Perfect Fall Trail Mix

Growing up my mom would always make a Fall mix - peanuts and candy corn.  It's delicious.  I promise!  I wanted to make a Fall Trail Mix of my own this year.  I started collecting all of my favorite ingredients and dumped them into a bowl together.  

I was tempted to add raisins because my kids love them BUT the thought of me accidentally grabbing a raisin and eating it made me gag.  Sorry, kids.  This mix only includes my favorites.  Don't worry - Fletcher gave my mix a 10/10 and loves it.  Olive says it gets a 9/10 because she wishes the chocolate chips didn't get peanut salt on them.  Can't win them all...

This pretty trail mix would be perfect from September through November!

 

Perfect Fall Trail Mix:

salted peanuts

almonds

Brach's candy corn

Brach's candy pumpkins

Cadbury chocolate eggs

M&Ms

dark chocolate chips

Tip: Aldi has really affordable almonds, peanuts and chocolate chips.

Now just eye ball it!  Dump everything together and enjoy.  I'm keeping a jar of it on my kitchen counter, will take it on any road trip we go on and might even gift a jar of it to our neighbors.

 

What would you make sure to include in your version of a perfect Fall trail mix?

Easy DIY Donut Cake

Thank you for all of your kind words yesterday!  We really appreciate your love and concern for Fletcher and our family!

Let's pivot to something happy today... DONUTS!

I always let the kids pick their birthday treats and Olive requested sugar cookies and donuts.  Our local donut shop - Square Donuts - is her favorite.  I hopped in the car early on the morning of her birthday to get a dozen donuts on her actual birthday.  They're $9.09/dozen which makes for a very affordable birthday cake option.

She got the idea to stack them.  I had offered to form them into a #7 and put a candle in them, but she thought a stacked donut cake would be fun.  She was right.  It turned out great!

You just need a few things:
a dozen of your favorite donuts (a variety works well)
sprinkles
candle
*optional: a cake plate.

We learned a few things along the way:
1. Donuts are really best the day you buy them.  This cake needs to be made the same day you buy them.
2. Start your stack with the glazed donuts on the bottom and the icing donuts higher up.
3. Wait to stack them until about an 1-2 before the party so the donuts don't get too stuck together.
4. Sprinkle the whole cake with some sprinkles.

Donut cake success!

Would anyone in your family enjoy this cake?

Halloween Charcuterie Board

Happy Halloween week!!

I put together a really fun Halloween Charcuterie Board dinner over the weekend.  Holiday boards are my favorite.  I didn't buy very many specialty ingredients for this board - just lots of our favorite things + a few fun Halloween elements. 

It was cold and rainy all day on Saturday so we baked our favorite pumpkin cookies, did some Halloween crafts and ate Halloween themed food.  Thankfully, Sunday was much nicer and we were able to get out and about.

The whole family loved the Halloween meal and I loved that I made it a few days before Halloween.  The actual night of Halloween is always nuts and we end up eating something super quick.  Don't feel like you have to wait until the actual holiday to make festive food.  Make it whenever it works best for you!

My friend Heather did some cute cheese cut outs on a Halloween board she made.  I used her idea for inspiration and got out my mini cookie cutters.  I did cheese witch hats and pumpkins.  My kids LOVED the shaped cheese.  I wish I would have done more for them!  You'll probably see cheese cut outs in their lunches this week.

I added all the orange things I could - cheese, Goldfish, carrots, peaches, apricots, Cheetos and candy.  We called the olives eyeballs and made up silly Halloween names for the other foods - ghost cheese, witch broom stick pretzels, peach ears, boo-berries, etc.

I usually don't put dessert on my boards, but this was really fun.  We just set the rule that we had to eat dinner first and dessert last.  Everyone at dinner and then got the okay to start dessert.  We did dessert just like we do our boards - eat one item at a time and try to change up the type of food you eat every time.

I had time in the afternoon to put the board together.  I rearranged the fridge a tiny bit so I could assemble the board and store it.  This worked out great!  I was able to just pull the board out when it was dinner time instead of rushing around with hungry little people surrounding me.  I'll probably try to do this again in the future for Charcuterie board dinners.

