Holiday Muddy Buddies

Happy Halloween

I have to start off with apologizing for my absence! You know how it goes, everyone has that one month or season where you're just insanely busy and it's a major struggle to get everything you want, done. Sadly, my blogging has taken a back seat lately because October is our busiest month of the year! I seriously have at least a dozen posts headed your way; I just have to find the time to get them posted! 

Since I am so behind with my posts and today is Halloween, I thought I'd share a fun seasonal/holiday recipe, and then I'll go back and start posting, in order, all the other posts I have planned, lol.

To me the holidays are never complete without loads of fun food, especially recipes that are easy for kids to make. On Halloween we eat a plethora of festive foods, but this year we added in Halloween Muddy Buddies. This is a super easy snack mix to make, so much so that even your little ones can lend a hand. This recipe is easily adapted for any holiday with the appropriate colored chocolate M&M's. Since it is Halloween, we used Halloween colored M&M's.

Holiday Muddy Buddies

Ingredients 

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

9 cups Chex cereal (I used a whole box of Aldi brand corn Chex cereal)

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 bag holiday colored chocolate M&M's

Directions 

Line two large jelly roll pans with parchment paper. Pour cereal into a large bowl. Melt chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a glass bowl in the microwave. Pour melted chocolate mixture over cereal and toss with spoon until evenly coated. Pour cereal onto cookie sheets, dividing evenly. Cool in fridge for 30 minutes. Pour cereal back into large bowl and toss with sugar. Add M&M's. Ready to eat immediately or store in air tight container.

I realize a lot of conservative Christians do not celebrate Halloween, and I 100% support that decision. (We went many years without celebrating the day!) But, now we've adapted the holiday to fit our lifestyle and simply use it as an opportunity to create fun family memories. We are intentional to keep it light, fun, and void of the dark scary stuff that often overshadows a fun day to dress up and use your imagination. 

Making festive food is just another wonderful addition to our family's Halloween celebrations. It didn't take more than an hour (and not all at one time) to make this fun treat. My kiddo thought it was a great festive snack. There was nothing spooky or 'bad' about this snack mix ~ only a special holiday memory of baking with mom on Halloween. Life is what WE make it to be, even a holiday like Halloween!

So to all our fellow Halloween celebrating friends ~ be safe, make those treasured memories, and enjoy your evening!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Family Fun at Old Baker Farm

 About 14 years ago I was sitting in a doctor's office at Children's Hospital waiting on our second sons pulmonary specialist appointment when I came across a magazine with 'things to do in the Birmingham area'. In that magazine was an advertisement for a fall family fun event at a farm. They had all kinds of fun things for the children to do, including picking pumpkins. And so began our family tradition of visiting Old Baker Farm every October.

The farm has grown over the years to include so many fun activities for the children. We always try to attend on their 'cowboy weekend'. On the farm's cowboy weekend they have men and women dressed up in old fashion costumes reenacting cowboy shootouts with real guns, shooting blanks!! It's spectacular to watch and experience!

We've talked about visiting other farms to go pick pumpkins, but we always come back to Old Baker Farm. Not that they ever remember us, but we usually have the privilege of talking with the Bakers, it's like visiting with family ~ they're a family of down-home country folks. Plus the cost of admission includes all the activities. We only have to pay extra for concessions, horse back riding, and  if we purchase something from any of the craft-fair type vendors set up on the farm. 

One of my favorite things about coming to Old Baker Farm is that it's a real working farm. The pumpkins aren't trucked in, you actually pick them off the vine. Although there have been years when the harvest was limited and the Bakers did bring in pumpkins from another farm. 

The farm is set up so that visitors ride on a hay-ride to go pick their pumpkins. They have several tractors and trailers running and ONE trailer hooked up to a pair of mules. This year we were blessed to get to ride on the mule-pulled trailer ~ which is our favorite!!

Lydia loved every part of being on the Farm ~ walked around like she owned the place, lol.

Some of the many activities for the children to do includes giants slides, hay bail climbing, a cotton jump, kiddie train rides, horse swings, petting zoo, corn maze, and hay bail maze. Trust me there is no shortage of things to do on this farm!! We spent over four hours playing this year!

