SusieQTpies Cafe

Saturday

Walking Dead? Crazy Pets? 13 Costume Ideas

What is your perfect Halloween Costume? Are you a Walking Dead fan? I was reading that we are going to see a lot of the Walking Dead for Halloween this year. Do you dress your pets up for Halloween?

I have 13 Perfect Costume Ideas for you to take a look at. I just started the collection and what to add more! Do you have any costume ideas on your blog? If so please link below and I will add it to my board.

Please follow my boards on Pinterest- SusieQTpies Cafe

More Halloween Food Craft Ideas

Brain Food
BROKEN GLASS Cupcakes
FINGER FOOD
Jello Brain Dessert
{Kid Zombie} Iced Coffee Frappes
{Momma Zombie} White Russians
MUMMY FACE Pizza
Pumpkin Cookies
Pumpkin Guts
Toxic Waste Punch
Zombie Party Ideas, Recipes & Photos

Friday

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes for Halloween

Ready for some Zombie Themed Food ideas? Here are tasty recipes including tasty halloween recipes for you to check out.

My friend Kris made these for her daughter's party at school. They look gross but I bet they are tasty. She got the recipe from Allrecipes.com.

What do you think? Would you make these? I think the making of the broken glass would be time consuming.

Here is the recipe from Allrecipe with a link to their site.

Bloody Broken Glass Cupcakes (click to see more photos)

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (16 ounce) can white frosting
Sugar Glass:
2 cups water
1 cup light corn syrup
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Edible Blood:
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup water, or more as needed
15 drops red food coloring
3 drops blue food coloring

Directions

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 2, 12-cupcake tins with paper cupcake liners.
Blend cake mix, 1 cup water, vegetable oil, and eggs in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer on low speed for 2 minutes. Divide cake batter between lined cupcake tins.
Bake cupcakes in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 18 to 22 minutes. Cool completely. Frost cupcakes with white frosting.
Make the sugar glass. Mix 2 cups water, 1 cup corn syrup, white sugar, and cream of tartar in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Use a candy thermometer and boil sugar syrup until temperature reaches 300 degrees (hard ball), stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken as water evaporates. When sugar reaches 300 degrees, quickly pour onto a metal baking pan. Cool until completely hardened. Break into "shards" using a meat mallet.
Make the edible blood. Mix together 1/2 cup corn syrup and cornstarch in a large bowl. Slowly stir in the 1/4 cup of water, adding more if necessary, until the corn syrup mixture has thickened to the consistency of blood. Stir in the red and blue food coloring.
Stab each frosted cupcake with a few shards of broken sugar glass. Drizzle on drops of "blood" to complete the effect.

Martha Stewart made these, too! Check out the video.

Click here for more Halloween/Fall ideas! If you have one to share, feel free to leave your link and I"ll come visit.

Happy Halloween!

More Zombie Ideas

Brain Food
BROKEN GLASS Cupcakes
FINGER FOOD
Jello Brain Dessert
{Kid Zombie} Iced Coffee Frappes
{Momma Zombie} White Russians
MUMMY FACE Pizza
Pumpkin Cookies
Pumpkin Guts
Toxic Waste Punch
Zombie Party Ideas, Recipes & Photos

Zombie Murder Mystery Party and Halloween ideas

Ready for some Zombie Themed Food ideas? Here are tasty halloween recipes for you to check out as well as our Zombie Town Murder Mystery party! Have you ever attended a My Murder Mystery Party? My husband and I have been to several different types, including dinner theaters events. This was our first time to actually host one.

Our twins were turning 16 and we asked them if they wanted to have a murder mystery party for all their friends. They were very hesitant because they didn't understand what it was all about. I don't think that they really got it until it was over! haha

They chose the Zombie My Mystery Party which was the most perfect party for tweens, teens and adults! We had over 40 people and it was fun! We paired up tweens with adults and teens. We tried mixing it up and it worked great. Our age range was 11-50 something. It was a great family event!

Here is the website description:
Dust off your tattered zombie clothing and get ready for your next exciting zombie murder mystery party! A fun zombie-themed murder mystery party for ages 15 and up, 8-16+ guests. Non-gender specific - play co-ed, all female or all male! Expandable to over 40 guests with the main game by adding additional guests to play with the 3 expandable characters.

Our Take on the Party: I started planning a month before the party to get everything set up. These type of parties can be put together in just a few days, too. The kit, once paid for, is instantly downloadable. This is a huge plus in my book. I loved having the kit right away so that I could plan out what I needed to do for the party. There are some parts of the kit that must be printed off, like the name tags and script for each character. You can do that at home, online copy center or take the file to a local copy center. We had Staples make our copies.