My Mom gifted us these skeleton salad tongs!  The kids thought they were HILARIOUS.  We scooped up items from the board to add to our Halloween plates.  They laughed about them all throughout our dinner.  I think they came from Dollar Tree and they were surprisingly durable.  We used our Pottery Barn Kids Halloween plates.  I think I have 2-3 sets of them that I've collected over the years.  They're wonderful!

These are my kid's #1 favorite cookie.  Here's the recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They're so good!  I make them a lot in the Fall, but my family loves them so much that I've been known to make them year round.  They're my go to cookie to take to Thanksgiving with my pies.

We also watched Hocus Pocus for the FIRST TIME.  None of us had ever seen it.  And it was fine.  Kind of silly.  Not that scary.  But I'd probably be just fine if I never saw it again.  I know it has a major fan following, but I'm just so so about it.  Have you seen Hocus Pocus?

It's going to be a busy, fun week at our house!

Valentine Dessert Board

I am so excited to share this Valentine dessert idea with you today!

I had the best time coming up with it and did a little practice run for my family.  They were more than happy to taste test for me.

Cheese boards, Charcuterie boards, dessert boards... they're all the rage right now.  And I'm happy to jump on board with that board bandwagon :)

They are so much fun and a really great way to get in a lot of different foods.

Let me introduce you to a delicious Valentine Dessert Board!!

Isn't it sweet!?!?

I tried hard not to go overboard with this dessert board.  Have you seen those GIANT food boards that keep popping up on social media??  The ones that are the size of a giant kitchen island??  I just can't imagine having enough people over to eat a board of that size.  It just seems wasteful.  So I'm sticking to small.  It's the perfect size for my family to snack on for a coupe of days around Valentine's Day.

Which sweet treat would you go for first?
I started with the chocolate dipped strawberries.

15 Board ingredients:
Nutragrain bar
Strawberries, bananas, raspberries and apples
Aldi Nutella
Aldi Pretzel sticks
Swedish fish hearts
Gummi lifesavers
Pez, Nerds, Hugs and Rolos
Most Stuf Oreos
Animal Crackers
Heart food picks from Dollar Tree & Tassel food picks from Meijer

I bought fresh fruit, raided my pantry and candy jar for Valentine's day treats and did not buy many new things for this board.  Just a reminder: You don't have to go broke putting together fun food boards.  Buy a couple new things and use a lot of what you have!

What Valentine's Day dessert will you serve to your family??

We have big plans to make valentines for friends, bake some cookies, mail out valentines, prep for Olive's Valentine's Day party at school and read all of our Valentine's Day books.  Here are 12 of our very favorite Valentines/lovey books.  There are so many cute options that would be the perfect valentine gift for the kids in your life.

*Affiliate links - thanks for supporting Polka-Dotty Place *

These are our favorites:


Linking up with Tanya for Prime Purchases & Welcome Wednesday

Christmas Pepper Jelly Dip

I love to bring appetizers or dessert to holiday parties.  I usually try to do some kind of finger foods or things that don't require silverware to be eaten.  It just seems easier that way.  We went to Kevin's Christmas party on Friday night and I brought a yummy pepper jelly dip.  It was so easy to assemble.  It turned out really pretty and only required 4 ingredients!!  Sign me up!

Christmas Pepper Jelly Dip

Ingredients:
Red Pepper Jelly
Pineapple Jalapeno Jelly
1 block of cream cheese
1 box of Wheat Thins

I picked up the jellies and cream cheese at Aldi last week.  The jelly is in the holiday aisle and was only $1.99.  The cream cheese was on sale for $0.89 I think.  

Directions:
Cut the block of cream cheese in half and put on a plate.  Be sure to separate them a bit.

Scoop out half of the jar of pepper jellies into bowls and stir them.  This step helps smooth out the jelly and makes them really easy to pour on top of the cream cheese.

