Fall Favorites

I’m writing this post as one of a group of posts with other bloggers about some things/items we just love about Fall. After you read my post, check out their posts below and see what things other people like about fall as well!

There are things uniquely fall that I just love. The smell of apple cider, colorful leaves, and crisp mornings with a steaming cup of coffee, to name a few. While summer is my favorite season, I still enjoy fall, and all the different smells and sights that come with it.

I started working on this list and realized that my favorite things about fall seem to center around food. Caramel sauce, sweet potatoes, tea, etc. It’s just that time of year when I feel like baking and cooking. I included some food on my list but did my best to include some other things as well.

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1. Mickey Jack O Lantern – I purchased this years ago at a silent auction. The tag said it was Disney though. Every fall, we pull it out and my kids use it as their bathroom nightlight all October and November.

I hide it again when we return home after Thanksgiving, and we save it for next year. I think the kids love seeing the fun Mickey smile through the fall, plus it’s not terribly bright so it makes a perfect nightlight.

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2. Fall Candles – I just love candles, and fall has some really great scents. Pumpkin, leaves, cinnamon, apple, etc. All those wonderful, comfort scents that come with fall. Plus since it’s getting cooler out it’s nice to have a candle burning to give the feeling of warmth – since I don’t have a fireplace.

I love a fireplace, there just isn’t one in my house. So I make do with what I can. For me, that means lots of candles in the fall and winter months.

My favorite brand is Yankee Candle. They just always burn well and smell so great! This Autumn Wreath scent is one of my favorites, it’s fall, without being festive. Since I like to save the December holiday scents for December so I can enjoy fall for as long as possible.

The real trick with candles is keeping my kids from blowing them out before I’m ready. Since my kids just love blowing out candles.

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3. Russian Tea – My husband introduced me to this years ago. It’s a super simple “tea” to make, delicious, and so perfect for a crisp fall evening. Last week, I mixed up my first batch of Russian Tea for this fall. It’s something everyone in my family loves. And with the Tang, it even has some vitamin C.

I love to mix up a mason jar full and just keep it on my counter for whenever I want a cup.

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Russian Tea

1 cup Tang
1 cup instant tea (I prefer Lipton)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Pour all ingredients in a mason jar, close the lid, shake until well mixed.

To make tea, mix two heaping spoonfuls of mix with boiling water in a coffee cup.

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4. Salad Spinner – It’s that time of year when my CSA gives me lots of lettuce. Around here, we get lettuce in the spring and lettuce in the fall. My salad spinner is a lifesaver. I love salad, and fresh lettuce is delicious, but it’s a pain to dry.

This salad spinner works great, and is so easy to use that usually my kids spin my lettuce dry for me. I usually spin a whole head of lettuce, dry my spinner, then just cover it with a towel in the fridge and I have delicious, clean, lettuce in my fridge for days!

I bought my spinner a few years ago so it’s no longer available on Amazon, but I did find one that looks just like it.

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5. Leaves – And last but not least, I just love the leaves in the fall. I love the colors, the crunch, and just the fun of making a pile and then playing in it. I don’t do much jumping in leaves these days, but it sure is fun to watch the kids play in the leaves. The great part is the play, rake, play, and wear themselves out, then all come in and take baths. It makes for a very fun day for them with minimal effort from me.

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What’s one thing you love about fall? Check out these other awesome blogs for more fall inspiration!

Joanne from Seasonal Family Fun | Stephanie from Wife Mommy Me | Alicia from TaylorLife | Rachee from Say It Rachee | Jenny from Chocolate ‘N Children | Jennifer from Simply At Home Mom | Jenn from More Than A Mom Of Three | Laurie from Steals & Deals For Kids

* This post does contain affiliate links.

 

My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Parks and MomSelect for the awesome box full of Disney party supplies and sponsor products! We had a great time showing our #DisneySide!

There were several hostess gifts, A full-size box of laundry packets from All – which I’ve been wanting to try but didn’t want to spend the money and find out I don’t like it, so now I get to try it for free! Horray!

Also included was a Mickey Mouse pan and this awesome Duff Tie-Dye cake mix. Which you can purchase at Target. How did I not know about this already?!

My box was perfect! We celebrated my little girl’s 4th birthday this weekend and she wanted a Minnie Mouse party. Guess what! I got the Mickey and Friends box, she was super excited!

There was nail polish – the peel off kind, that I love for the girls – two Palace Pets, Minnie and Mickey party supplies and some fun Mickey Mouse party games like “pin the smile on Mickey”, Disney bingo, and a princess word search.

I already had her Birthday party scheduled at a local Bounce House place and I couldn’t bring food to that so I used the Minnie treat boxes to make the gift boxes for the kids that came to the party. I put in them the purple confetti that was packed in the box (it was used as packing material and purple is my 4yr old’s favorite color so this worked out really well). The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse pencils, crayons, stickers, and each child got a Mickey or Minnie luggage tag, and I assembled the Disney Diamonds and put candy in them. It made for a cute and easy treat box! I posted a video to my YouTube channel showing off my gift boxes!

The cake tower was so much fun! I didn’t have a way to integrate it into the party so we ended up using it for cupcakes on her actual Birthday and had a mini celebration on our own.

We have lots of family that lives in town, so, not to leave them out, we had another Birthday party the day after her party with friends (I know, 3 birthday parties, it doesn’t get much better than this).

I made the Mickey Mouse cake for this party. I had trouble getting the cake out of the pan – I ended up getting it out in pieces, piecing it together, and using lots of extra icing and it turned out great. Plus, everyone loves extra icing! The TieDie Cake mix is awesome! Everyone was so impressed with my cooking skills and it was so super easy! I’ll be making more TieDye cakes for parties. This is such a perfect party cake and really way easier to make than it seems it would be.

For my Sunday guests, I passed out the HP photo paper and we played the Disney games with the kids. Such fun! We had an awesome week of showing our Disney Side!

I received free products in order to host a Disney Side @Home Celebration. The opinions expressed here are my own.

My Disney Side Party

Thanks to Disney Side @Home Celebrations for my awesome box of party supplies for my #Disneyside party! With all these snow days we’ve just been off of our schedule for weeks, so I decided to keep it simple and do a playdate. Actually, I did a playdate and a pre-playdate the night before plus a few other random things throughout the week.

The first evening we had some friends over and the kids played the disney bingo and won prizes from our Disney prize bag – I used the stickers, balloons, bracelets, tatoos, and bumper stickers. A couple of the kids that were going to come ended up not being able to come as planned but we still had a great time! We had spaghetti for dinner and monster cupcakes in our Mickey Mouse cupcake wrappers.

The next morning we had our playdate. There were 6 kids total, we decorated T-shirts, played Disney bingo, colored our race posters, ate more cupcakes, and let the kids play.

I had traced mickey and minnie pictures onto the shirts before the party so all the kids (or moms) had to do was color them in. We all had a blast! I think the moms had more fun than the kids did coloring!

I don’t have a color printer or a photo printer so I gave away all the photo card paper at the party, and it’ll definitely get used. People were pretty excited to get to print their own pictures!

Only a few of the kids wanted posters so I had a few posters left over after the party that I sent to my sisters for Valentines day.

The next day me and the kids made our Mickey Mouse cookies and shared them with some friends we had over. The cookies turned out great and the kids had a great time decorating them! I finally figured out a good sugar cookie icing recipe (water, powdered sugar, and food coloring – when it dries you can stack the cookies without the icing sticking) so now I just need to nail down a good sugar cookie recipe. My recipe was ok but I’ve had better.

We’ve had so much fun showing our #DisneySide with our Disney @Home Celebration box!