Apples & gingerbread

Today we participated in two wonderful fall traditions: Long Grove Apple Fest and decorating gingerbread haunted houses with friends.

Joanna met us at Long Grove for the delicious Apple Fest, where we bought white chocolate cinnamon candied apples. Joanna ate hers there, but I held off for later. I also bought some apple donuts, which were tasty but not as apple-y as I had hoped. The line for the apple pies was outrageous - too outrageous for us, since I already made an apple tart for dessert.

Then Joanna and I headed over to Colleen's to decorate gingerbread haunted houses, which we did last year and were very excited about doing again this year. This year Diane joined us, too!


When I opened up the packages of gingerbread, I remember part of the reason I like doing this - the smell! The houses really smell like gingerbread and you could probably get away with eating them, but it's much more fun to decorate them.


I made a pretty cute house again, with an M&M roof and a pumpkin patch. I also piped some cute spiders on the back, along with some pumpkin vines crawling up my house. Next year I'd like to add even more spiders and webs, and maybe some bats!

Joanna branched out this year and used some orange, in addition to the solid black haunted house she made last year. Her shellacked roof tiles looked really good, and she had a cute little fence of candy corns.



Diane's house was cutesy like mine, and she had some very nice windows and doors. (Her Peep ghost could actually fit through her front door, unlike mine.) I think we got Diane hooked on the haunted houses, though!

Colleen's house was really cute, too; I think she may have won the award again for the most candy used. I really liked the candy corn roof, and I might take her idea for next year.


I love these houses! It makes me want to get right onto my Halloween decorations for the house, which I'll do in the next few days. Boo!