A GreatHouse Wife

Halloween is one of the most festive holidays of the year! Second only really to Christmas!

So we decided to have some fun & add plenty of Halloween goodies into our days! It has been sort of a modge podge of fun since I was getting over being sick when October rolled in & really was not up to doing much!

A few weeks ago I grabbed Grey a little pumpkin cup from the dollar section & was so excited to break it out! He loves drinking from it & carrying it around like a toy! Snacks are so fun when there's pumpkin butter & pretzels involved!

I added some simple, yet cute, decorations around the house. We don't have tons accumulated yet and Germans don't really do Halloween so the selection of Halloween gear is rather limited. Some orange garlands & pictures of Grey with pumpkins really Fall up the place!

Check out that Happy Halloween sign! Adorable, right?! Thanks mom!

I've really been into banners these days & wanted one to hang up so decided to try my hand at a DIY! Trick or Treat seemed like a perfectly festive thing to hang up so I broke out my new Cricut & started at it! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Can't wait to make some for the rest of this year's holidays!

In preparation for Trick or Treating, I also grabbed Grey a pumpkin bucket to collect his loot! Until then, we shall collect plastic coins, Easter eggs & crayons!

Orange clothing is a must leading up to Halloween! Grey has a decent amount of orange in his wardrobe, thanks to being a Cleveland Browns family!

Of course the orange fun isn't just for Grey! Found this shimery orange gem from forever ago! I shall be rocking this beauty well into November!

Craft time! I cut a pumpkin out of a big piece of orange paper & some face shapes and glued a "stem," which is just a small piece of green streamer. A little glue on the back of the pieces & voila! I just let Grey explore the sticky pieces & let him stick away on the pumpkin.

His pumpkin is silly but I love it! And yes, I'm totally that mom that hung it up like it's a masterpiece! I wanted a picture of him holding it & got a screaming face instead.

Fall for sure for me means pumpkin everything! We just recently bought some pumpkin butter at the pumpkin festival we went to & I accidentally got addicted to it. Oops! Like obsessed. My husband said he highly doubts I haven't eaten any with a spoon. He might be right..

Of course we quickly ran out & the place we got it from is a bit of a drive so I tried my hand at a crockpot version!

Pumpkin Butter:

1 can Pumpkin Puree

1 cup Sugar

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

1/2 tsp Ginger

Throw it all in the crock pot & mix well. Cover & cook on high for 3 hours, stirring frequently so that it doesn't burn on the sides. I made a half batch to start out, only because I didn't have enough brown sugar on hand for the whole batch. I might have licked the spoon after it was done, just to make sure it isn't poison, and boy is it delicious!

I put it into the jar from the other pumpkin butter!

It lasts about 2-3 weeks in the fridge [if you don't devour it faster] & 6-9 months in the freezer!

Ah it's been such a fun start to the month & we have some more fun heading our way!

Stay tuned & join the link up fun here:

What fun things have you been up to this month to make October & Halloween special?! I'd love to hear!

Greyson is a typical toddler boy who has way more energy than he knows what to do with.

So after looking around & talking to a few people, I decided we should sign him up for Mommy & Me Gymnastics class! It is for 18 month-3 year olds, he barely made the cut-off! It meets once a week for 45 minutes & it's all hands on for mom too!

The class started the beginning of September & honestly, it wasn't a great start. He freaked out almost the entire time the first week, stressing us both out like crazy. I didn't understand why it seemed like every other kid followed directions while he was just screaming & throwing fit after fit. Then I realized he is one of the youngest & he'd never been in an instructional class before. And I've come to see each week that the other kids aren't perfect like I imagined, they're all toddlers with their own crazy moments!

So today was our 5th week & man has it gotten 1000 times better! Each week is little better in new ways, but today I was amazed & crazy proud of him! He did fantastic! He participated in the "stretching," played on things going in the right direction [mostly], and was open to trying new things I took him to!

It's usually just a bunch of small obstacle course-like things for the kids to climb & practice gymnastics things. Greyson is a master when it comes to summersaults! It's usually what he spends most of the time wanting to do. Guess all the practicing at home is paying off!

He's gotten really into the tunnels recently too. He used to be kind of scared of it, but he decided today they are fun & kept wanting to crawl through them.

Another favorite is the little soft stairs! Despite having stairs at home to climb, he finds them so fun & likes to play on them! This week was better since they were a part of an obstacle section instead of to climb to the big bars, which he won't hang on to!

The pictures aren't the best since I had to use my phone, which has a terrible camera, and he was constantly on the move! It really is a fun little time we are starting to have! I can't wait to keep watching how he improves each week!

In other news, it's finally October!! I couldn't be more excited! It's the start of the serious Fall weather & my favorite time of the year!

We kicked off our Fall with a trip to a pumpkin festival! I couldn't have been more excited about it!

I've heard about the festival the last 2 years, but usually not until the weekend it was happening & we would have plans already. So we had to make sure to go this year & try the goodies I've heard so much about!

It ended up being a beautiful & warm day! Great for walking around & having fun!

Greg grabbed some flam-kutchen to try, which is almost like a super flaky crusted pizza! And I got pumpkin soup that everyone raves about! It was super delicious! I'd love to find a way to replicate it here at home!

Greyson was fascinated by all of the dogs at the festival. He loves dogs & would stop in his tracks to stare at them. He even tried getting close up to a few and sneaking some pets on them, but I always caught him.

We spent some time playing in a small field that was full of hay & haystacks. Greyson was loving running around, climbing the haystacks & even got a bit of hay thrown at him a time or two! Once may have even been by daddy.. He started to get super itchy & irritated so we headed out to do some walking around!

There was a small section of pumpkins for sale that we explored a bit. We found a tiny one to show Grey that he could hold & he for sure thought he could bite into it like an apple!

Then a little someone got tired & passed out after some mommy cuddles! He's been teething pretty hard & not sleeping great so we weren't surprised. So he got to just chill the rest of the time & catch some Zzz's!

There was a few little games for the older kids or adults at heart to play. And a corn maze that I really wanted to do, but since Grey was asleep, we decided to head on home.

The small bottle we enjoyed while walking around a bit! We brought home 2 big bottles of Pumpkin Secco & pumpkin butter! Yummmm! Let me just say, that pumpkin butter is so delicious I don't ever want to eat toast another way again, ever!