🎃Halloween Festivities🎃

I🎃Happy Halloween Everyone! I hope all of you had a fantastic night!🎃

(Not my photo, but this couldn't be more wonderfully true!)

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love the decorations, the movies, the costumes, and just how light-hearted and fun it can be. There is no pressure or drama with Halloween, unlike some larger holidays, so I find it the most enjoyable. We had such a fun Halloween tonight! I wanted to share a few pictures of the festivities.🎃👻

We had a large number of Trick or Treaters this year. We gave out so much candy! We started out with three bags of what Nick calls, "the good candy" (kit kat minis), and by the end of the night I was passing out organic suckers. By the time those ran out, I had opened a bag of starbursts (not what we had intended to pass out) and was handing them out individually just so each kid could get something lol. Six bags of candy later, we wound up having to turn our porch light out for the night because we had absolutely no candy left for the kids, and there were more down the street just waiting. Next year we will have to buy candy in bulk! We had such a great turn out, and loved seeing all of the creative costumes, and happy faces! Nearly every child was exceptionally polite and said, "thank you" as well; gotta love those Southern manners! 

After we handed out candy, we watched "Casper, and "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". I adore Halloween movies, and it definitely shows! This is our collection. What are your favorites?

Halloween was such a blast, but it has been an incredibly long week! We hosted two parties: a moving party for a loved one, and a birthday party for another family member. It was so nice getting to share those special moments with them.  We were planning to also host a Halloween party this year, but those plans were changed, so we will hopefully host one next year instead. I'm still not 100% recovered from my two recent trips to the ER this month, so a little rest this weekend is definitely in order! Nothing mellows me out better than a little yoga, and a relaxing bubble bath. I'm planning to end the night with a Lush-themed bubble bath before I crash. I recently placed an order, and there was a bubble bar that caught my eye, "The Wizard". It is the perfect treat for Halloween night! You just crumble it under running bath water and it creates amazing, scented bubbles. (I will post a little Lush haul sometime soon with pictures of my order and mini reviews.)

Earlier tonight, the kitties took turns greeting our Trick-or-Treaters at the door. I thought it was so cute! One little girl was especially excited to see a black cat on Halloween, and wanted to pet Lucky. He is such a wonderful, tolerant boy! Isabella also kept watch over the door too; it amazes me how much she has come out of her shell with age. (Kojak couldn't be bothered to watch the door, and was cat napping on the couch, typical.)

We also took a few pictures of the Aussies in their costumes this year. This was the fourth year we put the same costumes on them, so some new ones are definitely I order for next year! I'm hoping the pet stores put out some on clearance after Halloween so we can find a great deal!

Mykelti clearly was not thrilled with her costume lol.🐝

Trying out the Halloween jingle collars. Mykelti had on an orange tutu, and Ranger's shirt said, "Trick or Treat".

My nails got a little festive too 🎃 (the accent nail polish is a clear, glow-in-the-dark polish.) Ignore the sloppy paint job, I didn't get a chance to clean them up before I snapped this photo.

The skelington earrings made a reappearance again this year too!

Earlier in October, we went to the pumpkin patch for our date night. 

These were the Autumn treasures we came home with! We carved up the large one last night, and left the rest untouched so we can use them through Thanksgiving.

I soaked them in bleach water when we first brought them home, and they've held up extremely well so far! 

Our pumpkin theme this year was, Oogie Boogie from,"The Nightmare Before Christmas".

We have an arrangement when it comes to pumpkin carving: I carve and design, and he "guts" the pumpkin. :)

This pumpkin has a lot of seeds, so I cleaned them and sautéed them. They were delicious! 

I free-handed the design on there after picking out one I liked online. I used a black chalk marker so I could easily fix any errors, and wipe lines away after it was carved.

Carved out with the lights on

Oogie Boogie all aglow!

We put the pumpkin outside earlier in the night when we had trick or treaters coming by. Once that ended, we brought the pumpkin inside to enjoy for the rest of Halloween night. Unfortunately, I forgot to take into account how much the Aussies love to eat pumpkin! Fresh pumpkin, canned pumpkin, pumpkin cookies, etc., they love it! When we went out of the room to change for the night, Ranger decided to turn into a little pumpkin cannibal. He never gets into things, but I guess he thought it was his since we placed it at his level on the floor, and he eats pumpkin on occasion. Long story short, our fluffy pumpkin ate the real pumpkin! Poor Oogie Boogie, Ranger ate the face right off! It was a pretty hilarious sight to walk into the room and see that. I couldn't stop laughing at their antics! 

It's a Pumpkin eat Pumpkin world

Om Nom Nom 

Mykelti helped too! (Bottom left corner). Once I was able to stop laughing long enough to call Nick into the room, we had a good laugh at them, then we took the pumpkin away. It was completely our fault for forgetting to give them the "Leave It" command, but it was a pretty funny ending to our night. 

