Chalkboard Pumpkin Countdown

Fourteen days until Halloween! I have a snowman that countsdown to Christmas but nothing else. And my kids love to know exactly how many days are left until a special event. This year I created a chalkboard pumpkin to countdown the days until Halloween. Each day we wipe off the number and write the new one with chalk. After Halloween I'll change it to read Days Until Thanksgiving.

Just start with a good sized pumpkin. This one had a rounded front shown here and a nice flattened back that worked perfect for the countdown.

Apply a few coats of chalk board paint. And you're done.

Huge added perk to this simple craftiness is the kids can use the chalk to create different Jack-o-Lantern faces on the other side.

Happy Halloween!

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Easy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

The cookies are entirely too simple, perfect for fall and completely adaptable to your tastes. They can be made with only a handful of ingredients...ingredients you very well may have lurking in your pantry right now. Great for Halloween or Thanksgiving get-togethers or just for this afternoon.

All you need is cake mix, canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger. I'm a big fan of Betty Crocker cake mixes. I always stock up when they're on sale.

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Second Annual Open House Thanksgiving

For the second year we've done Thanksgiving a little untraditionally. Instead of sitting down to a meal with guests at a specific time. We've created a Thanksgiving Open House Party. We put out food from 9am until the last person leaves, this year that was around 11pm. I was so happily preoccupied with cooking, eating and chatting with friends and family I neglected taking hardly any pictures at all. But I'm blessed to report we had more than 35 people come share part of their day with us.

For the second year I roasted a large maple-brined, bacon-butter rubbed, bacon-wrapped turkey.

I was able to snap a picture of my man slicing her, with the grain. Ooops.

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Gingerbread Man Shaped Nutella Snacks

I had leftover refrigerated pie crust from Thanksgiving. I have no plans for pie in the immediate future. And frankly, if I make a pie I need to get busy with my Martha Stewart quest and bake hers complete with *cough*homemade*cough* crusts. So what to do with this crust? I decided to try and make a treat for the kids after dinner. I grabbed the dough, the Nutella and my gingerbread man cookie cutter.

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Thanks for the Spooky Leftovers in the Pantry

Leftover candy creation time!

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