Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Fall Fun

I love fall, but I usually don’t really get into the fall holidays as much as I prepare for “the big one” in December.
But this year, I find myself feeling really…………….fallish.  (Not a word? Yeah, didn’t think so)
So I have decided to see JUST how many fun fall ideas I can come up with this year.

The good news: my first idea is REALLY fun to do with the kids.
The bad news: Someone else has already “come up” with my brilliant idea.
I love the internet, but seriously?!! ……………………I prefer the good ‘ol days when you thought all of your brilliant ideas were unique and amazing. Now, when you come up with something cool, you can get on the computer and find out that a million other people have already thought of it. Boo!!
So for those of you who have NOT thought of this idea and have not ever looked at the million other examples on the internet, here you go!!
My kids really wanted to make caramel apples. I loved the idea, except for the fact that I hated the idea. Caramel apples are super yummy………………….but SUPER messy. I was NOT going to go there and do that. (Did I mention I have OCD issues?...........)
So that is where my “brilliant” (but come to find out, not so brilliant) idea comes in.  We decided to make caramel apple BITES.
All of my kids are very young, so ours did not turn out as fancy smancy as the ones shown HERE  But it was still fun.
First I had the kids unwrap the caramels. (They loved seeing how fast they could do this)
  And while they unwrapped caramels, I cut up apples and put them in lemon water so they would not turn brown.
  After the apples were cut and caramels were unwrapped, I gave the kids some toothpicks to stick in each apple piece
  Something we didn’t do that I will TOTALLY do next time……… DRAIN the apples and let them dry. Our apples were a bit too wet and it made the caramel runny. So learn from our mistake I guess. :)
 While they were stabbing apples with toothpicks, I was melting the caramels.
  After that, we were ready to dip the apples.
 Let the caramel cool a bit. It will stay on the apple better that way. You could also just let them dip their apples in the caramel and eat it that way.  Either way, it was a fun activity that ALL of the kids could do. Fun stuff!!

3 comments:

Cecily said...

That's AWESOME, Andrea! I've never thought of that, and I would love to do that with Beckett. He has just figured out he likes apples, and won't spit them out anymore! Thanks! :)

Andrea Lee U.R. said...

Oh good!! It really was a LOT of fun and kept the kids busy the whole time. I love cooking projects where they can help the whole time. :)

Sarah said...

I love it - thank you! I'd be willing to go as big as slices, I think, but the whole apple is just a big much for kids. I might actually finally DO it this year!