The Annual " Great Fall Festival "

A few weeks ago my girlfriends and I hosted our annual " Great Fall Festival" once again. We hold this event every year in late October. It started several years ago as a simple day with me and a friend of mine spending a day with our other girlfriend's daughters baking & carving pumpkins. I blogged about it here and again here.

Over the years it has evolved and gotten bigger and bigger. Each year we have invited a few more children here and there and now we just turned it into a full fledged party ! You know how we do.


So now we have costumes, games, giveaways, food....the whole nine yards.

Here are some pics from this years event


I got some really good ideas for treats for the kids from Pinterest. They were simple & fun to make. We had a "Prep Party "AKA "Adult Baking party"  the night before to decorate & setup for the event which included lots of wine LOL

Treat Table

We kept the food menu very simple since it was just kids: Hot Dogs, Chili & Cheese for the Hot Dogs & to make Frito Pie, chips & drinks.  One of my girlfriends also made candied apples the night before.

Food Table

The big surprise this year was we hired a Clown. She came about an hour into the event & surprised the kids with some games, songs, dance contests, face painting, balloon animals, popcorn and snow cones. It was quite a hit.

Clowning with the kids

Games

Dance Contest

Face Painting and Balloon Animals

Of course we had Pumpkin Carving this year too.....

Seriously focused on those pumpkins

Mommy can you help me ?

We also had a costume contest and lots of participation too. We had several winners: Ike & Tina Turner & Old Lady &  a Boxer. People were so creative this year !

Ike & Tina & their little ones !

Beautifully Complex as Bat Woman !

This Little Old Lady on a Walker..........

...actually looks like this in real life !

Our Little Boxer was one of the winners !

My girlfriends and I have grown this into an anuual event that we are really proud of and look forward to each year !  The guest list continues to expand. We love traditions, we love making memories and we love partying and having fun. We are blessed to be surrounded by so many beautiful children and it has been a pleasure to watch them grow and learn and develop.

The other 2  Hostesses with our Suprise Guest the Clown !

How do you celebrate the Fall Season or Halloween ?

Parties ? Family Gatherings ? 

Did you Host or attend and fun events this year ?

Did you see any creative costumes ?

Thoughts ? Comnments ? Questions ?



Beautifully Complex

Fall Festival Once Again

Every year, myself and a couple of friends get together with the kids (and now some grand kids) to carve pumpkins and do some baking to celebrate the kickoff of fall. It usually turns into a party later in the evening and this year we added some new folks to the mix. We let the girls invite some of their friends to participate and some of our other friends and their children came to join in on the fun.....

They were really concentrating on those pumpkins !

The little guy trying to get in on the fun too !

We made two recipes one for the younger girls was pretty simple. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars. I found both on Pinterest of course ! LOL

Prep work

For the older girls, I picked a recipe that was a little more involved and let me tell you, it was a great choice. Pumpkin Creme Cheese Muffins were well worth the extra steps.

* If you make this recipe, let me offer you a time saving & convenient tip: For the creme cheese filling, instead of using the plastic wrap & cutting into pieces, just mix the creme cheese and sugar and put it into a piping bag & pop it in the freezer while you mix up the batter, then just follow the same instructions except just squeeze the cheese out using piping bag. It is quick and much for convenient than the steps listed in the recipe.

Voila !

My friends daughter did a phenomenal job with this recipe, all I did was supervise and direct. She is quite the little baker and really enjoys it and it is fun for me too. Let me tell you, those muffins tasted so.dang. good ! Seriously I did not know pumpkin could taste so good.  You will really enjoy this recipe.

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown !

It was a fun Saturday afternoon/evening &I think we adults enjoyed it as much or more than the kids did.




Do you have any fall traditions ? 

Do you have any really good pumpkin recipes ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?

Beautifully Complex

Just Me....... Randomly

Wow. It has been almost a month since I dusted off this little blog.  It has been a whirlwind around here over the last several weeks. I am going to try to catch up this week with some posts,  but here is a bit of random stuff........


First up, Mr. Mixologist got hit with the dreaded Kidney Stones. I got a call at work  & he was rushed to the ER by ambulance, at the time when he collapsed in pain, we had no idea what was wrong. I don't ever want to feel that type of panic again. He is fine now, the stones passed, and other than the challenge of seeing him in the worst pain you can imagine we made it through.  I got to spend a few days taking care of him & showing him how much appreciate him.