This was the first year our oldest was unable to attend due to work obligations. I must admit this new season of life has not been easy for this sentimental mama. But, I'm proud of him and know our job is to simply raise them, and one day they do set out to live their own lives (and that's a good thing).  No matter how much we want to slow time, it just keeps billowing forward, all we can do is hold on for the ride. Of course there's nothing wrong with savoring every special moment we're gifted with until they do 'fly the coop'.

The Baker's really go all out decorating the farm, especially the few old farm houses on the property. (Which are actually lived in by the family.)

Even though big brother couldn't come enjoy the family fun, he did send money to buy the littles ones a treat. They ended up getting the biggest snow cones I've ever seen!

The last picture of the day. 

Daddy loves carnival/fair food and as y'all can see he's passed that love onto our children as well. Fresh squeezed lemonade and kettle corn for everyone to share concluded our family fun day at Old Baker Farm.

I must admit at 31 weeks pregnant, it took a lot of psyching myself up to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I love our tradition of visiting Old Baker Farm and I wouldn't have missed it for anything. We did all 'the things' and my family was super sweet to take 'all the pictures'. (I'm not even sharing half of them, lol.) Another year of visiting Old Baker Farm and another precious memory stored away. It is kind of crazy prepping and getting our family to functions like this, but watching my children having fun and enjoying the season makes it all worth the effort. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Pumpkin Patch Picnic

I'm one of those corny mamas who loves themed events. I can remember when I first started having children, (long before Pinterest) and throwing elaborate themed birthday parties with all sorts of DIY props and games related to the birthday theme. Fast forward 19 years and now we have the gift of Pinterest. No longer is it overly time-consuming or complicated to plan and create fun themed events.

As I shared yesterday, we've been going to the pumpkin patch at Old Baker Farm for 14 years. The first year we attended we did not bring any food, the concessions were very limited and expensive, and since the farm is located in the middle of nowhere, there was zero restaurants in the vicinity. What was essentially a wonderful day quickly turned into a not-so-fun situation filled with cranky little kids in dire need of a decent meal. Did I mention the farm is about an hour away? Talk about a long drive home!!! 

In true motherly fashion, I refused to make that same mistake again and from that point on all our trips to the pumpkin patch has included a picnic. And since it is such a fun-filled memory making destination, it only seemed fitting that the food we bring was themed accordingly. 

I never make anything overly complicated for our pumpkin patch picnic. I find that it's the simple things that the children really appreciate ~ so that is what I focus on. These days it's even easier preparing our pumpkin patch picnic since I have older children who don't mind lending a helping hand. 

Nothing too difficult with this treat, just drawing pumpkin faces on orange (or peach) fruit cups. Make sure the cups are at room temperature. If they are cold the Sharpies dry out.

Pumpkin faces on mini Gatorade bottles.

I found these cute pumpkin poop bag toppers for free on Pinterest.

Simple Fall Snack Mix

Pumpkin Patch picnic in full swing.

We also had homemade chicken salad sandwiches to finish off our Pumpkin patch picnic. Last year I found after the season clearance pumpkin plates and napkins. 

Picnicking is the way to go if you ask me. We save money and have great food. I also splurge on food  and drinks which I don't normally buy. This helps to balance out the fact that we aren't eating from the concessions or dining out. Now, we aren't complete fair food Scrooges. We typically treat the children to a treat or two when we attend these fun functions. This year we bought the kiddos kettle corn and lemonades. Plus big brother who could not attended, sent money to buy his siblings snow cones. (Perks of having a large family ~ older siblings are suckers for spoiling the younger ones, lol).

Each year I tweak our pumpkin patch picnic, but this year I think it was the best. Nothing complicated or time consuming to make. Just a few simple themed additions to make our pumpkin patch picnic extra special for my favorite people. They may or may not ever remember my corny efforts to make our adventures memorable. But it doesn't really matter because I love doing it and the effort is well worth it to me just to see their sweet smiling faces enjoying their picnic lunches.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Simple Fall Snack Mix

There's nothing like Fall and all the fun food that goes along with the season. It's no secret that Summer is my favorite season (mostly because I'm extremely cold-natured and despise cold weather), but Fall runs a close second. The temperature begin to become tolerable (for those of us who reside  in the Deep South), the trees put on a display of beauty no words could adequately describe, and the fun seasonal food is simply divine!

