This week, I am sharing a belated post.
Back in early November, Joy, Robyn and I gathered our kids together for what has become an annual fall tradition.
We typically do this before Halloween, but this year our Octobers were just too crazy.
Instead, we opted to meet the Friday after Halloween to paint pumpkins, rocks, and canvases and eat all the festive fall food.
We ended up skipping the pumpkins this year because our older kids were interested in doing a follow-along canvas painting on YouTube and we figured that would take a fair amount of time.
While they were barricaded in a back room working on their masterpieces, we entertained the younger kids with rock painting.
We love the practice now of leaving decorated rocks on hiking trails, beaches, etc. to brighten other people’s days, so we’ve started incorporating rock painting at various gatherings.
Aside from this, the kids mostly ran around outside and played since the weather was fairly nice.
Meanwhile, we moms rocked the celebratory fall feast:
Joy brought a bunch of frozen pizzas, so we popped those in the oven while we prepared the spread of toppings for our caramel apple “nachos.”
Robyn made delicious homemade caramel sauce and we crushed up gluten-free Oreos, pretzels, and churro chips along with shredded coconut flake, mini chocolate chips, and chocolate peanut butter sauce.
As a fun beverage, Robyn also prepped a virgin apple cider “sangria” with chopped apples, cinnamon sticks, and pomegranate seeds.
The highlight for me, though, was Robyn’s killer orange, fennel, and beet salad: spring mix topped with thinly sliced fennel, drained mandarin oranges, red onions, diced beets, and vegan bleu cheese. She makes this amazing apricot vinaigrette, and we literally ate the entire 9×13 pan of salad between the three of us.
I can’t emphasize how good this salad is. You should go make it. Like right now.