Costumes and my favorite way to eat candy corn!!

Happy Halloween friends!! The two things I think of when I think of Halloween are costumes and candy so today I have a little of both for you! First...my favorite new way to eat candy corn! On a pretzel and on top of a Hershey hug. Let me just tell you this combination is amazing and also highly addictive. Don't say I didn't warn you. Here's the link to the instructions.

And if you want some more amazing ways to eat your candy corn then click on over here. 

Now on to some fabulous costumes. Every year our friend's Steph and Tad throw a Halloween Party. If you didn't see on Instagram or see my post from earlier this week, Drew and I were Mary Poppins and Bert and had a blast. I was really hoping that we might end up on the ceiling singing I Love to Laugh by the end of the night, sadly that didn't happen, but here are some of the other fabulous costumes from the party...

Dr. Seuss and Thing 1&2, Super hero families, lawn ornaments

I hope you have a fantastic evening!

Practically Perfect (Couples Costume 2013)

I've always had a very special connection to Mary Poppins and have always wanted to dress up like her for Halloween. This year I made it happen and very last minute too if I might add. These costumes were our most inexpensive and most thrown together costumes to date, but I think we definitely made them work and I absolutely love how they turned out.

My costume details:  

Bowler Hat: H&M (I added fake daisies and berries from Michael's,) Bowtie: Drew's closet, Dress turned skirt: White House, Black Market, Belt: Limited, Collared Shirt: Limited, Purse: Fossil. Boots: Old Navy

If you have links to any of your costumes old or new...I want to see them!!!

More pictures from the costume party we attend every year coming soon.

Bosom Ball (meeting American Authors!)

Every year my friend Bekah and I go to the Bosom Ball. Basically, it's a concert put on to support breast cancer research. What I love about this event is that the money from each ticket goes straight to breast cancer research and all the artists who perform do so for free! We have seen some amazing performers through this event. My favorites have been Parachute, The Script, Colbie Caillat, Matt Kearny and Andy Grammar. This year was another one for the books. Here's our night in pictures...

Serena Ryder

ZZ Ward...she was amazing!

If you have leftover fresh cut fries from dinner you should pack them in your purse for a late night snack

American Authors

Labrinth...apparently he sells out arenas in the UK. He was wonderful!

My favorite part of the night was getting to meet American Authors. They were amazing live and their song is one that is on my happy list right now.

I love this tradition of ours and hope it continues for many years to come! Save the Tatas!

A PW Recipe Revisited (Potatoes+Pizza)

If you don't already know, my husband has Ree Drummond to thank for my love of cooking. When we first got married I did not think I would ever truly love cooking, but then one fateful day I ran across the Pioneer Woman and her amazing blog. My life was forever changed.

So the other day I pulled out a Pioneer Woman recipe that I made around this time a few years ago. I remember absolutely loving her Potato Leek Pizza so I decided to make it again. I loved it so much I had even dedicated a post on how to make it here. Well looking back, I realized that the first time I made it, I used the WRONG part of the leek in the recipe. Oops. You'd think that me using the wrong part of vegetable might affect the taste, but it was still freaking good and I didn't know any better. This time around I used the base of the leek and it was so much better!

My cooking really has come a long way. Sorry to any of you who followed my directions on that post and used the top of the leek. Who knew? (Obviously I didn't) Haha. Here is how the pizza is supposed to be constructed...

 Potato Leek Pizza Recipe Revisited

Here is what you will need:

-Pizza dough

-5 small red or Yukon potatoes

-4 oz. Goat Cheese

-6 slices of thick Bacon cut into 1 inch pieces

-1 pound Mozzerella Cheese

-3 Leeks (using only the base, not the top leafy part)

-Extra Virgin Olive Oil

-Ground Pepper/Salt 

Lay out your pizza dough and preheat the oven according to the dough you choose and lightly coat dough with olive oil

Place bacon in skillet over medium heat. Fry until cooked, but not crisp then remove from pan 

Use the same skillet after draining grease to saute the leeks (set bacon and leeks aside.) This is the part I totally butchered last time so make sure you use the base of the leek, it should resemble the texture of an onion and should actually saute unlike the top leafy part. 

Thinly slice potatoes and layer around pizza in a single layer

Sprinkle potatoes lightly with salt then layer mozzarella on top of the potatoes

Place leeks on top of cheese then add bacon

Add crumbled goat cheese and ground pepper

Bake according to pizza instructions (at least 8-12 minutes) and chow down!