I hope you all had a fun Halloween!

👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻

Since I didn't have a chance to post it before Halloween rolled around, I will try to take some photos of our home decor to share before I store it all away. 

Staycation

(This is a repost. Apparently I drafted it up back in August, but it didn't publish properly, so I wanted to share it now. :) )

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This week was our "Staycation Week", so I thought I'd share a little of that on my blog. Nick had some vacation time that needed to be used (use it or lose it hours), so he took the week off and we've enjoyed spending some extra time together. His work schedule can be hectic, so it's nice getting to enjoy a laid back week together. 

The last time I saw my GI specialist, he changed 6 of the medicines I was on in an attempt to end the current flair that I'm in, which keeps me at home a lot.  (That number is not a typo). Needless to say, adjusting to new medicine and changing out old things can be extremely taxing. Since I haven't felt well, we decided a Staycation was a good idea instead of going somewhere away from home. We thought it would be fun to watch movies, enjoy some restaurants as a nice treat, and just do the simple things we enjoy together. 

These are some of the things we enjoyed this week. Mostly wondering around local shops, and enjoying a few restaurants together. :)

-On Saturday, we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. Of course, we got breakfast for dinner! We also had fun exploring their gift shop. All of their Halloween displays are out now, and they are adorable!

On Sunday, we celebrated my Mom's birthday with my mom, aunt, Nick, and I. We all had a good time! While we were there, my mom also gave me my birthday gift too since I hadn't seen her since before my birthday. It was a beautiful, vintage movie add for, "Breakfast at Tiffany's. "(One of my favorite movies!). I'm a bit gutted that I absolutely forgot to take birthday pictures with my mom while we were there. We were all to busy visiting and completely forgot, so I will have to remember to make up for it next time. 

Sunday night, we went to see, "Let's Be Cops". If you're looking for a funny movie to watch, definitely check that one out; it's hilarious! 

-On Monday, we mostly hung out at home and took it easy, just enjoying each other's company and watching a few movies with our furbabies.

-On Tuesday, I had a dentist appointment. Afterwards, we were in a different part of town than we normally hang out in, so we decided to grab lunch at Caio Bella, and then we we went to a nearby book store, The Booksellers. Their store was adorable! Not only do they have a wide range of books, they also have a full cafe, household goods, friendly staff, and even had a book signing while we were there. It was a neat place to explore. I also found all three books that I've had saved on my "book wish list" for a while, so I'm excited to read these! 

On Wednesday, we had dinner at Colton's, then roamed around Wal-Mart for a few things. We found a few movies we wanted to watch on clearance, so we we made a movie night out of things! 

(How adorable are the metal cowboys from Colton's)

On Thursday morning, we woke up early and had breakfast at Bryant's. (It's one of Memphis' best spots for breakfast!) After breakfast, we went to check out, At Home. It used to be called, Garden Ridge, but they've changed the name. Thankfully, everything else is still the same though. We found it amusing that the Halloween and Christmas displays were side by side. That night we were going to Dixon Art Gallery, but neither of us felt up to it. Instead, we stayed in and watched, "Love It Or List It". Gotta love HGTV!

Friday night, I made some homemade chicken soft tacos for us, and we watched, "We're the Millers" on DVD. Our simple our date nights in are some of my very favorite! After dinner, we got dessert to go from Firebirds.

Chicken soft tacos

Sometimes it's fun to just have dessert to go and eat it at home after you've already cooked dinner. This was our dessert from Firebirds (creme brûlée cheesecake).

Caramelized Sweet Pumpkin Seeds & Savory/Spicy Pumpkin Seeds: Cooking with Lydia!

CARAMELIZED SWEET PUMPKIN SEEDS

I thought it would be nice to share one of my favorite Autumn recipes with all of you: Caramelized Sweet Pumpkin Seeds! They are so delicious, and very easy to make. 

Two of the best things about Halloween: 

1. Carving Pumpkins 2. Roasting the Seeds

INGREDIENTS: 

(I "eyeball" my ingredients, so the measurements are not exact):

-Pumpkin seeds; cleaned and dried overnight (I used seeds from from 1.5 large pumpkins.) This week three pumpkins were carved, so I split the seeds between two batches.

-Cinnamon  (3tbsp)

-Pumpkin Pie Spice (2tbsp)

-Vanilla Extract (1tsp)

-Brown Sugar (light or dark, it doesn't matter) (3tbsp)

-Sea Salt (1/2 tsp)

-Unsalted Butter (3tbsp?) (Please note that you want to use butter for this particular recipe since it's a "sweet" one. If you want to make a savory/spicy pumpkin seed batch, use EVOO!)

