Bee Movie. And costume. And snacks.

Ever since we saw Bee Movie a few days ago Autumn has been obsessed with bees and their honey. As soon as we got home from the movie theater she rummaged through her dress up box to find a suitable bee costume. The closest thing she could find were some fuzzy pink antennae, fairy wings and a too-small black and yellow sock hop dress, but it was good enough for her. Now we've been asked to address her as "Autumn Bee Princess" whenever she wears this creative getup.
She tried honey for the first time and now wants to eat it every day. Whether that's because she actually likes it or because she just wants to be more like a bee I'm not sure, but at least she's trying new things. She eats honey and peanut butter sandwiches, apple slices dipped in honey, honey on bagels and, once, just a spoonful of the stuff. I had to draw the line at letting her drink it straight from the bottle though. While searching the 'net for honey related recipes I found a simple sweet treat over in the archives of Kids Craft Weekly. They're called Honey Joys, but Autumn likes to call them Crunchy Munchy Honey Cakes, after the catchy Wiggles song.I'll admit I was a little skeptical about how good these would be, as I usually am when trying a new recipe. But they tasted fantastic and were so easy to make. I'm posting the recipe here along with a warning: they are VERY addictive.

Crunchy Munchy Honey Joys
4 cups corn flakes
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
Melt butter, sugar and honey in a saucepan over medium high heat until the mixture starts to bubble. Pour over corn flakes and have your little Bee Princess or Prince help stir until completely coated. Spoon into paper cupcake liners and bake at 150 degrees for 10 minutes. If your oven is like mine and only goes down to 170 (what's up with that?), bake for 10 minutes anyway. It really doesn't matter. Allow honey joys to cool and let the addiction begin!Happy munching!

Director of Photography: Autumn Rose

Okay Mommy. Stand still.

Now walk that way.Turn around. Smile.

Now how about you put this dollar in your hat.

Lay down on the grass Mommy. No not there. Right here.

Okay now I want to lay down with you and you take the picture and I'll close my eyes because of the sun.

You did a good job Mommy.

Two Scarves and Swap Goodies

I've had this red polka dotted fabric sitting on my shelf for a while now and I've really been itching to do something with it, but couldn't figure out exactly what. Last night I decided to try making a kiddo-sized patchwork scarf. It was super easy, and I loved it so much that I decided to make an adult-sized one today while Autumn was napping. For a while I was torn between keeping the scarves and selling them on Etsy, but in the end I was too attached to them to give them up. So now we have matching scarves for fall.
And yeah, we're wearing short sleeves. It's not quite cold enough for scarves yet, but when it is we'll be prepared! Hers has a little felt loop on one end to hold the scarf in place. I might make a few more similar scarves for the shop, but these are definitely ours.

My last three packages from the Sweat Shoppe Swap have arrived, and I love everything! Swapping has been so much fun, and I'm looking forward to doing it again. First, just in time for Halloween, Roxanne sent me this gorgeous beaded black widow pendant:
Hmm, that picture is kinda Myspacey, no? Oh well. Next came a Boo Boo Bunny from Cara, which Autumn fell madly in love with. She pretends she has boo boos all the time now so she can use it.
And last but not least, PJ pants from Kate, which fit Autumn perfectly and look adorable on her. Ignore Adam's messy office in the background.
All of my swap partners did a fabulous job and I am so grateful for the amazing work they did for me and my kiddo. Thanks everyone!

