Happy 1st Halloween

Happy 1st Halloween, Mr. Mittens!

You're the sweetest guy and we've loved adding in some black cat decor to our Halloween stash.

Olive's vision of a Mr. Mittens pumpkin came true and he loved it.  

Handsome, tuxedo kitty.

However, he did not appreciate her grand plan of being put inside a pumpkin. Noted, Mr. Mittens.

Happy Halloween!  

I hope you have a fun day with your favorite people.  My crew can't wait to trick or treat tonight.

Aquavia Lumina Light Show

We found something new to try in Wisconsin!  We got to check out the newest attraction at Wilderness Resort - Aquavia Lumina.  It's a light show in the canyon right outside the resort.  We had heard a lot of hype about it since our visit last Summer and we all really enjoyed the show.

It's a little pricey - $25 per person - but it's about an hour of fun that the whole family enjoyed.  Kevin purchased our tickets in advance online and we just walked right in to wait for our start time/

We bundled up - 3 layers for each of us, fuzzy socks, hats, etc.

I packed snacks in my bag because I wasn't sure how Leo would do on the one mile walk through the canyon.  He loved it and the snacks were enjoyed by all of us.

There are really cozy campfires burning all around the waiting area and a staff member stationed to take group pictures for free.  I loved that little detail!

It was a gorgeous fall night and it wasn't very crowded at all.

There's a map of the journey you'll take through the canyon.  It's not stroller friendly.  It says jogger strollers are allowed, but I don't think it would be easy at all to push a stroller along the path.

It was a beautiful night.

You follow the show and the deer all through the canyon.

The kids loved these rock characters that appeared throughout the show.  This section allowed you to conduct the rocks.  You'd lean forward, conduct them and they'd all sing to you.  It was a big hit for our crew.

The show and music were really impressive.

Our favorite light section was the end.  The light show was so neat and so unique.

We'd 10/10 recommend the Aquavia Lumina light show at Wilderness Resort.  It's best for families with adults, big kids or wearable little kids. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Ski Hi Apple Orchard in Wisconsin

We spent Fall Break in Wisconsin again this year and it was lovely.  Crisp and cool with the prettiest Fall colors.  We zoomed out of town right after school on a Friday and pulled into the resort about 12:30am that night.

We headed to Ski Hi Orchard (pronounced sky high) on Saturday morning and had the best time.  The weather was Fall perfection and we felt confident picking apples since we had been there before.   We skipped the pricey wagon ride through the orchard and focused on picking apples and eating apple treats.

Real life: I found someone to take our picture and Leo refused to hop in the shot.

The kids picked fast and ate apples along the way.  I think we came home with 4 or 5 different kinds of apples.  Honeycrisp is our favorite.  Golden Delicious next.  And a few Jonathan and one other.  Yum!  We have big plans to make an apple pie as long as we don't eat all the apples first.

We purchased apple cider donuts, apple cider, Ski Hi merch, caramel syrup, caramels, and more.  It's the cutest orchard with yummy products at every turn.  We enjoyed apple cider donuts on site as well as for breakfast back at our condo.

The boys could have stayed all day to enjoy the petting zoo/farm animals and the tractor to play on.  Bring quarters so you can get animal treats out of the machine.  I had everything but a quarter.  Thankfully, some other moms shared their feed with the kids.

4 year olds.

So dang cute.

So dang opinionated.

Refused the family picture.

Asked for many silly solo pictures in the orchard.

We picked first and then headed across the street to the apple orchard shop.  Matching hooded sweatshirts for all the kids.

The animals are the cutest.  This fuzzy cow could have come home with us.

Leo was very into the vehicles.

Did I mention that we had so much fun we went twice??  Once to pick apples and once to refill our apple snacks.

Our favorite way to spend a Fall day!

If you ever find yourself in The Dells in the Fall, definitely head to Ski Hi to pick apples on the weekends.