Each part of the mystery is clearly explained and outlined. We never had confusion of what needed to be done. My husband and I both ran the party. I did all the behind the scenes organization and he led the party. It is funny because in the end when they had to cast "who did it", I was chosen as one of the murderers. Here I was just the Mommy Housewife Zombie, feeding all of them each course and they thought I was a killer! haha

The Kit included recipe ideas, games, music ideas, props,etc. These things were all very helpful in the planning stage.Our party lasted several hours. We cut out a few games just to save on time. No one noticed but the host.

Host: Agent Xmuldersmith, Mrs. Zombie Housewife

I have nothing negative to say about the My Mystery Party site or the party kit! You must go check it out. They have specific parties for Adults, Teens and Kids! I started to count and I stopped once I got to 50!

We picked this party at a great time because all the Halloween stuff that I wanted for the party. You can go all out crazy with decorations, food, costumes like we did or you can keep it simple. If you are thinking of having one, pick it and then start getting the items you need. I recommend that you have several people helping you who are not involved in the mystery. This will make everything flow!

Do you have any questions for me about the Murder Mystery? I'd be happy to answer them. Besides all the food, costumes and decorations, my favorite part was having a party where everyone got involved. Some players got into it a lot more than others. Some came in full costume, others none while some just did their face. We had paint handy to help those who needed it! Some didn't pass on all their information yet some probably gave away too much. It was a huge success. I think everyone loved when the victim came out of hiding. No one knew when or how they would find out about the victim. We had one of the birthday girls be the victim! It was perfect!

We want to plan another one. Some of our friends are going to host the next one. I can see that we started a trend here!

Here are pics of the food. Some have links because I have blogged the recipes! The birthday girls helped plan what we were going to eat and what we were going to call the food. It was fun giving ordinary things, like chips, crazy-creepy names like "scabs." All the soda bottles have fun labels, too. We took off the original labels so they only knew what they were drinking by what they thought it was. How fun! Enjoy!

We purchased "margarita" plastic glasses because these had green stems. We used a handprint rubber stamp and stamped hands all over the glasses.

At the Halloween Store we purchased stickers to put on all the drinks including this bottle of tomato juice.

We found gummy brains and lips and had them on a platter.

In this Mystery Party these is something about pumpkins so we had a bowl of these on the table with toy fingers in the bowl.

Zombie cupcakes with a secret inside. We baked and frosted our favorite cupcakes and squeezed in red cupcake gel as blood. We put them on a sheet pan with and topped with crushed Oreos, candy bones covered in Oreos and red cupcake gel. A skeleton was placed in between the cupcakes and fake plastic rats.

We found gummy teeth and added in plastic body parts.

Candy corn and teeth!

Gum eyeballs and more body parts.

Of course we had bowls of halloween candy.

Love this bloody table cloth that we found at the party store.

Bloody-red decorating gel- dead rat and bones with the cookie cake.

Pumpkin Guts- This is the easiest chili recipe ever. We called it pumpkin guts at the party.

We made a bloody bony handprint with red decorating gel.

Toxic Waste Punch

Veggie Platter we named "Rat Intestines" which included cauliflower, carrots and orange & yellow peppers.

Kids named the chips "scabs" which they kinda look like them.

Easy to make macaroni salad- cook macaroni and stir in mayo, shredded carrots, chopped celery, olives and celery seed. This was named "bowl of puss."

Various chunks of watermelon for the "juicy flesh."

Thanks to MMM for sponsoring this post. I was sent a kit to review and blog. My own spooky opinion and tasty words are shared. Try it for yourself, if you dare!

Jello Brain Mold Recipe.

Finger Food

Wednesday

Teach S is for Saving with a PNC Kids Bank Account

How many of you have taught or will teach to your children that the letter S is for Savings? Sure I know that in school, S is usually for Snake but as a parent you have the power to teach that S is for Savings. Have you?

As a parent, you are probably wondering how to go about this teaching. Do some of these questions sound familiar?

At what age should I start talking to my kids about saving money?
How do I go about teaching this to young children?
What resources are out there on this topic?
Do I use real money or play money?
Will this really make a difference later in life?
Don't they teach this in school?

Here are some parent-friendly answers for you!

There is a new initiative to bring financial education to preschool kids ages 3-5. The thinking that this early teaching will help them learn to budget, save and plan for their future. Who should teach this? This is a subject that can easily be taught by parents to their kids.

PNC created a Learning Center with bilingual kits- "For Me, For You, For Later: First Steps to Spending, Sharing, Saving" which was created by Sesame Workshop for PNC. These materials are free at PNC Bank branches and pncgrowupgreat.com and sesamestreet.org.

