Happy Halloween & Dinner In A Pumpkin

Happy Halloween friends!

My little Rapunzel and my busy little bumble bee

What are you doing today? Do you have any Halloween traditions? We started our day with Jack -O-Lantern pancakes with special homemade syrup. Dinner on Halloween is big at our house! Every year since I was little we've had a family favorite recipe: Dinner In A Pumpkin. I'm hear to share it with you!


Dinner In A Pumpkin
Medium pumpkin cleaned out (save those seeds for homemade pumpkin seeds)
1 onion chopped
2 cans cream of chicken soup
3 cups of cooked rice
1 pound ground beef
2 Tablespoons oil
4 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar


In skillet saute onions in oil until tender. Add ground beef, cook until done and drain if needed. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes. Put in pumpkin and place pumpkin top back on. Place pumpkin on a baking sheet or in a baking dish (if its in a baking dish add a little water so the dish won't burn). Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.


I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does! Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Minnie Mouse Costume

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Now on to the good stuff! So are you excited for Halloween?! I know you probably haven't even been thinking about it but I've been wanting to share this project since I started this lil spot! It's almost August and that means just a couple months till Halloween! Hey if my summer is coming to an end (much to soon!) I need to have something to look forward to! Anyway, my cute little Deni loves loves loves Minnie Mouse! So last year when I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween it was no surprise when her answer was Minnie Mouse. Now I'm not into character clothing. My girls can wear all the character and princess pj's they want, but we don't own one princess or Dora t-shirt. It's just not my style. So when it came time to look for a Minnie Mouse costume I just wasn't impressed. $40 for a cheesy not very well made and only includes the little dress costume....so not for me! So I set out on making my own. It turned out so stinking cute! Of course that is 100% my opinion. :) I did it very similar to the girls dresses I made a few weeks ago and you can see that tutorial here. We used this adorable costume for Halloween last year and her birthday party a couple months ago.

Here's what I used:
4 yards red tulle
white pom poms
white boa
polka dot ribbon
elastic
craft glue
white gloves
black beanie (you never know what kind of weather we'll have in Utah on Halloween)

Here are the differences from the tutorial on the Summer Dress.

1. The measurements ended up being perfect to leave the tulle folded in half for the length by 4 yards for the width.
2. Attach white pom poms with craft glue. Make sure the glue only goes through the first layer of tulle.
3. Hand sew feather boa on seam where you've inserted the elastic. I also glued the edges of the boa to keep it from unravelling and leaving feathers all over my house.
4. Hand sew feather boa to top of white gloves.
5. Bows for shoes. Tie tulle in a bow and hot glue ribbon bow on top of it. I used twisty ties (you know the things on bread...that's what we call them) to attached them to her black shoes.

The Minnie Ears my daughter is wearing came from Disneyland (we went just a couple weeks before Halloween)

Halloween 2010



We added the beanie in this picture...it was so cold! You can also see the shoes really good in this one.

Deni also wanted a Minnie Mouse birthday party this year so this costume got double duty! We had a big mousketear adventure and I made each child their own Mickey/Minnie ears. It was super easy! Get headbands from the dollar store (mine came in a 4 pack) cut ear shapes from thick black foam. I purchased one piece for $1 and it made 8 headband ears. Hot glue ears to headband. For the Minnie ears I hot glued a bow on. They were a huge hit at the party and the left over ears are favorites in the dress up box. I'll be sharing a few more projects from the Minnie birthday party later this week or next. Have a fabulous day! Enjoy!

Our little family all sporting Minnie and Mickey ears at Deni's 3rd birthday.