Remembering

Yesterday we made an altar for Dia de los Muertos. I framed some of my favorite photos of Grandpa and surrounded them with candles, tools, and wooden fish. I made a banner out of scrapbooking paper and ribbon, and we didn't have any fresh marigolds so I made a bunch from felt and pipecleaners.Autumn made the one with the pink stem. She also added a plastic Ninja Turtle and Grandpa's stuffed fish, Reef, who was given to him while he was in the hospital and passed on to Autumn after he died.For those of you not familiar with it, Dia de los Muertos (or Day of the Dead) is a holiday to honor the dead. The tradition is that once a year the spirits of the dead come to visit their living loved ones, and families create altars with candles and fragrant flowers (since our flowers weren't so fragrant I lit a scented candle) to guide them home and include photographs and a few of their favorite things to make them feel welcome. They eat their favorite foods, play their favorite music, tell stories about them, and just spend the day remembering. It's not a time for mourning or feeling sad. It's a happy holiday for celebrating life and being grateful for the time we spent together. We aren't Mexican, but you don't have to be to celebrate this beautiful occasion. I think it's a wonderful tradition to start with your family if you've lost a loved one, and it's especially good for children as it helps them understand and cope with death. You can research the holiday more with the link I provided above, but I think we should all feel free to celebrate it in our own way, whether that's super traditional or not so traditional.

We also lit candles for Adam's grandfather, who died when he was 12. Both of them are missed and loved, and today we celebrate their lives.

Trick or Treat! (prepare for picture overload)

Well as you can see, the costume was finished on time. She wore it to her school's Halloween party and brought home a bag full of candy before we even started trick-or-treating. Sadly since October has been an unusually stressful and busy month for me I didn't have the time or energy to make a costume for myself this year. But I still managed to be festive in my Halloween t-shirt, poofy handmade skirt and stripey tights. Oh how I love my stripey tights.
After school we took our pumpkins into the basement for carving. I don't know how, but Autumn managed to pick the thickest, hardest-skinned pumpkin in the entire pumpkin patch. This thing was a real brute. My arm was aching after spending 10 MINUTES cutting the top off, and after I cleaned it out I passed the carving duty onto Adam because I didn't think my hand could take it anymore. Autumn drew not one, not two or even three, but four faces on her pumpkin for him to carve out, and he did a great job on it.I, however, decided to paint my pumpkin after seeing how tough Autumn's was. Carving isn't really where my talent lies anyhow. Autumn painted a little one for Rosie, her favorite teddy bear, who also dressed up for the occasion.
That evening we went out with Adam's sister and her four children as well as his mom, who wore a fantastic witch costume. When I walked downstairs and saw her standing in the hallway I didn't recognize her at first and she scared the crap out of me!We went to maybe 15 houses or so. It was Autumn's first time trick-or-treating in a residential neighborhood. She had a blast with all the other kids, running from house to house in their colorful costumes. Luckily the weather was nice enough that we didn't freeze to death, so a good time was had by all.After a pizza dinner at a neighbor's house we headed home and Autumn set out most of her candy for the Halloween Fairy, who came in the night and left her a little purse with a kitty-shaped pocket in the candy's place.Despite not being able to do everything I had originally planned on, Halloween was great fun for us this year.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

Today we took a trip to Valley View Farms to buy our Halloween pumpkins. I like to carve pumpkins either the day before or the day of Halloween so that by the time the holiday comes around our front steps aren't decorated with orange mush.After wandering around the patch for a bit and checking out the straw "zoo" and gigantic prize-winning pumpkins we loaded up a whole wagon full of our own big orange carving pumpkins, acorn, gooseneck and butternut squashes for cooking (is the plural of "squash" supposed to be "squashes"? That sounds funny), and even a few teeny tiny pumpkins to decorate the kitchen table.Would you believe I've never eaten squash before? Never! So this year I made sure to pick up a few to experiment with. I doubt anyone in the house will want to experiment with me, but I'm okay with being the adventurous one. I think.After pumpkin shopping we had lunch and went to Cold Stone for--what else--pumpkin ice cream! Oh yes. I am a sucker for anything pumpkin flavored or scented, and this time of year I crave it constantly. From the first day of fall through December our refrigerator will never be empty of pumpkin pie. There will also be an avalanche of pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin french toast, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin milkshakes, and after all that, probably pumpkin Pepto (if only).

Fall really is the best season. The food, the cool weather, the beautiful show nature puts on for us makes it such a happy time of year for me. I wish it could last all year.Oh and don't let that forced looking pageant smile fool you. She really did have a good time.