I have been super busy at work, it has been almost unbearable. I have no idea when things will change & since we are all supposed to be so lucky to have not been relocated, we are just supposed to suck it up & deal with it. So I won't complain, other than to say I so wish I was independently wealthy. LOL


I totally love Fall weather, the nice cool but not too cold mornings, low humidity and crisp clear air to breath in.  I love the clothes, the nice comfort food, the cozy nights at home. We lit our fireplace for the first time this season just today.  I can't wait for the Holidays to get here.


We had a garage sale a few weeks ago & Mr. Mixologist will never participate in one again. LOL It was a comedy of errors that I won't bore you with. It was more work than we anticipated. The good news is that we did make a nice bit of money that went straight to the wedding fund. The bad news is that I twisted my ankle trying to help him move some furniture and had to go to urgent care, after trying to avoid it for several hours.  He keeps teasing me saying that we had to spend all the money we made on co-pays & prescriptions ! LOL  But the tables were turned and in less than 30 days after me waiting on him hand and foot, he had to then do the same for me. He took great care of me.


I was on crutches for 5 days until I could put weight on my foot & let me tell you, mobility is one of those things, that you just don't appreciate enough.  They gave me some good drugs & for the first couple of days, I was quite melancholy but by day 5 I had cabin fever like a mug & was going stir crazy. Even though I didn't break any bones, it has been a slow heal. I still have residual pain in my right foot, a few weeks later. I don't think I am going to be able to run the Turkey Trot this year but I want to at least walk it & not break tradition on the participation.  I am starting to really feel this over 40 thing for real !



We early voted yesterday morning, we got up at 7AM & headed to the polls and still had to wait 45 minutes. It was our first time voting together, in the same precinct & it was quite fun to people watch and exercise our civic duty. We had a nice breakfast afterwards. Speaking of civic duty, I have Jury duty in a couple of weeks & as much as I would love to sit on a jury, I just don't think I could be away from my cases for too long, without things just getting out of control and I don't think I could be focused on the trial for worrying about work & the mess I have to return to. I wonder if I will get picked ?


What's going on random with you ?

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?


Beautifully Complex 

The Great Pumpkin

This past weekend, I spent some quality time with my best girlfriend's two daughters. On Friday night the girls came over while their Mom went out. We ordered Pizza & played Monopoly which I haven't played in forever. Why oh why did Mr. Mixologist beat us mercilessly ? LOL I mean it was really bad. He had property on every side of the board with Hotels on half of them. It was a whipping to remember. He talked a lot of noise while he had us all on skid row which made it worse. I was the first one to go bankrupt. The girls got a lesson on how to lose gracefully, even when its hard. LOL  He has promised to give us another opportunity to redeem ourselves.

Sunday afternoon, I went over to the their house along with another girlfriend to have our annual  Halloween Craft and Baking Day. My best friend is sooo not into crafts OR cooking so she recruited us years ago to fill in with these types of activities with the girls. Our other girlfriend always handles the pumpkin carving & I handle the pumpkin inspired baking.

Concentrating to get it just right ! 

This year I decided to let the 9 yr old make some Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Frosting. I found the recipe on one of my favorite sites, A Taste of Home Cooking. I also located a recipe & video for a Pumpkin Cheesecake for the 13 yr old to make.

Finished Project 

I packed up the equipment from my kitchen, grabbed my laptop & hit the store & headed on over. When I arrived they were already focused on getting their pumpkins just right.

Mixing it up !

The 9 yr old got started on her cookies which were very simple & extremely tasty. The brown butter frosting was sooooo good that we were all  licking our fingers ! If you decide to  make them I promise you won't be disappointed.

Ta Da ! Ready for the Frosting

Both girls enjoy cooking and baking and I always have a good time planning cooking with them & they always appreciate it and have fun doing things in the kitchen.






                                                                                                                                                              

Getting it just right

The 13 yr old is a pretty good baker so I picked a cheesecake since it was a bit more challenging. She made her own crust from scratch using graham crackers & ginger snaps. I just delegated, reviewed the recipe with her & pretty much just supervised.

Final touch before bedtime

Cheesecakes take a long time to bake & many hours to set, usually overnight, so I didn't get to see the finished product on Monday morning, but I heard today that it was yummy.

Pumpkin Carvers Extraordinaries ! 

Beauty & Baking Skills

The Girls & their Mom

Have you had any Fall Holiday Fun ?

Got any good recipes to share ?  If so drop the links in the comments.

Thoughts ? Comments ? Questions ?


Beautifully Complex