31 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, 28-31

Happy Halloween!
Isn't it crazy how soon the last few days before a holiday come
and then are suddenly gone?
Is it just me?

Day 28:
I took a break.
31 Days was pretty ambitious, and resting is important.

Day 29:
We made B-b bats in our preschool co-op,
which I'm in charge of for two weeks.
Good thing it's only 2 times a week!

Day 30:
Costumes!  I finished them yesterday
with 4 hours to spare before we went trunk or treating.




Day 31:
Halloween!
We hosted our preschool co-op Halloween party.
Here are some pictures of the treats that I made:
We made some ghosties out of a paper plate
and streamers, played Don't Eat Frank (find the free board and
instructions here), and played 
a small bingo game.

We had rice krispie treat pumpkins,
jell-o jiggler witch hats,
and witch brooms made from pretzels and string cheese (which were eaten 
before I remembered to take a picture).

27 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, 27

Day 27:
Ghost pancakes

Tonight for dinner, we ate pancakes
with chocolate chip eyes and a mouth.
When I filled the plate with the complete pancakes,
I made sure to put the top ones
face-side-down.
That way no one knew about it until I put one on the first plate.

The kids were shocked.
And ate them.
And loved them.



Are you wondering how the pumpkin bowling went?
Great.
The girls really enjoyed it.


If you listen closely near the end of the one
where my daughter scoots close up and pushes over the rest, you
can hear how much fun the baby had.
He laughed and laughed every time they all fell.
It surprised me that he was even paying attention.

25 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, 24-26

No pics, just a quick update of the latest 2 activities.

Day 24:
Leaf rubbings
We grabbed some leaves outside and brought them in,
stuck them under some paper,
and rubbed them with crayons.
The pictures ended up on the fridge.

Day 25:
I'll be working on the costumes tonight.

Day 26:
We will be pumpkin bowling.
Take a few rolls of toilet paper and stack in a small
triangle.  I think we will use 3.
Then we will use a small fake pumpkin to roll at the toilet paper
and try to knock them down.
I've got high hopes for a fun thing....we'll see.

24 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, 19 - 23


No excuses, but please forgive me for taking so long.
Day 19:
The kids and I had the car the other day while Daddy
was camping with the Scouts.
So we went to the home improvement store for some supplies.
On the way, we passed a sign that said free pumpkins.
I thought about stopping, but didn't.
Then we passed it again on the way home, and there were several adults
wearing costumes and flagging down passing cars to come
and get some free pumpkins.
So I turned around and had the girls each pick one.
They had to be small, since the baby was
in the car seat, and he's over 20 lbs (what a chunk!).
Here they are (I included a pencil in the picture so you could see the size):


Day 20 & 21:
Made sugar cookie dough, chilled it overnight.
Cut out cutie Halloween cookies.

Day 22:
Attempted to frost them using royal icing, so it would set and be so beautiful.
It was okay, but I wasn't very pleased with the results:
 Plus I kept dropping them on each other before the icing set,
so they were mainly turning out to be a big mess.
 Note to self - ice with buttercream.

Day 22:
Corn maze!
It was FREE!!  Woohoo!
Here we are at the end.
 Here we are when I lost my balance.  Luckily I caught myself and only my fingers
hit the mud.



Day 23:
Pumpkin patch.
It was a little more than we had expected to pay, having never been to one before.
They were 30 cents a pound.
But we only picked out two (thank goodness).
And while Daddy was paying, we found a big box of teeny pumpkins,
so the girls picked some up and we snapped a photo
'cause they are so cute!

18 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, 16 - 18

Happy National Chocolate Cupcake Day!!
These were delicious!
And so rich that I needed a glass of milk after eating one.
I'm SO glad I made these in mini size.
AND since I put them in
jack o'lantern wrappers, they are good for a day of Halloween.
Woohoo! for counting double.
 Day 16:
Chocolate cupcakes
Get this amazing recipe HERE.

Day 17
Milk Jug Jack O'Lanterns

Day 18:
Ghosties from garbage bags.
I used some mini white trash bags and balled up a
newspaper and then secured with white string.

16 October 2012

Chocolate Cupcakes & Other Good Stuff

This Thursday is
Chocolate Cupcake Day!
Yum.
I am going to try a new recipe, which
I'm really hoping turns out as good as it looks.

Tomorrow is
Wear Something Gaudy Day
Apparently this is from the 70s, and the show Three's Company.
So grab something bright, showy,
outlandish, not in good taste, and join the celebration!
Sounds fun.
And right up my alley.

Sunday is the
6th Anniversary
for my husband and me.
That's right, it's been six whole years since we tied the knot.
And we are happy as clams.
Feel free to join the celebration.

31 Days of Halloween: 12 - 15

I know, I know, it's
FINALLY another post.
We had planned for one trip out of town this month, but
ended up having to go out of town again this last weekend.
So it's a catch-up kind of day again.
But it's a great one!

Here's the follow-up to Day 10, my
free Home Depot craft is finished.
 I kinda like it.

Day 12:
Mummify the front door.
After I looked at this picture, I added some
black eye balls, since I thought this was a little strange looking.
 

Day 13:
Paper pumpkins.
I used paper strips and small brads.

Day 14:
Tissue ghosts

Day 15:
ghost on the mirror
I cut out a ghost from some clear contact paper
and stuck it on the bathroom mirror downstairs.
So far, only my husband
has noticed it.
I saw this on pinterest, and the post suggested
that you use some cling wrap, but I don't buy that.
So I thought contact paper would work pretty good, and it did.
PLUS, I was able to draw out the image on the 
backing paper, which I'm not sure if cling wrap has that or not.

