Family, Fun, and Popcorn Balls

WARNING THIS IS A LONG POST...YOU CANNOT ROLL-UP THIS MUCH FUN INTO A SHORT ONE :)

Today we spent the afternoon at Granny's house for the big fall tradition of making popcorn balls. We gather to eat chili, give out boo bags to the kiddos, eat more food, enjoy family, eat some more, and make popcorn balls! Braden wanted to make boo bags for all of his cousins, so we spent time online picking out fun Halloween candies and items from the Internet and went to Wal-Mart to finalize the boo bag...the kiddos seemed to enjoy the fun things it contained. Stephanie even had to have her own boo bag...she thinks she still qualifies as one of the kids since she hasn't multiplied herself yet - ha! One of the favorites was the pumpkin balloon bopper, as you can see.

Braden had a blast playing with his cousins!

Now onto making the popcorn balls. There is a precise science to the activity. It takes special skill, let me demonstrate in pictures :)

First, you must sift through the popped popcorn...that is to make sure all coronals are eliminated so you don't crack a tooth on the finished product. By the way, this has to be freshly popped popcorn in a popcorn maker...not microwave bags of popcorn - doesn't work that way

Second, after Granny has slaved over the stove making the ooey-gooey goodness that makes the popcorn ball a popcorn ball, she pours it over the full bag of popcorn

Next it must be mixed up really good to make sure that all of the popcorn gets coated in the yummy goodness

Then after you have lathered up your hands with butter to keep them from burning from the molasses, you must start rolling the yumminess into balls

...and roll it...

Just keep rolling, just keep rolling, just keep rolling!

Then, WHAAALAAA, you have the finished product...the popcorn balls of 2008 have been created!

The only thing left to do at this point, is EAT IT!

As you can tell by the illustrations above, each part of the process takes LOTS of supervision -ha! What a blast we have together! This is an activity enjoyed by all ages in the family. Shoot, any excuse to get together, tell funny stories, laugh our butts off, and eat is a great time for us! Happy Halloween to all!