DIRECTIONS:

*Lightly grease cast iron skillet with unsalted butter and allow it to reach medium heat. Mix other ingredients together in a bowl, then add to skillet. Saute for 10 minutes (varying) until golden brown. Stir often so they do not burn!  Remove from skillet and let cool. Enjoy! 

Add butter to skillet and melt on medium heat

Add pumpkin seeds (coated in ingredients) to the skillet and saute for about 10 minutes on medium heat.

-Cook until golden brown (you'll hear a tiny little popping noise)

-Lay on parchment paper to cool, and then serve! 

(Be sure to put any leftovers in an air-tight container to keep them fresh!) :) 

VIDEO

Watch the little two minute video below if you'd like to try your hand at these!

PREFER A LITTLE SPICE IN YOUR LIFE??? 

TRY THIS RECIPE BELOW!

Savory/Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients: 

(One again, I "eyeball" my ingredients, so this is only a guesstimate of what I put into these!)

-Pumpkin Seeds (from 1.5 large pumpkins)

-Chili Powder (2tbsp)

-Dill Weed (3tbsp)

-Ground Mustard (1tsp)

-Cinnamon (1tsp)

-Garlic Powder (1tbsp)

-Louisiana Hot Sauce (a few shakes)

-Worcestershire Sauce (3tbsp)

-Black Peppercorn (generous amount)

-Sea Salt (generous amount; but bare in mind Garlic Salt has sodium also)

Tony Chahere's Creole Seasoning (Original) (2tbsp)

-Lime Juice (drizzle)

-EVOO (generous amount in the cast iron skillet...it will dissolve faster than butter, so you may need to add more during cooking to prevent burning the pumpkin seeds) 

DIRECTIONS

-Coat pumpkin seeds in a light layer of EVOO, then stir in other ingredients. Saute over medium heat  in an EVOO coated, cast iron skillet for about 10 minutes. Add in more EVOO as needed to the skillet. Cook until a nice golden color. Serve! Enjoy! 

FINISHED PRODUCT: Savory/Spicy Pumpkin Seeds

Left: Savory/Spicy Pumpkin Seeds. Right: Caramelized Sweet Pumpkin Seeds. 

Can't decide which ones to make? Try both! 

No Kitchen is complete without a little helper like Mykelti! Isn't she adorable?!

Awww Punkin!

On Tuesday night, a friend and I had a little pumpkin carving fun! I thought I'd share a few pictures with you all to get you into the Halloween spirit! :)

These two were my creation! When looking for carving ideas, I found this one, The Hungry Pumpkin and thought it was adorable!  

This pumpkin below was my friend's creation! It's supposed to be a carving of Edugar Allan Poe. So far, it's received some interesting interpretations though! I think it resembles Satan. My friend Shannon thinks it looks like something from "The Lion King". Best yet though was my 71 year old cousin's response when he said that it reminded him of an Asian Alfred Hitchcock. (That last one made me laugh so hard I nearly cried lol!) 

I hope these pumpkins inspire you to have a little Autumn fun and carve one yourself! And don't forget to roast those yummy pumpkin seeds if you do carve one! :)

I ♥ Fall TAG!

The "I  ♥ Fall" Tag has been floating around YouTube recently, and I had such a blast doing this one! Autumn is my absolute favorite season, so I thought this tag was especially fun! Click the video below to watch the tag and see what my very favorite picks for Fall are. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what your favorites are, or answer these questions on your blog. :)

Questions from the Tag:

1. Favorite Fall lip product?


2. Favorite Fall Nail Polish?


3. Favorite Starbucks Fall Drink?


4. Favorite Fall Candle?


5. Favorite Fall Scarf or accessory


6. Haunted house, haunted hay ride, or haunted corn maze?


7. Favorite Halloween movie?


8. Favorite candy to eat on Halloween?


9. What are you dressing up as for Halloween?!


10. What is your Favorite thing about Fall?

Confetti EVERYWHERE! Halloween Kitty Strikes!

This morning, I woke up to find that my cat, Lucky had decorated my kitchen for Halloween! Which, in cat terms means he found a plastic bag with Halloween confetti in it that I had sat on the counter from the night before, gnawed a hole in the bag because he has a plastic fetish, and strew confetti all over my counter top and floor. Apparently, my home was not festive enough for this Lucky black Halloween cat! I'm sure he was only trying to help me decorate... I'm also sure that this naughty cat is quickly approaching his ninth life! ;) 

I'm normally good about putting anything with plastic on it away from Lucky's reach, but last night I completely forgot about the bag of confetti I had sitting on the counter when I was filling out Halloween cards to mail out. I know the other cats had no part in this little Halloween party, because Lucky is the only one of my three cats with a plastic fetish. He's definitely the guilty kitty! Cute, but guilty!

Below, is a quick little video of the guilty kitty, and his decorating skills!