Halloween Tradition

It has become a recent tradition in my family to get together with my mom, sisters, niece, and cousin to carve pumpkins for Halloween.  We also make (and eat) all kinds of snacks and watch Hocus Pocus (all of our favorite Halloween movie).  It was SUCH a great day!  I wish I could go back and repeat it every week.  In the hustle and bustle of life we sometimes forget the little things, traditions keep the important things alive.

My sister brought her homemade Chex mix and her family famous Roll Out Cookies (seriously she could make a fortune selling them, best cookies EVER!).  My mom made Halloween Bark and Candy Corn Cupcakes.  I made Mouth Snacks with peanut butter, apple slices, and marshmallows. (I wish I would have taken a photo of the finished cookies, we made many different colors of frosting and made Halloween cutouts of cats, brooms, tombstones, and more.)  Check at the bottom of this post for recipe links.

The first step in any good pumpkin carving day is picking out your pumpkin.  We let my niece, Parker, pick the pumpkins out and we set to carving them.  Parker was busy taking pictures and avoiding pumpkin cleaning.  I was too busy carving my pumpkin that I forgot to take pictures of the actual carving. :(

We also made crafts that my sister, Holly, picked up after Halloween last year on clearance.  They were supposed to be book marks, but Mom had some magnets and glue so we made fridge magnets.

Parker had her own plan, she decided she was going to be a pirate after Grandma made her a hat out of newspaper.

Then she started getting bored with crafts, snacks, and carving...

So, it was time to play in her "spooky house".  Grandma helped make a tent out of a table and blankets.  She was able to convince Auntie Ellie and her cousin, Allie to hangout with her.  :)

Like I said before, it was an amazing day!  Here are the links for the recipes:

My mom got the Halloween Bark recipe from the Pioneer Woman.
She got the Candy Corn Cupcake recipe from Six Sister's Stuff.
Holly's Roll Out Cookie recipe is available at the bottom of my mom's blog post about our day.
The Chex Mix recipe is on the box of Chex Mix.