Halloween Hosting Tips

We hosted Kevin's coworkers for a fun Halloween get together this weekend.  I found the cutest Halloween paper goods and our menu was yummy!  We had an African themed menu to help celebrate one of his faculty members + some of my favorite fall foods to fix.

The plates were all from Walmart!  I grabbed the square napkins from Walmart, too and the shaped napkins came from HomeGoods.  I love anything black cat after adding Mr. Mittens to the family.  A bonus of doing paper plates is that clean up is so easy at the end of the night.

We served a cheeseboard and veggies for appetizers.  I ran out of time and had to throw these together so fast after everyone arrived.  I hate that because it's my favorite thing to put together.  No one complained or even noticed.  They were thrilled with the bite sized snacks while we mingled.

Kevin found recipes for an Afrian stew and an okra stew.  He ran them by his coworker and made a game plan for an Afrian themed menu.  Both had very original spices and ingredients that he gathered at the international food store.  It was a tiny bit stressful making two main dishes for a dinner party that neither of us were familiar with, but it worked out great.  Everyone enjoyed both.

I wasn't sure if everyone would love the new recipes so I make a staple homemade chicken noodle soup and homemade bread.  Everyone got a mix of all the foods.  Then I served cookies for dessert.

We had some fun drinks and this moscato was a big hit.  I confessed that I buy moscato or sauv blancs based on pretty labels and pretty bottles not any wine expertise.  They agreed that a pretty bottle was important.  This one wa really yummy!

My dad watched the kids for us and we had time to dust the light fixtures before the party.  Win-win.  Yay for a successful hosting event.

We idd a quick meet and greet with Mr. Mittens and then he got locked up for the party.  He's still working on having good table manners.  He prefers to be the center of attention and be in the middle of everything (just like this post after everyone was long gone).  Silly cat.

I hope you have a sweet Halloween week.  We're hoping for great weather and fun trick-or-treating times with the kids.  They're hoping for CANDY!

Friday Faves

Happy Friday, Friends!  It's been a good week, but I'm ready for the weekend!

The best parts of my week were:

1. Twinning with Mr. Mittens.  I'm trying hard to become his favorite person.

2. The 50th Day of School!  We went back to the 1950s in kindergarten.  There were so many cute poodle skirts and I loved my outfit so much.  We hula hooped, had a sock hop, counted to 50 lots of fun ways, ate ice cream floats and learned how to blow bubbles with Bazooka gum.  It was a really fun day.

3. A surprise Fall bouquet!  Kevin surprised me with pretty Fall flowers.

4. After school ice cream date!  We had some time to kill so we stopped in our favorite local ice cream spot - Lics - for an after school treat.

5. I spotted a rainbow in the clouds one afternoon.  The weather has been so nice!

6. Mr. Mittens loves to be in the middle of whatever we are doing.  Leo lovse his flashcards and Mr. Mittens loves attention.

7. Did you catch my blog post earlier this week Holiday Teacher Gift Ideas?

Look at this darling combo!!

8. This will always be my favorite way to ice a 9x13 sheet cake.  I made this banana cake with cinnamon frosting.  It was so pretty to have these icing swirls on top.

9. Have you tried these Wiley Wallaby Minis??  They are delish!  I grabbed them on our Fall Break road trip and I'm a big fan.

10. Give me all the black cat Halloween decorations in the name of Mr. Mittens.  We're big fans of Tastykake donuts.  I think my crew preferred the powdered, we enjoyed both flavors.

11. My mom turned 70!  We got to celebrate with her and it ws so much fun.  We surprised her with something that has been on her wish list - a giant inflatable Santa for their Christmas Lake house.

12. My kids love to stroll through our favorite local grocery store - Schnucks.  We always find the best things.  Fletcher went bananas for this mummy typewriter.  He had to have it.

And Olive has been searching high and low for the Werther's pumpkin spice candies.  We found them and she loves them!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!  See you back here next week :)

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