Lattes and Cupcakes and Pumpkins, Oh My!

After all of the talk about Fall, my sister and I thought it was time for the rubber to meet the road, and actually DO some of the Fall projects/activities we'd been mulling over. I'm quite amazed at what we were able to accomplish in the 4 short hours that Rylie was at pre-school. Wow!
Our first stop was Starbucks for an Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte...same great Fall flavor, but definitely more appropriate for the still 90+ degree weather. 

(this is actually my sister's latte...forgot to take a pic of mine!)

 

Let me just say how crucial coffee with my sister on Wednesdays and Fridays has become. It happens come rain or shine...and I definitely look forward to it! I'm hoping we can continue with it even after "the boys" get here...but we'll just have to see how they feel about that =) Our next stops were Hobby Lobby and Walmart to buy supplies to paint our little pumpkins and the actual pumpkins themselves.
Our plan was to get the cupcakes going and then start on the pumpkins. This is the recipe that we decided to attempt today (also mentioned on my sweet cousin Jessica's blog). We had to make a bit of a crucial change when we discovered that NO ONE in Columbus is carrying canned pumpkin right now! Seriously?! Canned pumpkin isn't some kind of rare and exotic ingredient! However, because we still REALLY wanted to make them, we decided to substitute sweet potatoes for the pumpkin. Luckily sweet potatoes were a great choice! The cupcakes turned out delicious! Here are a few pics...

 

 

 

In between all of the cupcake madness, we each painted 3 really cute, little "pie pumpkins"...my sister is going to blog about the pumpkin painting, but I'll post one picture of my final products...

 

It's hard to tell the colors with my fabulous lighting and cell phone pic...but we used gold, pearly white, copper and black (that had a bit of a shimmer to it). 

Not sure how long these little pumpkins will last...but I'm going to enjoy them while they do! I DO have a feeling the cupcakes won't last quite as long! =) 

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend...any ideas for some more (inexpensive) Fall activities?? I'd love to hear them!


~Amy~