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      This time of year, things begin to get busy as we gear up for the holidays.  So, sometimes it is nice to read short stories instead of an entire novel when you can fit in little bits of time to read.  I think of Halloween as the first holiday of the season, and these short anthologies of spook stories are just the ticket to turn up the spookiness level for your middle grade kids!
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     Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories is a group of 14 supernatural tales specifically selected by him that are sure to add the creepiness to Halloween or to nights around the campfire! He has included some superb, well known authors' works in this collection that is sure to please!  
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Josh Allen's Out to Get You: 13 Tales of Weirdness and Woe is described as spine tingling and spooky, but not so bad that it will keep anyone up at night.  Sounds just right to me!
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Stinetinglers  by R.L. Stine are new tales created by the master of the creepy and the spooky! Goosebump books fly off of the shelves in school libraries, and this one is sure to be another hit! 
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     That should be just enough scary stories to get you and your kids through Halloween! I hope you give some of them a try! 
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Other Scary Books We've Talked About:

• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• Harry Potter Books
• In a Dark Dark Wood
• The Witches
• The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
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     It is that pumpkin everywhere and everything time of year! And, it doesn't make us mad!  It makes Lindsey downright ecstatic!  
     
      Since Lindsey's birthday is coming up this week, I thought I should stick with the pumpkin theme and do a round-up of our favorite pumpkin cookies!  You are going to want to give all of these a try! 

     Pictured above are 3 Ingredient Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!  There is everything to love about these cookies!  They are simple to make, they are delicious and they have chocolate!  
     Also, this recipe was the kick off for more 3 Ingredient cookies.  If you are a subscriber, you may go to our subscribers only page to get all of the recipes.  If you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and do it  and you will be emailed the link! While you are there, there is a new Halloween Card Free Printable that Alicia designed just for you that is so awesome!  Plus, tons of other things just for our subscribers!​

These delicious things are Pumpkin Chocolate Cookies.  Lindsey loves dark chocolate, and these moist cookies reflect that.   Don't they just look like they are waiting to be dunked in a glass of milk?
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      Snickerdoodles are always a favorite around here, especially warm from the oven.  These Pumpkin Snickerdoodles do not disappoint!  Be sure to click over to this post, because you will have the added treat of seeing my granddaughter giving the introduction to the recipe on a cute little video! (She loves to bake with her mom.)
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     My personal favorite of this bunch of cookies are the ones I don't have a photo of!  I guess I should make a batch and take some pictures!  These are Bakery Style Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies!  They are to die for!  

     There you go!  4 ways to make pumpkin cookies that are amazing!  4 ways to add some Fall Flavor  to your life! 4 kinds of deliciousness!  So, get baking! Take some cookies to the Halloween Party at the end of the week or deliver some to friends and neighbors!  They'll be glad you did! 
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Lately I have been thinking about what to do on Halloween night. Because there aren't any parties going on with friends and it looks like trick-or-treating isn't really happening in my neck of the woods. I plan on having my kids trick-or-treat from door to door in our home among other ideas I posted for our Quaranween like crafts and costume contests. But I wanted something fun to wrap up the night. That's when I decided we could do a Halloween movie marathon!

When I started thinking of my favorite Halloween movies, I realized most of them are from Disney. Hocus Pocus, Halloweentown, Don't Look Under the Bed. Also my favorite Halloween shorts are from Disney too. Trick or Treat and Lonesome Ghosts are two Mickey and friends cartoons that I remember watching as a child.

This gave me the idea to make a list of all the Halloween related movies, shows, and shorts on Disney+ and share the list. Actually my original idea was a checklist, but there ended up being way more than I could include. The list contains all Halloween related movies and shows. It even contains memorable Halloween themed episodes.

You may notice that Disney+ has a Halloween collection on their search page. Our lists overlap some, but mine doesn't include some of what's on theirs because I didn't find it to be Halloweenish. And mine includes things that aren't on their list because I felt they were iconic Halloween episodes (I'm looking at you "And Then There Was Shawn" the ICONIC scary episode of Boy Meets World).

I also Included Coco and the Day of the Dead episode of Lizzie McGuire. I know they're not Halloween themed (well actually the Lizzie McGuire one Is a cross-over) but I love them! 

I also couldn't include all the Disney Jr episodes, so I left it at Vampirina. 

I hope this list helps you to celebrate Halloween. You can curate the perfect list of what to watch on Halloween with your family and not miss any of your faves.

I have the list in a printable format and on Instagram we'll be sharing a template for your IG story. 

​Happy Halloween!

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Since it's October I thought I would share a fun and easy decoration to make for your home. Your kids or grandkids might enjoy doing this with you as well.

Since we're doing Halloween at home I wanted to make it extra fun with our decorations. I decided to show my kids how to make those little garlands where it looks like all the people are holding hands, but with a Halloween twist!

My kids were so amazed and happy when I unfolded the garlands. They loved them!

So today I have a free subscriber printable of these stencils. I went with fun monster faces for these. They're simple to cut out and would be great practice for your young scissor users.I had my son (5) cut out the big outline and then I cut out the face details. He also traced the stencil onto the construction paper.

I made these stencils to fit a regular sized piece of construction paper when folded into fourths. If your paper is a little different size than mine, no worries, just make sure that you don't cut the sides completely and your garland should still work.

To make the stencils:

1. Fold a piece of construction paper (or regular paper) into fourths.
2. Cut out all the grey areas on your stencils.
3. Trace the stencil onto the top layer of your folded construction paper.
4. Cut out along your traced lines. Be sure not to cut the sides completely or the shapes won't be connected. Make sure all 4 layers of paper are cut and don't forget to cut out the inside shapes of the faces. *For the mummy you can cut slits to make it look like overlaid wrappings.
5. Unfold your garland and hang up to enjoy!

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