This is what my neighbors are getting this year...

I bought some of that yummy Moose Munch from Costco the other day and decided to whip up my own version. I think it turned out pretty good!

What are you doing for neighbor gifts this year?

White Chocolate Cranberry Caramel Popcorn

Ingredients

1. 3/4 cup butter
2. 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbl brown sugar
3. 1/3 cup plus 1 tbl corn syrup
4. 3/4 teaspoon salt
5. 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6. 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. 16 cups popped popcorn
8. 3/4 cup whole almonds
9. 6 oz white chocolate
10. 1/2 cup Craisins

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (95 degrees C). Place popcorn and almonds in a very large roasting pan and put in preheated oven until caramel is ready.
2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn and almonds, stirring to coat.
3. Bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour. Remove from oven, stir and let cool completely.
4. Melt white chocolate in a 1 quart glass cup. Microwave on High for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Stir to melt completely.
5. Place 1/3 of the cooled caramel corn on a cookie sheet in a single layer.
6. Sprinkle with Craisins and drizzle with white chocolate.
7. Allow to chocolate to cool and harden completely. Break into pieces and stir into the reserved caramel corn.
8. Store in an airtight container. Enjoy!

Okay, now that I'm all caught up...

It's time for a Halloween post! We began our festivities with the Ward Halloween Carnival. We dressed Jacob up as an aviator. At the last minute Dave and I decided to dress up as Hawaiian Tourists. There is a man in our ward that brought all his photography gear and took these fun Halloween shots.

While we didn't carve pumpkins (how lame is that!) Jacob and I did have fun coloring pumpkins and going on a "Big Pumpkin" hunt around the house.

If you are familiar with "The Flight of the Conchords" this may look familiar to you:

While we didn't take Jacob around the neighborhood trick or treating. we did make it over to Paul and Mary Ann's. Isn't he a cutie!

We ended the day passing out candy at our house. We had over 100 trick-or-treaters this year! A new record for us! We actually ended up running out of candy. Luckily, Bill and Michelle + kids came over for a bit and Sarah was kind enough to offer her younger brother's candy to the last trick-or-treaters!

Valentine's Day

I decided to start a new family tradition this Valentine's Day.  I really wanted to do everything from scratch, but upon realizing that I have a 5 month old, I determined that we will start small this year and hopefully work towards homemade in the future. 

The day before Valentine's Day Melodie and I went to Macey's to purchase ingredients for sugar cookies.  We found great pre-rolled sugar cookie sheets, so all we had to do was cut out the shapes that we want and bake them.

On Valentine's Day, Dave and I busted out the frosting, red hots, conversation hearts and cinnamon hearts and had a blast!  I was very impressed with Dave's skills with the frosting.  Take a look!