A Fun & Delicious Halloween With Hershey's #HersheysHalloween #sponsored

My favorite spooky time of year is finally here and our family could not be more excited! I love Halloween and so do my kids. They love everything about the holiday and all the fun activities that come along with it. Each year we do something a little different in October to celebrate Halloween, but there is one thing that is a must-have every single time: Hershey's chocolate. Okay, we have it in our house pretty much year-round, but Halloween gives us an even better excuse to buy more. Plus, they have all kinds of special Halloween-themed candy that is available for a limited time.

What are you doing this year to celebrate Halloween? 

You don't have to spend a bundle to have a good time and, as a family on a budget, we've come up with a fun list of great ways to have some spooky family fun!

1. Pumpkin Carving - Just this weekend we bought a pumpkin carving kit and two pumpkins for the kids. They were so excited to help out and couldn't wait to get their hands on the pumpkin seeds. The boys helped scoop out the "pumpkin brains" and then continued to plant a pumpkin patch while I carved up the pumpkins. My kids are just a little too young to carve, but we found some other ways for them to participate. We got out finger paints and markers so they could create their own masterpiece.

2. Trick-Or-Treating- As we learned this year, when Halloween falls on a weekday, you may find several different places to trick-or-treat in October. Many churches have fall festivals and trunk-or-treat, which are open to the public. My sis-in-law's neighborhood actually celebrated Halloween this past weekend. On Halloween, Publix is having an in-store trick-or-treat and several neighborhoods around the area are, too.

3. Decorating your home - The kids really enjoyed helping decorate. Most of our decorations came from the $1 store and others were leftovers from last year. We have light-up pumpkins, carved pumpkins, Halloween cut-outs, skeletons, ghosts, spider webs and, most importantly, candy!

4. Creating spooky treats & crafts - We checked out the Hershey's website for some Halloween recipe ideas using the candy we our Hershey's products, Reese's Pumpkin Spiders. Little hands may need some help, but this is great fun. Plus, you don't have to follow the recipe to a tee. For example, the recipe uses Reese's Pumpkin Peanut Butter Cups, but my husband had already eaten all of ours, so we used York Peppermint Patties, another of our favorite candies! The Reese's Peanut Butter cups are bigger and probably easier for smaller hands, though.

Here's the Hershey's version of the recipe with a little tweeking to make it more kid-friendly:

Ingredients

• REESE’S Peanut Butter Pumpkins (1.2 oz. ea.) OR York Peppermint Pumpkin Patties.
• Large pretzel twists 
• 1/4 cup HERSHEY’S Milk Chocolate Chips, HERSHEY’S SPECIAL DARK Chocolate Chips or HERSHEY’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips*
• YORK PIECES Candies (White or colored)
• Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses

Directions

• Line tray or cookie sheet with waxed paper. Remove wrappers and set out your desired amount of Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins (or York Peppermint Pumpkin Patties). For each spider, pull apart the curved sections of pretzels, which will be the legs for your spiders. cut 8 matching curved sections from pretzels which will form the legs. They really don't have to be so exact. Set aside the pretzels pieces.
• Place milk chocolate chips in small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at MEDIUM (50%) 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave at MEDIUM an additional 10 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chips are melted and smooth when stirred.
• For each spider, place peanut butter pumpkin on prepared tray. Dip the pretzel legs, one at a time, into the chocolate and attach them to the peanut butter pumpkins. Then, add the candy eyes. We used York Pieces Candies and eatable food coloring markers to paint them red! You can use a dot of melted chocolate to dot the eyes if you want.  Allow chocolate to set before moving spiders.
• Cut Pumpkin Spice Hershey's Kisses in half and add one half to each spider. This is not in the original recipe, but we like this tasty addition. 

We've had such a fun-filled October and we still have more to come on Halloween day! I'll be sad when the month is over, but then we have some other holidays coming, so that means more sweets and treats. We hope you had a great October and will have a Happy Halloween filled with Hershey's candies!!!

Disclosure: This post was written for Hershey's in conjunction with Global Influence. Product was received for the writing of this post along with payment. All opinions written are my own. 

