Appetizers for Dinner

My family loves when we have appetizers for dinner.  I make some homemade and buy some yummy frozen apps.  Everyone loves building their own plates of appetizer yumminess.

Appetizer spread:

Reheated pizza

Homemade pico & chips

Mini Tacos from Sams + toppings

Chips & Queso

Mozzerella sticks

Breadsticks

Fruit & veggies

A few other ideas:
Spinach artichoke dip

Meatballs

Pulled pork sliders

Taquitos

Quesadillas

All of these combos would be delicious!

This would be the perfect menu for game day or fun dinner for your family on a regular night!

What an election night!  Kevin and I stayed up way too late (just like we did in 2016) to enjoy the election highlights.  I'm heading to bed optimistic and so excited for the days ahead.

I put together a USA treat board for our Election Night watch party last night.  The kids were thrilled!

VOTE!

Happy Election Day!  I've never seen lines to vote like I've seen this election cycle.  We have been praying for our favorite candidates every day.  I waited an hour in line after work one day last week to make sure I got to vote.  Tons of people are voting.  Tons of people are caring and tons of people are praying for our country.

It's an exciting day.  We'll be glued to the TV tonight to watch the results come in and praying.

I grabbed a sticker for myself and a couple to show my class.  We're holding kindergarten cookie elections today with a special chapel service.

I've never seen people so excited to vote!

Dream big!  Our best days are ahead!

Halloween 2024 Recap

We had a happy Halloween!  The weather was kind of terrible all day and then it cleared up for a fun night of trick or treating.  The kids enjoyed their costumes, we had dinner with neighbors and we got to trick or treat with friends in the neighborhood.  Huge candy hauls were had by all.

Fletcher was a masked man.

Olive the penguin.

Leo the dragon.

Her BFF dressed up as a polar bear and they trick or treated together.

His original mask was light up and so fun.  It ended up being very difficult to see out of so he swapped it for this back up mask.  I was so happy that I thought to grab a back up mask just in case.

Leo the dragon.  He was the cutest little dragon.  He roared at everyone, smiled and grabbed candy as he ran from house to house with all the big kids this year.

Which made me very nostalgic for Halloween 2020 when we had Fletcher the dragon.  I don't feel super sentimental about their clothes anymore, but I'll be saving this dragon costume just in case their kid ever want to be the cutest green dragon.

One of our neighbors had THE COOLEST skeleton decoration.  It was HUGE and so fun.  I wouldn't want to store that skeleton all year, but the kids sure loved it.

Black and white buddies.

Epic post trick or treating candy hauls.  Fletcher's favorite was the house that gave out freeze dried candy.  He's been wanting to try it forever.

The full sized candy bars were Olive's favorite.  She trick or treated our neighborhood with a buddy and then went out one more time with her polar bear bestie.  She wore cute black cat ghost earrings and made sure to pick out a set of them so that we could match.

Perfect Halloween pumpkin cat and real cat.

We carved pupmkins - Leo, Fletcher & Olive.  They turned out so cute.  Leo was very specific about wanting an angry pumpkin face.

This was a yummy iced coffee treat!  The big kids and I both enjoyed it from Walmart.  It was about $2 with a coupon clipped and SO much cheaper than swinging through Starbucks for a coffee treat.

I hope you had a Happy Halloween!  Now on to my birthday and Thanksgiving in November!

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.