“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” party

I love Snoopy and Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang!  I remember looking forward to watching their specials on TV when we were young.  (I also love pumpkins) so it was easy to come up with the perfect theme for a fall birthday party for my son.  I haven’t watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!” for years, but I remember how Linus made me laugh, trying to wait all night in a pumpkin patch.  So this party started with a little pumpkin patch.  I had made some fondant pumpkins for cupcake toppers, and so there  were still some just sitting around, waiting to form a pumpkin patch for Linus.Add in a “great pumpkin” and some more chipboard Peanuts characters (from last year’s kids’ Thanksgiving table)…..I had found some little packets of tissues with Snoopy on them, so they were a bit of a favor at each place….There were some other cute and fairly easy pumpkin ideas that were fast enough to put together for this party.  My sister told me about using mandarin oranges as little pumpkins….Just peel them and add “stems” from celery, or in this case, stems from spinach leaves!  And a bit of cilantro for leaves around the pumpkins.  And then a jelly bean favor for each kid, this idea I found here on Parenting.com.  I happened to have some red tulle (no orange!), so wrapped the orange jelly beans in it, then added pipe cleaner for a stem (and to hold the bag together) and some green curled ribbon for the tendrils.  Didn’t take long to put together.The orange tablecloth and birthday banner I had saved from last year’s Garfield party…My preschool nephews were visiting, so I was trying to think of ideas that they could help out with for this party….baking!!  Let’s make some birthday brownies!! (from a box!!)You could always add a pumpkin puree swirl into the chocolate brownies, that would be finger lickin’ good!  (or pumpkin and cream cheese!! ahhhh!)  Another idea that turned out great to do with the little kids was to make a birthday poster.  First I drew a picture of Snoopy with a Sharpee marker on posterboard, then covered it up with white paper and painter’s tape.  Then let the kids at it with paint daubers (bingo dabbers?)A fun idea even the youngest can help with!After painting is dry, peel off the tape to reveal….Snoopy!Then an older kid colored the words in with black marker so they’d stand out a bit.  Posters, bday banner, favors, centerpiece, check!!….bring on the food and the party!

A happy pumpkin with a jack-o-lantern face from Papa Murphy’s pizza…..it’s the season for those, and they were just right for our pumpkin theme.  We love Papa Murphy’s pick up and bake at home pizzas!Time for pizza!Pumpkins! (oops, that’s from something else!)Linus’s pumpkin patch moves over to the birthday brownies….Make a wish….Happy birthday!  Check out some more pumpkin ideas…Here are some more pumpkin food ideas that I’ve worked on in the last few days, and they’d be perfect for a  Charlie Brown pumpkin theme.  My mom told me about some cute pumpkin cheese-balls that she saw, so I tried them out….How to: mix up softened cream cheese with spices (garlic, onion, paprika, pepper, season salt, or whatever you like) and some grated cheddar or mozzarella cheese.  I also added chopped sun dried tomatoes.  Let sit for a few moments in the refrigerator to harden a bit, then pull it out, divide into two chunks, cover with plastic wrap and shape into 2 balls.  On top of the plastic wrap, mark the lines on the pumpkin with a back of a knife.  Return to fridge.  Later, before serving, take off the plastic and roll the cheese-balls in crushed nacho cheese tortilla chips (Doritos!) and add the stems from some bell peppers.The stems were easy to cut out….cut out from the pepper, along with the seeds, then cut right at the base of the stem, it kind of just popped off….crushed Doritos…I added paprika, but don’t do that, it dulled the color….When you press in the stem, it helps squash it into a pumpkin shape…I took a knife and re-made some of the indentations on the sides….Such cute, tasty little guys!And one last pumpkin idea….we just loved this one!  I found a video on how to make these adorable pumpkin buns, by Hani, from Haniela’s.  She has all sorts of great how-to videos for lots of yummy eats!  She made these in just an hour.  My first time to try took close to an hour and a half, but the next time was faster….and really, 35 minutes of that time is letting the buns rise, so really they’re pretty quick to make!  And so adorably pumpkiny!!  (Click on the link above for her video and recipe! you can do it!)  You can make large ones for hamburger buns, how fun is that??Make the dough and cut….Let rise, add egg wash and sesame seeds, Bake for about 12 minutes…Add a stem and there you go!!  I didn’t have the big pretzel sticks, so used several small skinny ones.  I’ve also seen photos with pecans as stems!I just love those pumpkins!!  All pumpkins, I guess.  We had a lovely day out at a pumpkin (and everything else) farm and I had such a great time!  Love photographing pumpkins!Hope you got some ideas for your next fall party…oh, I just saw that It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is on TV tonight….pumpkin memories!! 😉

DIY Fall Decor

There are lots of easy things you can do to decorate your home for fall, autumn, Thanksgiving, all the fun October and November times!  Look around to see what you have on hand, hidden away somewhere, like baskets and birdcages, then add some nature and raffia 🙂  Here are some of the things I came up with for this year….without really buying anything new except the hens and the moose….A few years ago I invested in a wicker cornucopia basket, so that always comes out of storage, to be filled with flowers or fruit for our Thanksgiving table.  Started with some fake flowers, then added some small red lights, some dollar store grapes and free picked nature!I loved the green vine flower things that I found on one of my walks, they really dried nicely…Baskets stuffed with nature:

A brown feather wreath for the front door:

This next photo isn’t home made, but could be….little stuffed hens on a beaded cord….our newest Fall decor addition to hang by the window and by our chore chalkboards in the kitchen:Also in the kitchen, a little gnome who doesn’t want to freeze outside (he’s also afraid of being gnome-napped), an old apple basket and our avocado plant, also afraid of freezing….

Another one of my little friends who always seems to be hanging around, the blackbird.  I just love watching the blackbirds, crows and magpies out the window in the fall…

Add in some of my favorites: pumpkins!

And if you can’t find real pumpkins, make some chubby stuffed pumpkins, no sew! Tiny colored frames from Michaels can be filled with black cardstock, then written on with chalk for a chalkboard look, add a big-eyed owl…
Some table decor:
Fruit and veggies always make colorful decorations.  This year’s splurge: a pomegranate!  And how about some fresh cranberries floating with some apples stuffed with candles….this was a combination of ideas that I pinned on my Fall Ideas Pinterest board.My Guatemalan textiles always come out for fall….ok, they’re always out, all year around!  And Pies are a great fall decor idea!!  And they are good for so many things….
Pumpkin, a tradition.My first cherry pie and dollar store ceramic pumpkins.A very old painted Canadian flag made by one of my kids a long long time ago.  Something else made by my kids: a clothespin wreath hanging on a chalkboard!My last DIY Fall Decor Idea: plant sunflower seeds in the spring and transfer them to your backyard for super Natural fall decor! 🙂  Doesn’t seem like ours bloomed early enough to get the seeds for eating, though…
Have a great rest-of-the-fall!!  Looks like it could snow in a couple of days around here…..so soon I’ll be packing up and disassembling my fall decor…..Christmas is coming!!! 🙂

A Canadian Thanksgiving…

Like I mentioned before, I didn’t grow up celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving…at least not very often.  I grew up in Guatemala, in a mainly American and Guatemalan community, so we weren’t exposed to many Canadian traditions back then.  Now that I live in Canada and have my own little family, I’ve tried to start a few of our own “Canadian” traditions for our October Thanksgiving celebrations.  The other day I saw a quote that said “My favorite color is October!” and I totally agree!  I just love everything about fall in Western Canada!  Our biggest tradition so far is having my siblings come to our house for Thanksgiving weekend, and I try and put together a Thanksgiving meal.  Here are a few photos from our Thanksgiving this year…
We made cookie place cards and chocolate acorns for the table-settings.  And yes, we actually ate at the dining room table….I finally got my stuff cleared off it.  It happens about once a year, for Thanksgiving (maybe possibly for Christmas).  Now that it is cleared off, every time we’ve eaten there recently I feel like we need to have a really delicious dessert after every meal….
The moose is to represent our relatives who live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and just Canada in general.  The tablecloth and place-mats are from Guatemala, to remember our family in Guatemala.
The cornucopia celebrates a good harvest and being thankful for abundance, good food and fall!I am so not an expert cooking meat or poultry….and have only cooked about 3 turkeys in my life….so our turkey was fairly amateurish (and would you believe, last minute?).  No time for a fancy bed of yumminess for this birdie…  I’m finding it really hard work to get a fancy meal cooked, put together and on the table….(really hard, that’s why I have to take a lot of photos of when it actually happens!)
This is the part where I feel a little lot more comfortable….the desserts.   Though I kind of lost my Mom’s pie crust recipe this year, so had to go on a big search….I think I found one close enough that it tasted the same (we use the old-fashioned version that uses an egg and vinegar).  Yummy pumpkin pie!!  Though we grew up eating a different kind–carrots disguised as pumpkin, since pumpkins were scarce in Guatemala for some reason…
A tradition that I’ve started in the last few years is making Linzer cookies for Thanksgiving.  This year I cut out moons, and decided they looked like mouths, so added some eyes for some cute little critter cookies.  I used a new Linzer cookie recipe with ground up pecans this year, but wasn’t sure if I liked the pecans in the dough.  I’ll try and find another recipe next year.  Do you have a recipe for Linzer cookies that you’d like to share?
We watched the cartoon A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and I just happened to have Charlie Brown’s ingredients on hand, so made up a plate for the kids….pretzel sticks, popcorn, jellybeans, and buttered toast!!  🙂
I like to have visual textual reminders of the season…..like a framed Thanksgiving printable
 The best part is sharing a delicious meal with family and remembering to live in an attitude of gratitude to God, for Him and all His blessings.