After dinner and a family dance competition, we had our own little Grinch party . Grinch Shakes and Grinch Pills were the perfect treat!

All I did for the Grinch Shakes was put lime sherbet and some 7-Up a little at a time in a blender (I added some pineapple juice to mine because I love it so much and I had a little extra from something else).  I then dipped the very top of the glasses in a little 7-Up and then dipped them in a little bowl of green sugar (find in the baking aisle at your grocery store). Of course, I have cute paper straws in every color in my pantry that I have picked up at craft stores or other stores (after holidays, they go on clearance in the holiday section).  That gives just the perfect touch!

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Our next “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” present…”Shrek Thrilling Tales”. Our treats are ogre boogers on a stick! Haha Pretzels with a marshmallow, dipped in homemade caramel and green chocolate. It is not only so amazingly delicious, but it tastes even better because we’re on the way to Disneyland with friends for three days!! Woohoo!!

So easy and shockingly…REALLY YUMMY!  Put little marshmallows on the end of each pretzel stick. Dip the marshmallow carefully in homemade caramel recipe and let harden and cool on parchment or wax paper.  Next, melt the Vibrant Green Candy Melts pictured here (I just melted them in the microwave) and dip the caramel/marshmallow/pretzel sticks in there and put back down to cool.  That is all. Easy right?  Kids just love the disgusting name and couldn’t stop saying how good they were AND couldn’t stop laughing, of course, and they said they were eating ogre boogers bahahaha!  We are keepin’ it classy here LOL!

Really Easy Caramel Recipe withOUT using a candy thermometer:
1½ sticks butter
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
½ teaspoon vanilla (add at the very end before removing from heat)

In a medium saucepan, add butter and sugar and stir over medium heat until melted. Stir in corn syrup and condensed milk.  Bring to a boil and then decrease to medium heat for 7-10 minutes or until mixture achieves deep golden color, stirring constantly. (*For lower altitudes, medium heat simmer time may need to be reduced 2-3 minutes, so watch carefully for coloring!)  Don’t forget….Use only wooden spoon to stir OR heat-resistant spoon!  Don’t let caramel boil over…it will be messy and possibly a little bit of a kitchen fire if you have a gas stove. I’m not going to tell you how I know that

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Nearing the end of our list, but our 9th “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents…”Halloweentown”. I made these cute little witch’s brooms treat bags (tutorial here) that I hadn’t made in years and filled them with yummy Halloween candy. I think it’s safe to say they were excited.

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Our 8th “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents…”The Nightmare Before Christmas”, which I’d never seen before. Very interesting. I think I like the light and firework show better at Disneyland than I do the movie. But I thought it would be sooo fun to wear my Jack Skellington shirt (that I bought at Target for next week’s Disneyland trip) while I served Jack Skellington pops (white chocolate dipped Rice Krispies). They got a kick out of it and gave me just the reaction I was looking for 

Make your Rice Krispie recipe like you normally do (here is the recipe) and then instead of putting them in a pan, take your black and white striped paper straw (cut in half) and shape it in a circle at on end.  Set on wax paper and let cool and harden a little.  Next, dip them carefully into your melted white chocolate baking chips.  You might need to take a spoon and spoon the chocolate all over the round Rice Krispies ball.  Let that dry and harden on the wax paper.  Then, use a black gel icing tube from your grocery store to draw the eyes and nostrils and crazy mouth to create your Jack Skellington face.  Add a cute black grosgrain ribbon with white stitching to the bottom of his face to make a little bow (like his bow tie).  Bam!  You’re done.  It REALLY is very easy.  Don’t get overwhelmed by it’s cuteness!

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Our 7th “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents…”Mostly Ghostly”. We took a slightly healthier approach and had “Ghostberries” . All of our other daily meals have been really healthy to balance the treats we’ve been having with our movies and we’ve shared our treats with friends so that we don’t become diabetics by Halloween ha!

Wash your strawberries and let them completely dry at room temperature.  Use white chocolate melting chips or bars and to dip strawberries into.  After chocolate has hardened, melt a handful of chocolate chips and use a toothpick to draw chocolate eyes and mouth on each strawberry.  Put on a cute plate and serve!

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Our 5th “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents…”The Addams Family” (snap snap)!  I make my spiderweb sugar cookies every year and tonight it was perfect for this movie and for our black and white theme!

Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe (amaaaaazing!!!)