Once the calendar switches to September, our family is in hyper-memory making mode. Our days, especially the weekends, are filled with wonderful seasonal traditions. One of those many traditions includes visiting a real pumpkin patch/working farm in Harpersville, Al. We've been visiting Old Baker Farm for the past 14 years, without fail. We've had the privilege of watching it grow into a spectacular family event destination. 

And since I'm one of those ultra corny mama's I always have to bring along themed food for our traditional pumpkin patch picnic. Now y'all this is nothing fancy or time consuming, just a simple snack mix that adds a little flair to our dining experience while at the pumpkin patch.

One of our family's must-have food items for our pumpkin patch picnic is a Simple Fall Snack Mix. There are tons of snack mix recipes plastered all over the Internet; and I find that every family has their own special twist. But for me personally, I do not have time, energy, or the funds to make overly complicated recipes; even for our special pumpkin patch snack mix. Which is why I made our family's Fall Snack Mix recipe budget friendly and quick to make.

Simple Fall Snack Mix

Ingredients  

• Pretzels
• Bugles chips
• Peanuts
• Candy corn or pumpkin candies 
• Fall M&M candies

Directions

Mix all ingredients together and store in an airtight container or sealed baggies.

I typically let the kiddos get their hands into making this super simple recipe. It's fun to have my children help in the kitchen and it gives them an opportunity to serve their family. Since we were taking this fall snack mix to the pumpkin patch, I had the children place half cup portions into fall bags. This year I didn't use the pumpkin candies because they're kind of large and I wanted Lydia (our not quite 2yr old) to be able to eat her snack mix on her own. 

Most years I buy the Fall colors plain M&M chocolate candies, but this year I couldn't find any and I ended up buying a bag of pumpkin spice flavored M&M's. They were very unusual to say the least. Not bad or good, just different, lol. I would say half of my people liked the pumpkins spice flavored M&M's while the other half didn't care for them at all. And to that I simple say, "You can't please them all, all the time!"

While it isn't a must for us to have themed food to bring to the pumpkin patch, it is fun and we all enjoy the break from the 'norm'. We picnic a lot, it's just par for the course with a large family. It saves us money and allows us to better allocate our funds for future 'experiences' verses food. I try to add variety to our picnic food, and with it being fall and this particular outing being to a pumpkin patch; it only seemed fitting to make a Fall Harvest Snack Mix. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Sunshine & Smiles Gift Basket

I love, love, love gift baskets. I love getting them and receiving them. It doesn't matter if they're simple little bitty gift bags or elaborately filled baskets, they're just awesome in my book. I think the reason I love them so much is because they take thought and a little bit of effort to put them together. They really are a gift from the heart.

This month I needed to purchase a female birthday gift. At first thought I was going to do a gift card, then I thought I'd just find a unique gift on Amazon, but finally I settled on creating a simple gift basket. Well, actually it is a gift box since I have to ship it across the country.

I did some perusing on Pinterest and found the cute idea of making a 'Sunshine & Smiles' gift basket. Now obviously this particular themed gift basket can include any yellow items you desire. But, since I love seeing what others put inside gift baskets I thought I'd share how I put together my Sunshine & Smiles gift basket. 

My goal was to spend under $20.

(I know that puts some limitations on creativity, but I made it happen, lol). I shopped at Walmart, Target, TJ Maxx, and The Dollar Store for the items I put inside this particular gift basket.

The great thing about gift baskets is they can be as simple or as extravagant as you want. My Sunshine & Smiles birthday gift basket was fairly simple. I included: A Zak stainless steel tumbler I found on clearance at Target, pouch of mini vanilla Oreos, box of M & M's, box of Lemonhead candies, a yellow bath poof, a bottle of sparkling lemonade, a mini clip on flash light, chewing gum, hand sanitizer, lemon themed notepad and pen, wet ones, Carmex chapstick, single use facial, small lotion, and some faux yellow flowers.

I also included a printed note and a card. 

