  Seriously. 

I had plans to celebrate reaching my half-a-million views milestone.

Yeah, pretty much missed that days ago. 


Can we pretend I made this bark in honor of that?


Thanks to all of you who read along, try my recipes, and leave me comments, emails, and facebook messages to keep me going.  Blogging seriously wouldn't be any fun without you.

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This bark has a nice sprinkle of all candy corn flavored treats, and it's pretty darn good.  I also think it would be super cute if you layered orange, yellow, and white candy melts instead of milk/dark chocolate.  

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Mummy Oreo Pops

Want to see some of our treats from our Africa unit?  We ended up doing a lot of Egyptian stuff, because there's really only so much you can do with elephants, savannahs, and soccer.  I looked forEVER for molds I could use to make rice krispy treat pyramids and finally resorted to pressing them into a pan to make 3D triangles instead.  We sprayed them gold with Duff cake spray and placed them on a tray of crumbled graham crackers and added a couple of camels.

 

The real hit was the mummy Oreo pops. We have made these for years so they're nothing new, but so fun for Halloween.

Here are some other things we did: visited the zoo and graphed savannah animals we saw, read about mummies/preserving processes and the kids wrapped each other with toilet paper, read about savannahs and wrote about what we learned, read about pyramids and constructed our own out of marshmallows and toothpicks, made a papyrus out of a brown paper bag and glue and wrote the kids names in hieroglyphics, watched some videos of African music and dancing on YouTube, made a model of the nile and "flooded" it periodically to see how the grass seed we planted would grow even if there was no rain. We also tasted some African food and made some African jewelry to practice patterning.

Chase has started preschool back up so we're slowing down on these extraneous units but he loves them so much I'm going to try to do them when we have time.  Here is my littlest pretending to be a dead mummy for his big brother: 

It's hard to be the smallest!

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Slime Rims

In case you're not in a Halloween-y mood yet, I decided to make it my personal mission to get you ready before October even rolls around. 

I mean, what's not fun about eating candy for a month, chasing your children around Target wearing assorted zombie and Voldemort masks, and decorating your porch with rotting vegetables?  

It's really okay for it to last longer than a month.

I used melon flavored Powerade for the drink above but you can use any drink you want with these fun slime rims.

During our Africa unit I made the kids some "swamp punch" (read: layered grape juice and green Powerade) complete with worms, and slime rims.  They were a hit and sufficiently creepy to convince them that swamps are gross.

Although.

Now that I think about it they may visit Africa someday and be confused when they realize real swamps are not filled with juice and gummy bugs and sugary slime.

It's so hard to be a kid.

Happy Halloween Season!

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Candy Caribou {Winter Reindeer}

I promise this is the last random-themed treat for awhile.   Promise!

We made these edible caribou (reindeer) for our Arctic unit.  I figured they can totally double as a Christmas treat.  The rough idea for these came from Spoonful, but I changed up some of the candies because circus peanuts are gross because we wanted to personalize ours with faces.  I used the frosted Little Debbie "Nutty Bars" and they were a bit messy, so use non-frosted plain chocolate wafers if you can find them.  These can be adult-intensive but would be a fun Christmas Eve day activity for older children.  (Younger kids can always just glue random cookies and candies together.  That's always a hit.)

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Beachy Sand Cups {Digging for Killer Whale Teeth}

We finally finished our Arctic/Antarctic unit that's been keeping us sane busy so far this summer.  This is one of the treats I came up with to tie in with the theme.  I had the kids dig for killer whale teeth that I hid in the "sand" layer of these pudding cups.  They thought this was great messy fun.  (In case you're wondering... Orca's live in the Arctic... thus the Arctic connection.  Yes, I know it gets a bit confusing when it looks all beachy and tropical.)

This is just another version of worm "dirt cups", that layers pudding and crushed cookies.  It can be adapted lots of ways. These carrot patch dirt cups are one of my favorites! You could also hide dinosaur fossils in there, shells, really whatever you want in place of the killer whale teeth.  I made the "teeth" out of airheads, and my starfish out of a Starburst, but Laffy Taffys and pretty much any other flexible candy like this will work and you can mold whatever you want.  If you're going beachy you can add  one of those little drink umbrellas to the sand.  How cute would little cups of this be for a beach birthday party?

Also while we're discussing this.  I desperately need to know what the"mystery" flavor of white Airheads is.  I lose sleep over it at night people.