Does this sound like something you would use with your kids? PNC also created a family friendly site, 'S' is for Savings for you to use with your children to teach about saving money.

This is a free site.
It has interactive online banking activities that uses basic money terms.
It is fun and inspired by Sesame Street.
You can set up a free account for children 18 and under with no service charge.
Interest on balances start at $1.00.
It only takes $25.00 to open an account.
Parents can add money to the account, easily. This can be done at a PNC band, online and even ATM's.
Kids can drop their money into jar to give them control - with your guidance-on how to spend, save and share. (This is a really cool feature)

Does this sound like something you would use to teach your kids that S is for savings? Yes S is also for spending and sharing, which is taught with this resources. Check out the 'S' is for Savings site and use these free resources to help guide you in teaching these life-long lessons.

Click here for Part 2 in this S is for Saving series about Kid Banking.

Disclosure: I received compensation from The PNC Financial Services Group to thank me for my participation in their promotion. My own tasty words and opinions are expressed here.

Tuesday

Tips on Managing your Health Care from Cigna

How often do you think about your health care plan? I bet if you are like most Americans, you have thought of it a lot more the past 4 years than you ever have. Are you feeling overwhelming by all the news or are you just pushing it under the carpet until you need to deal with it? When it comes to your actual health care plan you can't just push it under the carpet. You need to know your plan and what is covered to get the most of your out-of-pocket or through our employer cost.

Cigna has offered their Mid-Year Health Check-in Tips to bring your family health care plan into focus. Here are 3 buzz words for you to keep in mind and some things for you to discuss as a family.

If your family is like mine and depending on their ages, they are aware of the family health care plan but might not be interested in the details. So instead of a family meeting, have a date night to go over some of these tips.

Check out The Health Plan Conversation and then check out my tips below.

Did you like the video? Check out more at the Cigna YouTube page.

Plan-Once a year, gather your health care information and go over it. Most plans do change a bit year after year. Make sure you know what is available to you and your family. Make a list of what the needs will be for the up and coming year. Anyone need glasses? How about braces? How about a planned surgery?

We were fortunate to have one teen at a time needing braces. It spread out what our out-of-pocket expenses for each given year. Three out of five wear glasses in our home. We know that will be a potential yearly expense. How about you? What expenses do you have or will you have next year?

Prepare-As you go over your health care plan, write out the expected expenses and deductibles. Why? By doing this you can budget what needs to be spend and put that money aside each pay check. These planned expenses in the budget will help you plan for the future.

For our family, it seems no matter what we do, at least once a year someone will end up in the ER or Urgent Care. Accidents and sudden extreme illness always occur outside of regular Doctor office hours and holidays. So even though we can't plan for emergencies, it would be great to have that money readily available for these events. Do you already do this? How do you handle the deductibles with your budget?

Prevent-There are a lot of hidden medical services that are going to be covered for your family that you wouldn't even think about unless you take the time to go over your plan. I say "hidden" because they are not your ordinary, day-to-day services. A lot of plans offer 24 hour phone care by RN's. Some offer rehab and reimbursement for exercise facilities. Some are offering a wellness bonus. Know your plan and use the resources that you are PAYING for!

Our family works to make sure we use up all the preventive services in our plan. These are yearly renewable items such as a yearly physical or two dental cleanings per family member. Some services vary depending on your age. As we age we are given different services. Do you use up these items each year? You are paying for it!

So plan a date night, get prepared so you can prevent a financial crisis. Do you have any health care tips? I'd love to hear about them!

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Cigna. I received a promotional item as a thank-you for participating.

Monday

Menu Plan Monday Recipes & link up

Chocolate Cobbler from Mimi's Magic Apron (picked from last week's menu!)

Welcome back to Menu Planning Monday! Thanks to all who stopped in and even linked up! Here is my menu and I've included a linky so you can link up your menu plan or find new recipes! We often eat the leftovers for lunch. How about you?

Monday-Runzas & big salad

Tuesday-Zesty Cannellini Bean Salad and leftover Runzas

Wednesday-Quick & Easy Jambalaya and Chocolate Cobbler from Mimi's Magic Apron

Thursday-Cheesy Bacon Calzones (use other toppings)

Friday-Busy Day Lasagna & Herb Biscuit Knots

Saturday-Healthier, Crunchy Granola

Dessert-Southern Fried Apples

*Featured Menu Plan from last week's link up is Healthy Weekly Meal Plan by Healthy Kitchen Guide

Lime Cilantro Rice from the above menu plan! I can't wait to try it.

Link up your menu or any tasty recipes! Next week you might get featured. I'm linked up to OrgJunkie Menu Link up and I always check out 3 Boys and a Dog menu plan.

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