Milk Unleashed Shelf-Stable Milk Giveaway Package

What would we do without milk each day? My boys absolutely love milk and drink it every single day. I have to admit I even have cravings for a delicious bowl of cereal pretty much every day, too. As most families, we are on the go quite often and I always bring along drinks for the kids. Usually we don't bring along milk, but did you know Milk Unleashed provides milk that can be taken on the go all the time AND you don't have to bring along the refrigerator with you! That's right! You can purchase a variety of milks that are shelf-stable, which means refrigeration is not needed!Many are also organic, such as Horizon milk, our favorite.

Milk Unleashed is here to help with single-serve shelf-stable milk, so there is no need to ever run out. No additives or preservatives are used and the shelf-stable milk is packaged in Tetra Pak, an earth-friendly packaging method made from harvested, regrown trees. It is also recyclable, which we love!

You don't have to worry about milk going bad anymore! You can take Milk Unleashed to the park, pack in lunch, take it on road trips and much more. I know I have not packed milk in Josiah's lunchbox in the past because I was scared it would spoil, but now I don't have to worry anymore!

Check out the Milk Unleashed Blog App below for fun games, snack ideas, quizes and much more!

With school back in session, this is the perfect time to give Milk Unleashed a try! Thanks to Milk Unleashed, we have an awesome giveaway!!

One Winner Will Win a Variety Pack Consisting of Four Shelf-Safe Milks (White & Chocolate) from:

• Hershey's
• LaLa
• Horizon
• Organic Valley

The winner will also receive an adorable cow stress ball!

HERSHEY'S CAMP BONDFIRE Fun With Family #CampBondfire #smores

When I was growing up, summer was the time when I went traveling with my Grandma to visit our relatives across Georgia. I loved seeing my aunts and especially playing with all of my cousins. We often had bonfires, cookouts and played outside until the sun was completely set. Now that I have a little family of my own, I want to share these experiences and traditions with them. Our family loves any excuse to have a get-together, especially during the nice summer months! We basically live outdoors, enjoying every minute of summer vacation and time together as a family. This past week we visited my parents and though my Mama was sick, she made sure to make the trip a fun bonding experience for everyone. That's why we decided to build a bonfire on the first night it didn't rain!

Hershey's has a great campaign going on right now to help celebrate summer and family bonding with their new Facebook App -HERSHEY'S CAMP BONDFIRE! Each week two camp counselors will be featured, along with their great suggestions for making fireside memories all summer! You can also join in on the fun and register as a camper like we did. To make it even more exciting, there are giveaways involved, so campers can win a variety of great prize packages, including an outdoor fire pit! This week's theme for the campaign is FIRE IT UP DAD and that is exactly what we did!

To help kick off this summer right, Hershey's sent an awesome s'mores Kit from Hershey's for the bonfire, but the kids had no idea. They were simply excited about making a bonfire, walking around the yard collecting limbs, leaves and other items to help us start the fire. They are great little helpers when motivated!

My niece, Ry, along with my son, Josiah at the fire pit. This is all of the wood they collected for the bonfire, which was a great starter. Liam was still driving around the yard picking up limbs in his truck:

Once everything was collected, Granny and Pop lit the fire! It took a little time for it to get started, but she blew the fire until it was really burning!

The kiddos were very excited when the "BONDFIRE" was lit, as they sat together laughing, talking and waiting for hot dogs and S'mores!

Yay! The fire started!

 Finally it was time for the food! While some of the kiddos decided to skip straight to S'mores before the meal, others opted for hot dogs first and dessert last.

So proud of his s'mores creation!

Granny & Pop cooking their hotdogs and s'mores!

Thanks to the HERSHEY'S CAMP BONDFIRE, my children were able to bond with their cousin, Granny and Pop during the visit and enjoy a good old-fashioned bonfire! No batteries required for this great day in the outdoors. Everyone had such a great time that we hated for the night to end. In fact, we stayed outdoors until the lightning bugs were flying around and the moon was high in the sky!This was the perfect activity for our family this Father's Day weekend and something the kids won't soon forget.

What do you look forward to doing each summer with your own family? What traditions do you want to continue with your own children?

This post is part of my participation in the HERSHEY’S CAMP BONDFIRE campaign. All opinions expressed are mine.