My kids are at the most irresistible age where holidays are absolutely MAGICAL! I’ve got a five year old, 3 year old and a brand new baby and I couldn’t be more excited about the upcoming holiday season! These times are the times I’m sure I will absolutely treasure in 25 years when they are all (hopefully) out of the house and look back with such fondness.

 Before I had kids I never would fuss too much with holiday décor. I know that is boring and I LOVE it when I go to a friend or family’s house and it is all decked out in spooky Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas  décor. It’s kind of one of those things that I appreciate in other people but sadly I am just not good at it!

Now that my kids are at this blessed stage, however, it is about time I stopped being a Grinch and start getting more creative with how to have more festive holidays that we all can be excited about!

My Halloween Grinch heart was softened a little when I saw two of the cutest Halloween food items for a party I have ever seen. There are so many great Halloween ideas on Pinterest and our Cook’n feeds but here are two things that really stood out to me that I wanted to share for your next Halloween get-together.

One is a sour green apple punch that the author from flirtingwithflavor.com calls “Creepy Crawler Craveyard Punch”! Even the title of it is so cute!

It is basically just using 7-Up or Sprite as your base, then adding Apple Juice Concentrate, lime juice and a little green food coloring.  Then my favorite part about this is that you add green or black popping candies to the rim of the glass. How fun is that?!

This would be such a fun and yummy hit at a Halloween party or even just for a fun, quiet pumpkin-carving night at home with the kiddos.

The next thing I saw from the same blogger was this super cute mummy cake. I’m not a great cake decorater either—but this seemed like something I could do.

With this cake she just baked three 6” cakes from a chocolate cake mix, then whipped up some chocolate buttercream, which she added inbetween all the layers and around the outside of the cake. Then she made a simple chocolate ganache to drizzle on the top with semisweet chocolate and cream. Then lastly, she melted white chocolate to create bark, then drizzled more white chocolate on top so it looks like mummy stripes, broke it into chunks and stuck that into the top of the cake to look like little mummies. This little cake packs a lot of festive Halloween spirit for being so easy!

I plan to make these two things when I have a small Halloween party with our little family the night we carve pumpkins. It will be a great memory for years to come I hope! Do you plan to go to or host any Halloween parties this year?

Sour Apple Drink—Creepy Crawler Craveyard Punch

 

Ingredients

• 1 12oz can Apple Juice Concentrate
• 1 cup Fresh squeezed Lime Juice
• 2-5 drop Neon Green Food Coloring with optional Blue
• 1 2 Liter bottle 7UP *or Little Monster Cans of 7UP
• Sour Gummy Worms
• Green Popping Candies or Black Sugar Sprinkles

Instructions:

For the Cups

1. Dip the rims of your cups in either corn syrup or water (corn syrup gives a thicker candy rim but is harder to clean after),
2. then dip that rim in the popping candies and/or sprinkles

 

For the Punch

1. Combine Apple Concentrate, Lime Juice and Food Coloring and mix until well incorporated.
2. Add 7UP
3. *If making in individual servings, you will want about 2 Tablespoons of Juice mixture per mini can of 7UP.
4. Add Ice last if needed.

 

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