I am quite pleased with how well this gift basket (box) turned out. While it isn't filled with anything fancy, I think the receiver will be happy with her birthday gift. 😊 I can't wait to get it in the mail! I think I get more excited about creating and giving than I do about receiving any gifts for myself! It truly is better to give than to receive. 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Camping at Coleman Lake

Coleman Lake

As many of y'all have probably caught on, I love traditions! I also enjoy adding new traditions to our already giant arsenal of regular scheduled family memory making opportunities. I love routine and order. I like knowing what's expected of me and how to plan and prepare for what's coming ahead ~ I think that's why I love traditions so much. 

Doing spur of the moment events can be really difficult with a large family. With traditions, I can plan months in advance (especially in regards to the financial aspects). Let's face it, some events just cost more because there are more people involved. It's not exactly easy making sure we have everything necessary for certain adventures, simply because the stores (even Amazon) don't always stock enough of any particular item for 11 people. 

We've tried various different forms of camping over the years. We've tried 'camping' in a borrowed motor home (back when we only had five little ones). Um, yeah that's a story for another day. We've tried camping in a pop-up camper (we made it through two nightmare trips and that baby was sold!). And we did the old fashion tent camping once, many moons ago. None of these camping trips were exactly 'fun'. They were filled with non-stop drama and complications. So we hung up our camping gear and quit trying.

Fast forward about 5 years, and I really wanted to try again to share my love of camping with my children. I grew up tent camping and have the absolute best memories of our family camping adventures. I get that camping isn't everyone's forte, but it is apart of me and something I enjoy doing. So, I began collecting upgraded camping gear for our large crew, with the intentions that we'd try tent camping again.

This is about the time I implemented our back to school backyard campout. I figured camping in our backyard was about as close as I was going to get to real camping (for the time being) and for those who didn't want to participate, they could sleep inside the house. Also this allowed me to slowly acquire new camping equipment which in turn would make future camping trips more enjoyable.

Camping in the summer in the south just isn't ideal so we have to wait until the fall and spring months. Last year I decided we were ready to embark on our first 'away from home' campout about an hour away at Coleman Lake nestled in the Talladega National Forest. Sadly, this camping trip was cut short due to an unexpected cold front that swept through the area. We did not have appropriate cold weather camping gear and with two little ones under the age of two I was worried they would freeze to death. At around midnight we broke camp and headed home to the comforts of our warm house. {{sigh}}

Now, one year later, I planned again for our Coleman Lake camping trip. This year I scheduled our trip one month earlier. Unfortunately, this year we are experiencing record breaking HIGH temperatures and instead of it being freezing cold it was extremely hot. {{ugh}} I just can't seem to win when it comes to planning camping trips! But, I am determined to keep trying and sharing my love of camping with my children. While the big kids are not a fan (YET), my youngest four love camping!! I'm going to take that as a mom win!!

The little ones love helping put up the tent. And I must say again that this CORE tent is amazing!! Super easy to set up and plenty big enough for our family. Worth every penny.

As is custom for our family adventures, drama is sure to ensue. We had a major injury within an hour of setting up camp. {{groan}} Our three year old took a terrible tumble down a hill and smacked his head on the hard concrete road. We thought we were going to have to leave to take him to get stitches, thankfully we didn't, but he was certainly down for the count for the rest of the evening. 

The 'family room' for our overnight camping escapade. 

Camping ~ campfire ~ weenie roast. Yep I'm predictable like that.

And of course s'mores!

Poor little guy. I think the sweet treat helped to pick his little spirits up even if it didn't help with the massive headache I'm sure he had. 

Since I'm not a pro at cooking over the fire, I invested in this single burner butane stove. Let me just tell y'all this little stove is a thousand times better than a propane camp stove! Unfortunately, I did forget our 'camp kitchen' bucket so we had to make do with cooking and cleanup. Thankfully my family is awesome at accepting challenges and rolling with the 'punches', lol.

Breakfast was nothing fancy. A yogurt squeeze and an egg scramble which included bacon bits, eggs, southern hash browns, and cheese. No one complained and everyone seemed to get full.

After breakfast we broke camp and headed out on a hike around the lake.

Nothing like hiking in the woods!

There was no shortage of opportunities to explore and enjoy nature.

Even though everyone in our family isn't exactly in love with the idea of being in the great outdoors, most of them do have a deep appreciation for God's creation.