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This is completely off-topic so feel free to stop reading here if you don't have kids or aren't interested in educational kid type things.  You can just scroll down to the recipe and I won't hold it against you.  I wanted to post some of the things we did for our Arctic unit because I found it so hard to find preschool/kindergarten appropriate activities online!  I thought for sure someone had done this with their kids and couldn't believe the internet was void of almost anything.  I will probably post similar recaps for each of our units this summer if we ever get around to them.  Here are a few of the things we did:

Read a book about Northern Lights and painted our own:

Read a book about polar bears, then made this textured bear out of coconut and glue:

Filled out this polar bear writing sheet after visiting them at the zoo and observing their behavior:

Played an Arctic Animal file folder game where you learn facts about each of the animals, then made this comparison chart: (HILARIOUS what kids will come up with for the "acts" category.  I did not help at all and was laughing my head off about some of the things he said.)

Read a super cute book about where animals go in the winter, colored and put together this page:  (Great comprehension/recall activity because all the information was in the book!)

Read about walruses and made this guy:  (Uhhh yeah so those white things are his tusks.  I had to REALLY resist helping Chase draw his mouth LOWER so the tusks came out in the right place... I struggle with kid art.  But I think the seal with chin-teeth turned out pretty cute too, so the resisting was not totally in vain.)

Read a book about Inuksuks and built our own:

 

Read about the Inuit people and made an igloo out of sugar cubes and frosting.  Garnished with Arctic Toob people & animals:

We also played some iceberg math mat games, did some penguin time-telling and money cards and penguin pattern block sheets.  We did this AWESOME experiment that shows how blubber keeps animals warm. (We chose to put our hands in the cold water first, and then into the blubber glove second.  I think this makes more of an impact.)

One of Chase's favorites was ice fishing math.  I made a little fishing pole with a safety pin on the end and he used it to pick up two number magnets (just flip them magnet-side up so they'll attract the safety pin) and then wrote out the addition problem for the two numbers and solved it.

Since the kids have been sick for going on two weeks now... the unit took a LOT longer than planned, and I'm going to hurry us on to Africa next week.

We also made another Arctic treat that I'll share soon.  (Don't be annoyed... it's totally relevant to Christmas so it's a win-win.  Christmas in July, you know?)

  

 And obviously we wear our tuxedos to do schoolwork in.  

{not.}

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Patriotic Layered drinks

Today our kids are in bed with fevers and flu so I thought this would be a good time to post some of my old recipes before the Olympics next week.  I'm not sure I can watch Tangled or Blue Planet one more time.

These drinks were all over pinterest and we couldn't resist trying them for the Fourth.  I was not at all convinced they would taste good  and was pleasantly surprised.  I think my red and white layers combined pretty well although I didn't really care for the blue.  I didn't really like the Polar Blast Hawaiian Punch as it is though, so that was probably my problem.

In case you haven't done these, the secret is to fill your cup up completely with ice and then pour the drink right on top of the ice as slowly as possible.  Sometimes it's good to wait for a minute and let the drink settle before continuing to pour more. 

You absolutely must layer these drinks in the right order.  Check the label on the back of the drink and look at the sugar content.  The highest amount of sugar is the drink that should go on the bottom.  The lowest will go on top.  (No sugar/calorie free is fine for the top.)  My white layer and blue layer were only about 7 grams different in sugar and they ran in to eachother a bit, so if you want really defined layers, choose sugar contents that are pretty drastic.

I have a Halloween version of these floating in the back of mine brain so hopefully it will make an appearance come October. 

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Patriotic Pop-Rock Rimmed Blowpop Drinks {Kid-friendly}

Drinks that taste like blow-pops.  How could this not be a good idea?  These are made with Sprite, so they are kid-friendly and the extra "pop" makes them fun for the Fourth.  These would be cute for any kids party and in any variety of colors and flavors.  (Omit pop-rocks if you wish.)

For this drink I dyed my Sprite blue and then used a red Blow-pop... dummy idea because after awhile it started to turn my drink purple.  This is probably why I got a C in Art.   I'd recommend looking for blue poprocks (tropical ones can be found at Dollar Tree) and using those for the rims, and then a cherry or watermelon Blowpop to color the drink red. 

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Dinosaur Fossil Sugar Cookies (Basic Sugar Cookie Recipe)

Boys are weird.  I have lots of evidence to back this claim up but the most relevant is that they enjoy eating cookies with reptile footprints in them.

Weeeeeeeeiiiird.

This is a great basic sugar cookie recipe. The cookies don't spread much so they are perfect to use with cookie cutters and they taste great with or without frosting.

Dinosaur footprints are, of course, optional. 

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Chocolate-dipped Dinosaur Rice Krispy Treat Pops

My 4 year old has been out of  "school" for 2 weeks now and so far he has:  asked for 10 million snacks, made a coral reef out of marshmallows and licorice, corrected his grandmother's grammar (further and farther are NOT the same word),  and eaten every single meal in his treehouse.

I'm thinking it's going to be a long summer.

I have some fun science/social studies "units" planned for him to keep us from rotting of boredom, so I'll have some themed foods coming all summer, but there will also be plenty of the usual.

This week we are starting a dinosaur unit.  If I had realized this would entail long conversations about carrion and how carnivores shred their meat I probably wouldn't have been so eager to start with this one.  At any rate we had a great time making these pops and I have some super cute dino-themed cookies to share with you later.

Happy Summer to all!

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Jungle Animal Chocolate-dipped Oreos

Have you seen these new jungle animal Mother's cookies?  I am in LOVE with them!  I squealed in delight when I saw them in the store.  Yes, I am apparently 13 years old.  I squeal when I'm excited.

It's so fun thinking of ways to bake with new products.  I decided to make some chocolate-dipped Oreos and top them with jungle animals. The weird thing is these were REALLY good.  I would make these again just for my husband and I-  no kids needed.

Oreo + Mother's cookie = something magical

I wish they would come out with a red, white, and blue version for Independence day.  How fun would those be?

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Cotton Candy Cupcakes

So I tripped over a dead body laying in my hall last night.  And then again about ten minutes later, and ten minutes after that the dead body zombie-chased me through the house while I screamed bloody murder and attempted to run away.

I will probably think twice before buying my 4 year old "body pajamas" again.

If I had a mom who made me cotton candy cupcakes I would not zombie stalk her.

Just sayin...



I made these cotton candy cupcakes a couple months ago right as the Lorax craze began.  These certainly have nothing to do with truffula trees as much as they might look like it, so I decided to wait to post them.  The cupcakes have cotton candy sandwiched inside them before baking (it melts into the batter as they bake) and are topped with a sugary cotton candy frosting.  These definitely make kids' eyes light up.

And keep zombies at  bay.

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Jelly Bean Spoons

For Easter this year the kids and I made jelly bean spoons and wrapped them up in little cello bags with ribbon tied around them.  They are super cute favor and a huge hit with kids although personally I can't stomach the chocolate/fruit combination.  I think a Sixlet version is much more suited for adults although you can really put anything on them you want.  

 

The key is to use a really nice chocolate, especially if you are giving them to adults.  

It's sooo adult-like to eat candy off of spoons.

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Valentine's Candy Skewers

Candy skewers are one of my faves. The jist is that you throw a bunch of candy on a stick and call it good.  Taffy skewers are particularly cute for showers and parties with color themes.  Kids LOVE them.  (And not just kids... I'll eat pretty much anything off a stick.)

And guess what.  There's no recipe.  You get a bamboo skewer... slide a bunch of candy on.  Serve.  I usually buy my candy from the bins at Winco.  (LOVE going through the checkout line with like fifteen bags of candy with only 3 candies per bag.  It makes my day.  I'm pretty sure I am the definition of hell for WinCo employees.)  I don't really love it.  It actually kind of makes me cringe, but I DO love feeling like I'm buying all this stuff and then the bill coming to  a dollar and thirteen cents. 

I love these for Valentine's day, especially if you have a school district that lets you bring homemade treats to school... Do those still exist? Cause I'm willing to move.

In other news, I spent alll night last night working on a new Recipe Index tab.  (See it up there?)  I wanted to make it easier for you to browse my recipes.  I have it organized by categories, and then holidays, and even seasons of the year  (apologies for the OCD freakness).  I really hope this will make your life and my life easier! (Plus it was a really good excuse to watch six episodes of Psych in a row.)

Have a great weekend!

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Birthday Rims

We have a birthday tradition at our house of waking up to a donut cake on the morning of your birthday.  We stick a candle in the top of the "cake", sing Happy Birthday, and dig in.  I think it's a great way to begin a birthday. (sugar = happiness in my world)

This year I thought Chase probably needed a birthday-rimmed glass of milk to go along with his donut cake.  These rims could easily be adapted for any holiday by varying the color of nonpareils/sprinkles.

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Christmas Eve Chocolate Cherry Mice

Is it weird that mice remind me of Christmas?  I think it has something to do with going to the Nutcracker every December with my dad.  In case you didn't know, I was basically destined to be a professional ballerina.  Unfortunately my sense of rhythm didn't get the memo or something. 

At any rate, our kids loved these and I think we will be making them every Christmas eve from now on. They are best fresh so I recommend making them day-of.

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