Jiggly, giggly after school fun!

Now that I have a sweet little baby in my belly, I have been really slacking on doing fun stuff with my kids! October is usually filled with fall baking projects, beautiful field trips, and lots of outdoor fun, but this month has been rough on us. But this week I was able to pull myself together and put together a fun little monster-themed snack and activity for my kids.
I try to have a special after school snack for my kids every day--it's not always something really fancy or special, but it gives us a chance to sit down together and talk about our day. It's a tradition I love dearly and hope the girls will appreciate as they grow older!

This little monster themed snack starts out with good ol' JELL-O. You can't really go wrong with flavors, but I decided to use Lime and Grape. I loved all of the Halloween recipes on Jello.com (like the creepy but oh-so-sweet Creepy Crawly JIGGLERS) but I have a huge pack of candy eyeballs that I really wanted to incorporate, so I decided to make spiky monster JIGGLERS instead. I did one layer of Lime JELL-O, let it set up, and then added a layer of Grape JELL-O. When it was set, I used a spiky cookie cutter to cut out JIGGLERS and added a bunch of little eyeballs. The monster plate was the perfect touch!

Yum, yum! They dug right in!

To go with our after school snack, I printed out some mix and match monsters to make flip books. So fun! Tempe, Helena, and Juno all loved creating different monsters on each page of their books.

Speaking of monsters, why is Juno suddenly waking up at 6 am and not taking a nap??

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Popcorn roundup!

We're big fans of popcorn at our house. It's easy to make, it's cheap, and my girls love it. Nothing is more exciting to them than having "family movie night" and sharing a big ol' bowl of popcorn.

But sometimes the occasion calls for more than just a bag of popcorn popped in the microwave. In that case, you should try a popcorn popper or popcorn machine for something a little different. I love air popped popcorn and it's so fun to watch. And how fun would a movie theater stye popcorn machine be in a home theater room??

Or maybe try a special recipe... your taste buds will thank you!

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  Cinnamon sugar popcorn: melt butter and pour over popcorn, and then toss in cinnamon sugar. This is ooey-gooey and messy, so beware :)


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  Peanut butter popcorn: melt PB and butter (I just eyeball it) and toss over popped popcorn. This is even ooey-gooier and messier, but soooo good!


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  Cinnamon bear popcorn: Cinnamon bears. Mini marshmallows. Sugary sweet syrup holding it all together. Mmmmmm....


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  Cinnamon bun popcorn: Basically, a really great caramel corn drizzed with white chocolate. It doesn't sound so fantastic, but it is. It is.


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  Loaded baked kettle corn: The perfect combo of salty and sweet.


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  Maple bacon kettle corn: Ok, Jason and I really like bacon in our sweet stuff (like bacon chocolate chip cookies) but I know not everyone does. But come on, doesn't this look amazing??
  I'm always on the lookout for new popcorn recipes to try, so if you have a good one, you know what to do!
  I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog for popcorn poppersand was compensated. However, the views and opinions are my own.

Fall FUN + a yummy snack!

Ahhh, I love October. It is by far my favorite month of the year! I love the cool weather, playing in leaves with my kids, apple cider, pumpkins everywhere, spooky decorations, and watching the leaves change colors. Most years in Utah, almost all the leaves turn yellow, which is pretty but just not the same as fall back East where everything is red and orange and yellow. But for some reason, this year there is a lot more color on the trees! It makes me want to pick up and move to New England. Jason says maybe we can visit.

We've been having fun watching "Hocus Pocus" and "Nightmare Before Christmas" and enjoying the nice weather. I took the girls to a local garden center to see the giant pumpkins last week. They were excited to get to sit on such a big pumpkin!

Today we went to the zoo. It was the perfect day for a trip to the zoo! They all wore their spooky Hallowen outfits, so we were excited to take a spooky picture on this giant spider :)

Target has been teasing me with big containers of Pumpkin Spice almonds for the past few weeks. I finally caved and bought some and it was a good choice. They are SO GOOD. It's a pretty subtle pumpkin flavor. They're good by themselves or....

...you could make a delicious trail mix like I did. Pumpkin spice almonds, dry roasted peanuts, mini marshmallows, dark chocolate chips, and craisins. It is sooo good and fun to snack on! The pumpkin flavor from the almonds gets distributed to all the other ingredients and it tastes like Autumn. Yum, yum!

What are you doing to enjoy October?