I'm still working on today's craft,
so I will have to post it tomorrow.

11 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween: 9-11

Okay, here's the next three!

Day 9:
I made a banner for the mantle, which consists of
two pieces - the googly eyes on thread,
and some orange and white papers taped to some black ribbon.
Easy-peasy and cute.


 The whole look.

Day 10:
Last night, a friend and I went to
Home Depot to check out a new thing they are
doing at our store, a
FREE monthly craft night.
The craft last night was based on THIS PICTURE,
and here's how mine looks after last night.
 I'll be finishing it up today.
And post a finished picture later.

The craft night was pretty awesome - the four 2x4s were all
painted the base colors and drilled with holes,
because they are put together with dowels instead of screws.
And they provided more paint, markers, and some templates (I didn't use those).
Anything else that we wanted to have on it, we needed to bring it with us,
like gauze or material (or pink ribbon!) for the mummy.
You should check out if your Home Depot will be doing this, too - it was GREAT!!

Day 11:
That same friend brought me a piece
of her pumpkin cheesecake,
which I will enjoy as soon as I feed the baby.
I'm pretty excited because I could smell
the pumpkin as I was taking the picture - it took some restrain to
eat lunch first.

10 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween, Days 3 - 8



Have you given up on me yet?
Sorry.
We went out of town for the weekend,
and I've been working on getting the house in order.
Even though we cleaned it pretty well before
we left, it's always a chore to get it cleaned up when we get home.

But, I have still been working on my 31 Days of Halloween.
Here's what I've done so far:

Day 3:
  Got out the decorations we already had
and decorated the downstairs.

 

Day 4:
 Printed out some Halloween cuties
and stuck them in frames, then added to the decor
from the day before.
You can find the subway art here, the witch here (available in 8 different colors),
and the say boo here.

Day 5:
 Printed and hung this free Trick or Treat banner.
You can find it here.


 Day 6:
 While we were at grandma's house, the girls
made some spooky haunted houses
with stickers inside the windows and doors.


Day 7:
 Then they made some bats out of circle heads with
pointy ears and tracing their hands for the wings.


Day 8:
 Of course we can't leave grandma's without
my sister painting the girls' nails.  One has candy corn
colors alternating on each finger and the
other has white with green and purple dots.
Or for a different candy corn approach,
see the toes below.  It's a mixture of what
the girls have, candy corn big toe and polka dots for the rest.
Super cute!

Thank you for the free printables to the blogs I linked to.
They have some great ideas, so be sure
to check them out.

02 October 2012

31 Days of Halloween

I don't know about you, but I love Halloween.
It's fun to dress up, fun
to decorate the house, and fun to have trick-or-treaters come.

So to help the kids enjoy the festivities a little more,
and stretch out the celebration, I'm going to try
to do one thing for Halloween each day.

That doesn't mean it will happen, and the kids won't 
necessarily be involved in each activity,
so we will probably end up with a few more than 31 things total.

But it will be great!
Here are the first two things.

I found some free Ben & Jerry's printable skeletons,
which is why they have ice cream in their phalanges.
And I let the girls cut out and glue their own,
so they are looking really unique.

And the other is a graveyard for our annual
tombstones.
For everyone who comes to our house during October,
we have tried to remember to have them decorate a
small paper tombstone.
This is the first year that I have made a graveyard,
and I think it's pretty cute.  Since it's light outside, I had to take
a picture from inside - otherwise it was easier to see me in the reflection than
the graveyard in the window.
I'm pretty excited about it.

Do you have any traditions for Halloween?

01 October 2012

Museum Day

We were able to head over to Tacoma, Washington
on Saturday to celebrate Museum Day.
We went to the 
It was pretty neat.
It wasn't as big as I had thought it was going to be.
The first thing we did was head into the Hot Shop to check out the
people working there.
You can check out a live feed here - it's pretty neat to watch.

The girls didn't like it too much - they were scared for some reason.
So we each held one for a little while before we decided
to head out and see some of the displays.

It was great.
I didn't take any pictures inside the museum, but I did
up on the bridge that goes over the busy road & train tracks, so
you can have an idea of what we saw inside.
 It's really neat.

There were a few different exhibits inside.  In the main entrance area, there
was a display of birds.  I think they were all done
by the same guy, but I'm not positive about that.
But they were really neat.  In each display case, there were several different
ones and it was difficult to choose a favorite because they 
were all so interesting or pretty or cute.

And in the gallery, there were some really big creations, and a
few different collections.

All in all, it was a great trip.  The size of the museum
was perfect for going with kids, and they
don't mind having kids come.
In fact, there are a few pieces on display in the hallway that leads to
the restrooms, and those pieces were all designed by kids.
There was a nacho, an elephant, a raccoon star, and a snake on a pole.
They have strollers that you can use, for FREE,
and I just saw on their website that if you have a library card from
Pierce Country, Tacoma, or Puyallup, you can check out a free pass with it.
Which is awesome!

I would definitely head back there after to see another exhibit.
They even had a few sculptures outside:


October

It's a new month, so let's find out what
October is special for:

Apple Month

Eat Better, Eat Together Month

Down Syndrome Awareness Month

Go Hog Wild - Eat Country Ham -- sound delicious!

International Walk to School Month

National Bake & Decorate Month -- I hope to celebrate this once or twice

National Book Month

National Chili Month

Pizza Month

Positive Attitude Month




Also, Wednesday is 
Balloons Around the World Day

How do you celebrate?  By making balloon sculptures!
You can check out some awesome examples 
here on this google results page.