I love being able to carry my babies hiking through nature. I will miss these days when they are gone. They will truly always be treasured memories that I hold close to my heart.

While I still haven't convinced the majority of my family to have the same passion for camping as I do, everyone was a good sport and tried their best. I wish we could go on multiple camping trips a year, but I don't want to push my limits. There's no sense in dragging my people to do more things they don't want to do than is absolutely necessary. 

I took plenty of notes while we were camping for items to purchase that will hopefully make next years camping trip even better. Yes folks, I am relentless, I'm not going to give up just yet on imparting my love of camping onto my kids. Even with all the challenges we faced, the memories we made were priceless. Lord willing my children will remember the highlights and one day realize how wonderful it is to experience the great outdoors through camping.

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Fall Fun Schooling Week

Fall is finally here! Well according to the calendar that is. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the weather is in agreement. Today, in the Deep South, the temperature registered in at 103 degrees (and that's not including the heat index!). I am so beyond ready for cooler weather!

I really enjoy doing crafts and fun seasonal activities with my children. I've struggled over the years to find a balance between the must be done nitty gritty homeschool and all the fun schooling that I want to do. To help me find a balance that enables me to incorporate those fun crafts and acuities; every few weeks I schedule a fun school week. 

Typically my fun school weeks coincide with the seasons changing and holidays. Since the calendar officially hit fall last week, that's when I scheduled our fall fun school week; even if it is hotter than blue blazes!

Mostly, the fun schooling activities are just for the little ones, but sometimes the bigger kids get in on the fun. I try to organize at least one seasonal/holiday activity for the older children as well, but mostly their core academics take up the majority of their school time. 

When I was making our academic calendar for the year, it was really hard to schedule in appointments. Sadly, this particular fun school week included an out-of-town appointment that I did not know about when I did my planning. When we have these out-of-town appointments, that means no school days. Of course this hardly effects the children, it's dear old mom that has to rearrange and cram extra lessons and activities into a shorter amount of days. Thankfully, we did manage to get everything done, but it certainly was a challenge to say the least.

I like to incorporate a themed sensory box for our fun school weeks. For our fall fun schooling week sensory box I included pinto beans, faux fall leaves, brown, orange, and yellow yarn strips as well as a wooden scooper and a small tin pail.

All the little ones love the sensory box and they will play in it for quite a while, without fussing (mom win!!).

Our first project for the week was a fall leaf wreathe. I had one of the big kids collect a bunch of leaves from outside which the children glued onto a paper plate with the middle cut out. Honestly, if I had to do this project again I think we'd use fake leaves. because once the real leaves dried they made a major mess!

Next we made leaf rubbings. This projects was a bit difficult for my two little bitty ones and they needed some help to be able to color over the leaves.

I always like to incorporate a 'snack-tivity'. This particular week's fun snack was s'more mix. A super easy snack, including only three ingredients: honey graham cereal, mini marshmallows, and milk chocolate morsels. 

I allowed each of the children to pour a portion of the ingredients into a large bowl.

Of course they thought this was loads of fun, but Titus and Lydia were far more interested in eating their snack mix instead of actually making it, lol.

Then we had a leaf resist painting. I taped large leaves onto construction paper, the kids painted around the leaf, and then we removed the leaf to show a pretty outline of a leaf.

I let the children choose their paint colors but kept it to fall colors. I was pleasantly surprised at how well these paintings turned out, lol.

Last the children made torn paper fall leaves. I found a free template of a leaf and printed it off onto white card stock and then the children glued torn pieces of construction paper onto their leaf. You could easily cut out the leaves if you so fancied.

And that's what we did for our fall fun schooling week. Nothing overly complicated, just some fun and simple activities to help us ring in the new season.

We haven't officially started our fall storybooks yet so we didn't do them this week, but trust me we have plenty of those coming in the very near future. 

Fall is such a fun time to enjoy seasonal crafts. The children had a blast and I'm glad we were able to get everything I had planned worked into our busy schedule! Sheesh, I don't know about y'all but fall is our busiest time of the year. It seems we have something planned every weekend and even events planned during the week. But, I love every minute of it and look forward to the crazy busy memory making opportunities every year ~ even if it does take a masters degree in juggling to keep this large crew rolling forward, lol! 

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer