Halloween '13

The day before Halloween, we went to my parent's house to paint pumpkins! Aunt Ray Ray joined us and we had a fun, messy time painting each of our pumpkins. G-Mommy helped Stella with her pumpkin and Stella loved switching up her colors and sticking her dirty brush in each of the colors. We just let her go at it and she had a blast. My mom had also gotten three cat masks for us to paint, too. Stella started out painting the whole thing orange and then she added every single other color! We have a little girl who definitely loves to paint and color! My mom had set up a fun lunch for us and then when Stella went down for her nap I started on pumpkin spice cookies. Oh my YUM! My first attempt at the cookies ended up with me having to re-do all the ingredients and so the second time around I bothered to READ the directions. I was a bit distracted the first go 'round and had to take Stella upstairs while I was combining ingredients the first time, so I combined every single ingredient before I realized that was incorrect. I'm SO glad I re-did it (I almost said to heck with it) because they may be one of my favorite cookies ever now. The icing is amazing, too. I'm glad I ate a few cookies at my parents house, because all the cookies I took home didn't even last a full 12 hours (ahem, thanks honey, take the pregnant girl's cookies ;))! I included the recipe below and I will probably be making another batch this week!

I picked up Stella's "Dorofy" (as she likes to call it) costume at Kid to Kid over a month ago. She already had a little stuffed dog that looked like Todo, and then my mom got her a little basket for Todo from Hobby Lobby. To date, I had not put her hair in pony tails or pig tails. And I'm not real sure why...other than her hair is a little overwhelming. It seems to grow out sideways rather than down! But, as soon as I put those pig tails in her hair I about died of cuteness! I was so happy with the way her costume came together...and of course she totally owned it!

Halloween night we went to the Trunk or Treat at our church. We had so much fun last year on the Abbott's hay ride, but I wanted to do something a little different this year. Plus, I've noticed that Stella is really starting to pay attention and notice things that scare her. She was kind of oblivious and too young last year to get scared. I just remembered so many "scary" things in the neighborhood last year that I wanted to take her somewhere that I knew would have less of a chance of the "scary" stuff being there.  I'm just not ready for her to start being fearful of things like that. She had a BLAST at Trunk or Treat and was so cute looking at everything. She loved someone's car who had done spiderman and batman. They had a blow up spider man on top of their van and she could not peel herself away! She was a little nervous of Darth Vader at the Stars Wars car at first, but she seemed to get over it. They had some bounce houses and bounce slides and she loved those, too. We had a great evening and I just loved seeing my cute little Dorothy enjoying herself! My parents, sister, sister in-law, brother in-law, niece, mother in-law and father in-law all came to the Trunk or Treat - I love having our families close by!

{My ADORABLE little niece!! Grace is rocking the monster costume!}

Pumpkin Spice Cookies:

 Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of softened butter
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• Frosting
• 1 cup (2 sticks) of softened butter
• 8 oz of room temperature cream cheese
• 4 cups of powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• pinch of kosher salt

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine sugar and butter, and beat with paddle attachment until fluffy.
4. Add egg and vanilla, and continue beating until combined.
5. Add flour mixture and stir just until combined.
6. Scrape down sides of bowl as needed.
7. Roll two tablespoons of cookie dough into a ball and place on baking sheet.
8. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until edges are golden. Don't over bake.
9. Let cool and frost.
10. Sprinkle cookies with additional pumpkin pie spice.
11. To prepare frosting, using the paddle attachment, beat butter, powdered sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and pinch of salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.
12. With mixer still running, add in vanilla extract.
13. Divide cream cheese into 8 cubes and drop them into the mixture one at a time until well combined.