Pour the red jelly on one block and the green jelly on the other.  The red pepper jelly was the favorite.  Both sides got eaten, but people seemed to enjoy the red more.  I've always seen this dish done with just one type of jelly.  I enjoyed changing things up a bit and adding in a second jelly option.

Isn't it the prettiest Christmas appetizer??
I added a little candy cane knife and this dish was a big hit.

Enjoy!!  You just can't beat an easy appetizer that only has 4 ingredients, takes less than 10 minutes to assemble and is really good!!

North Pole Breakfast

We had our 5th annual North Pole Breakfast this weekend! 

It's such a fun tradition to kick off Christmas at our house. 

I aim for doing it in early December.  I usually pick a weekend day so we don't have to rush off to school.  Some years it's Dec 1st and other years it just happens during on the first weekend in December.  So it's not too late to have a North Pole breakfast of your own!

The kids get new Christmas pjs,
a couple of Christmas ornaments representing their current favorite things,
a Christmas book and Christmas candy. 
I added in some new house slippers this year.

I set up everything the night before and the kids wake up to find a special breakfast waiting for them.  I rarely do any elaborate cooking for this meal.  My kids LOVE white powdered donuts *only Tasty Kake will do so I usually just opt for adding easy, festive things to their breakfast plates.

They love it all!

These Santa riding a unicorn plates were a HUGE hit.  I found them at TJ Maxx.  I didn't buy any new linens, napkins or place mats.  Just pulled decorations from things I already had.

These are my favorite kind of ornaments to give the kids - sweet animals that aren't fragile!  They look so cute on their trees.  

 Good morning!!

Breakfast menu: Fruit loops, Cheerios, berries, Lucky Charms marshmallows, mini muffins, powdered donuts, Chocolate dipped donuts and Goldfish.  I added in some cute Meri Meri Christmas food picks from TJ Maxx.  Super easy to put together!

We got a new Pete The Cat Saves Christmas (really cute!) & Mary Engelbreit Nutcracker book (super fun!).  I read them to the kids while they ate.

Loved this cute set up on our island :)

Glimpse back at our North Pole Breakfasts:

2017: North Pole Breakfast

2016: North Pole Breakfast

2015: North Pole Breakfast

2014: North Pole Breakfast

We look forward to kicking off Christmas with this breakfast every year.

Thanksgiving Break & Holiday Fun

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving break!

It was so nice to have some time off even if we had to deal with some unexpected kid sickness.  We went to Florida for a few days, enjoyed a few days at home and then road tripped to visit our families for Thanksgiving.  We did a tiny bit of Black Friday sales mostly online and we did a lot of yard work yesterday.  Did you find any great deals???

The best parts of Thanksgiving were:

The desserts!!  Pie for the adults.  Cookies for the kids.

Double Oven!!  This was my first holiday to have a double oven and it was so nice.  It really made my baking go so quickly.

Colorful plates of Thanksgiving goodness.

 Inflatable turkeys are so much fun.

Fletcher has two Great Grandpas.  He loves their canes and always asks to borrow them for a bit.  

The kids played with cousins all day long.    The littlest at the little table and the big kids in the dining room.

We visited Divinity the Donkey.  My kids LOVE her.  

Olive got sick on Black Friday so the rest of our visit was spent sticking close to home.  My mom cooked for us, we got take out from some yummy restaurants and played lots of games.  Fletcher loves the Crispix mix and Olive loved the caramel corn.  We also tackled several organizing projects at my parent's house.

My mom and I snuck out of the house for a bit.  It wasn't the shopping we'd hoped to do, but it was good to get out and about.  She also got a hair makeover that looks great.

Notre Dame won their last regular season game to finish 12-0!  It was a fun season.  On to the playoffs!!  These cute cheerleaders are ready.

Touchdown!

These two love my parent's porch swing.

Teamwork makes yard work better.

I'm excited for all of the holiday blog content I've got coming your way in the next few weeks.  You should definitely think about joining in the fun of a holiday home tour link up on Dec 12 and a really easy instagram photo challenge in the month of December.

Happy Monday!  Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving even if it didn't go as planned.