1 cup butter, at room temp
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs, at room temp
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sour cream
1/4 tsp lemon or almond extract
5 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl mix together butter and sugar. Beat until creamy. Add in eggs, vanilla, lemon extract (or almond extract) and sour cream and mix together until combined.
In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix just until combined.
Split dough in two and place in saran wrap. Refrigerate dough for 1-2 hours.
Once dough has been chilled, roll out dough on a bakers mat or parchment paper. Add another 1/4 – 1/2 cup flour if dough is still sticky. Cut with floured cookie cutter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes.  *I’ve noticed that with my gas oven, I have to adjust my time.  So I bake mine 2 minutes less.

Easy Icing:

1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
2 – 2.5 Tablespoons lukewarm water
pinch of salt

Spread white easy icing on one cookie at a time.  As soon as you’ve applied that, take a black tube of store-bought decorating icing and make a spiral shape on top of the cookie.  Then I grab a butter knife and flip it over to use the smooth end and drag from the center end of the spiral and drag 5 lines out to the edge of the cookie.  And there is your beautiful and delicious spider web cookie!  I like to add fake spider toys and spider rings to the plate of cookies for extra gasps from the kids.  It’s the perfect touch!

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Our 4th “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Night” presents…”Girl vs. Monster”. I made Ooey Gooey Monster Eye Cookies and they were soooooo yummy!! {Warning: if your kids suggest this movie, RUN!! It bored me to tears but they loved it…so I suffered through it ha!)  Does anyone notice an ongoing theme for Beckham??  Like most little boys, he LOVES to be in his skivvies  He walks in the door and gets comfy.  Underwear all day, e’ry day haha

Ooey Gooey Monster Eye Cookie Recipe:
1 Yellow Cake Mix Box
½ cup butter softened
½ tsp. vanilla
(1) 8 oz. bar cream cheese softened
1 egg
green and yellow food coloring
powdered sugar
candy eyeballs

Beat butter, vanilla, egg and cream cheese until fluffy.
Mix in cake mix. Add green and yellow food coloring until it’s the color you want (I used equal parts). Chill for 30 minutes.

Roll into balls and dip in a bowl of powdered sugar.
Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. While cookie is still warm, push candy eye balls into the center of the cookie. ENJOY!

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Our 3rd “Countdown to Halloween: Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents Disney’s “The Haunted Mansion”, starring Eddie Murphy. Our treat tonight is the most delicious “Boo-nilla Shakes”.

Recipe:

1 cup milk  (your choice)
1 /4 cup granulated sugar
Scoops of your favorite Vanilla Ice Cream (mine is Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla)

Blend until the consistency is just right and then pour into plastic clear cups.  Draw cute black eyes and a mouth with a permanent black marker and add whip cream to the top and a straw.  My kids go crazy for it!

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Our 2nd “Countdown to Halloween – Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” presents “The Witches”! Our treat is these cute little witch hats made out of cookies and bugles and chocolate.  So easy!  I found a similar recipe here and was inspired (but used just one Oreo cookie per hat). This would also be perfect for “Hocus Pocus” which is our FAVORITE Halloween movie!!!! But we had just watched it with another treat and {sadly} I didn’t take a pic! I’m so lame!!

There are some of you wondering how on Earth I showed such a scary movie to my kids.  Well, we read the book and loved it.  My kids don’t scare easy and rarely have nightmares.  They sleep in their own rooms, in their own beds so we just gave it a shot and they LOVED the movie!  They did just fine during and after the movie and thought it was so fun and “scary” in a good way.  You just need to know your kids and what they can handle.  Mine ride the “Tower of Terror” at Disneyland over and over so I knew they’d be okay…ha!  But the ugly witch faces when they take off their masks is gross and ugly so make sure you preview this and decide if your kids are ready for this.  We recommend this flick!  And Angelica Huston is perfect for this witch role!

***Note: Many moms have asked where I find all my movies.  We certainly don’t own but maybe one or two.  Netflix comes out with a lot of Halloween movies (yes, there are a TON) for kids and adults.  We like to ask on Facebook and borrow, to save a few bucks.  Amazon Prime offers many films as well.  And then we love renting or purchasing on our AppleTV through iTunes.  Does anyone out there have other recommendations?

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Halloween is all about yummy treats and fun tricks, great decor and fabulous costumes!  I also want to introduce my kids to so many great movies out there that are perfect to watch this time of year.  So, our tradition begins….

Our 1st “Countdown to Halloween – Frightfully Fun Family Movie Night” (wow, that was a mouthful) of the season presents “Ghostbusters”! Our treat is Green Slime Popcorn (via Pinterest here) and the trick? A few jumps…mwahahahaha!  I have a whole list of great movies that I want to show our 6 and 8 year-old.  They LOVED Ghostbusters tonight!

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