Cupcakes, Bloggers, Mexican oh my!

Back row: Brittany, Liz, Erin, Katie, Elisa, Sarah, Mer

Front row: Shelley, Jax, Me, Kayla, Katie

Not pictured: Lauren (sadly she had to leave before the picture) and Whit who had a puppy emergency and couldn't make it

A few weeks ago I sent out an email to a few Cincy bloggers about meeting up one night for dinner. Fast forward a few weeks and over 50 email exchanges and we ended up having 13 Cincy bloggers together name tags and all! (Who cares if we got weird looks for wearing name tags and taking tons of pictures of our food.)

Brittany, Me, Katie, Erin, Jax

We met at a local Mexican restaurant and had a blast talking about everything under the sun. I loved seeing so many of the faces I see on my computer screen daily in real life and meeting some sweet new bloggers as well. The blogging community is just so amazing!

Me, Brittany, Sarah, Katie, Elisa

Our 2 hour dinner ended with free cupcakes and I have to gush for a minute. Gigi's cupcakes generously donated some of their fantastic cupcakes for our first meet up. We were all oohing and ahhing over how beautiful each cupcake was and then...we tried them.

There were so many amazing flavors we basically just took bites and passed them around the table. My favorite cupcake of the night was the Strawberry Shortcake cupcake. Thank you Gigi's, you made our night that much sweeter. We all left smiling and stuffed.

Erin, Shelley, Me, Kayla

It was such a great night and I can't wait to do it again! If you are a blogger and live in Cincinnati just let me know if you want to be added to the email list for our next meet up.

*Thanks Erin and Jax for being good little bloggers and taking amazing pictures with your fabulous cameras!*

Noonday Style (What I wore)

Dress: Anthropology, Sweater: Banana Republic, 

Goldrush Necklace: Noonday Collection, Shoes: Old Navy

I recently got my first Noonday piece and I couldn't be happier with it! Not only is it a great quality piece, it is also very fashionable and the money I spent on it goes to support a great cause. I just love knowing that this very necklace was made with love from India and the money made from it will help someone better their life! Win, win!

 Linking up with the lovely Shanna

Enjoying the ride...

"In life it's not about where you go, but who you travel with." -Charles Schulz

I have a pretty awesome group of people to travel through life with....just saying.

Going back in time...to 1812?

The last few years this very weekend we've been in Indiana heading to the 1812 festival with my sister and brother in law. Sadly, we couldn't go this year because of a wedding in Drew's family, but I realized I never posted about last year so I'm going back in time to the festival that takes place back in time. Ha. Think Renaissance festival (if you have those), but better.

I wish we were all together drinking home made Rootbeer, buying cool handmade knick knacks and watching battle reenactments together. Hopefully we can rekindle the tradition next year!!

Have you ever been to a festival like this?
Read about our other 1812 adventures here.

Applefest + an apple recipe

Every year the city of Lebanon puts on the Apple festival. There is amazing food and cute booths set up all up and down the streets. Basically Applefest=chow down on as many apple flavored things as you can get your hands on! I managed to chow down on quite a few things including, but not limited to:

Apple Fritter

Apple and Pork Kabobs

Apple butter dipped corn on the cob

Oh and Caramel Apple Ice cream

Are you craving apple everything now? 

Then you should make these BBQ Apple Sandwiches in your Crockpot. immediately!

A spooky night...dun dun duh

Even the picture is eerie, I blame it on the fog machine.

Saturday night we went with our friends to Kings Island, which during the fall months turns into Halloween Haunt. Halloween Haunt is a combination of rides and haunted houses, sounds awesome right? The weather forecast wasn't great, but we decided to go anyway because doesn't the threat of a thunder storm make haunted things even more thrilling? We rode a ride or two, got food and our favorite smurf ice cream and then the rain drops began to fall. Thankfully it was 70 degrees and thankfully our amazing friends came prepared with ponchos so we did not let that stop us. We rode rides in the rain, walked through haunted houses in the rain and went home with our socks and shoes soaking wet. We could have been bummed out that it was raining on our halloween parade, but it just added to the fun for us. What a fun and eerie night with some of our favorite people in the world.

Sidenote:: Drew is obsessed with Halloween and is not easily frightened. Thankfully I had Alison to hold hands with while walking through the haunted houses because Drew was always about 10 feet ahead of us. Then he goes and poses with this creepy thing...What did I marry in to?? Haha.

Get spooked at Halloween Haunt...checking that one off the bucket list!