Happy Halloween and other Festive Fall Endeavours

Yesterday morning, I had every intention to go to the driving range. Because this is the summer that I will not suck at golf. I have cute new shoes...









A cute new putter boot'e...




And of course, my trusty golf bag.









But the wind was whistling in the trees...
(or um, at least the one tree on our balcony).

And the weather network said it was very, very cold. Even though the driving range was open, and the heaters were on, I knew I'd still have to wear my winter coat and earmuffs and mitts and drink hot chocolate and that really didn't seem like something fun to do (except for the hot chocolate part).




So instead I stayed inside and celebrated the fall day by by making Pumpkin Halloween Cookies! Ta da!

Doesn't it just make you want to eat Halloween candy? Me too. Only I'm not that crazy -- I was really making the cookies for a photo shoot. Because this is what happens when you work in magazines -- you work months in advance. When it's the heat of summer, you eat Christmas cookies. At Thanksgiving you decorate Easter Eggs. When it snows you drink lemonade. And when it's just at the tip of spring, you make Halloween cookies.

Then, because a batch of pumpkin halloween cookies calls for like 1/2 a cup of pumpkin puree, and because I bought the largest tin of pumpkin puree I could find because I didn't actually read the amounts on the recipe before I went to the store, I decided to continue on the Fall Pumpkin Theme by making Pumpkin Muffins with Brown Sugar Crumble on Top. If you want to make these muffins, I found the recipe here.

I offered Hubs one. He took a bite. Then he ate two muffins. That's always a good sign because when my baking is not good, he only eats one, or says that he's getting fat, or is very, very full from the glass of juice he just drank and couldn't possible eat another bite at the moment. But he didn't do that. So I was very happy.

Then I made myself that mug of hot chocolate and enjoyed the rest of my Blustery Fall Day.