Family Fun Fridays- Apples

With both my kids in school, I don’t get to plan as many activities/games/crafts as we like so I decided to start a new tradition with our family, Family Fun Friday.  On Friday nights we will be together as a family, but instead of just hanging out and playing we will have a theme and activities we can do together.  I thought this might be a fun way to continue to spend time together and save money at the same time!

This weeks theme is Apples, with all our apples in our tree I figured this was a good fit.  Here are some things we will be doing.

1. Making deluxe carmel apples

2. Bobbing for apples

3. Apple dip taste testing

4. Mr. Apple Head (think Mr. Potato head but decorating with candy and marshmallows).

5. Cut apples in half and paint/stamp with them

6. Measure and weigh them

7. Juggle with them or try to balance them on our head (Like the book 10 Apples Up on Top).

8. Hot Apple instead of Hot potato

Bobbing for apples was quite a challenge, but Isaiah tried and tried and finally got one!

My husband just went for it! He dunked his whole head in to prove it could be done.

Ayla tried but couldn’t get it. She finally reached in with her hand and put one in her mouth!

Isaiah was proud he could balance one apple. My husband and I each got to, but no pictures as proof!

Isaiah invented apple bowling. Stack apples in a pile and gently roll an apple to knock the pile over.

We made Mr. Apple heads with by using lots of candy in our treat bag. We ended up with a cat, octopus, rainbow person, a man, and a ghost.

Carmel Apples

One of my favorite things about fall, along with the cooler weather, is all the yummy food.  Currently I am obsessed with peanuts and candy corn mixed, along with caramels!  The kids and I decided to make caramel apples, which was very fun…although CAUTION don’t get burned as both of my kids did.

They loved peeling the caramels and sneaking some to eat.

I let the kids dip in the hot caramel, unfortunately they both got some on their hands. YIKES!

It ended well with all of us enjoying our caramel apples.

We also made a list of all the apples things we could make.

Apples

We have been enjoying the fall and one thing we always love to do is projects with apples.  There are so many delicious and wonderful crafts and recipes!  In the past, one of our family traditions is going apple picking.  Apparently we missed it this year because it frosted so early in Colorado, so we “picked” apples at the store. Oh well, we will try again next year.   We have been busy doing apple taste testing, reading books about apples, making a Mr. Potato Head apple, painting with apples, seeing if they float or sink and just eating lots and lots of apples.  We are looking forward to the first snow and making our traditional apple dumplings, yummy!

Here are the apples for taste testing, one of each color.

I love apples!

Isaiah’s favorite, red apples.

We enjoyed describing our apples, and deciding which one we like the best.

apples stamping with paint, such a simple and fun craft!

The kids made apples trees. We traced their hand and arm for the branches and trunk of the tree, colored it in, and then used finger prints with red paint to make apples.

Here are some of our favorite books we’ve been reading.

Ayla’s Mr. Apple Head with lots of hair, of course she spent most of the time eating the candy!

Isaiah named his candy cone (not corn) head, I love his creativity.

I had to make one too, I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun!

Here are our supplies for Mr. Apple Head. Lots of leftover candy from various things, peanut butter (you could use icing) to use as glue, and toothpicks to help attach some of the treats! The kids LOVED this activitiy, no big shocker there, since they inherited my sweet tooth!

Ayla working hard on her creation. I love this project because it allows for so much creativity.