this is halloween, halloween, halloween

Wow, I can't believe that October is over already!! It's my favorite month and it feels like it just flies by every year.

Here in Utah, we've had a very, very warm Halloween--it was like 75 degrees today! Kind of weird during the day, but it was nice for trick-or-treating. Much better than the year that it poured all day long and was only in the 30s.

Tempe absolutely loved carving pumpkins. She couldn't get enough of the gushy stuff!

Juno was good at scooping guts out, too!

Tempe and Helena pumpkin bowling at Grandma Jan's annual Halloween party.

I also came up with a game for the party--I call it Skele-Tale. I took apart a plastic skeleton and traced it onto a piece of butcher paper, then numbered each bone. The numbers corresponded to stories in our collection of Halloween picture books. The girls took turns choosing a bone and putting the skeleton together and I read the corresponding story.

Halloween breakfast--pancake ghosts! I used chocolate chips for the eyes and marshmallows for the mouths. The marshmallows melt and make it look like the mouth is open and screaming.

Juno got into the makeup crayons while I was doing Helena's hair today (I did the brown freckles on her face, she did everything else).

 Trick-or-treat! Jason is Harry Potter, I'm a pirate, Tempe is a black cat, Helena is Wendy (as in, Wendy Thomas--from the fast food restaurant), and Juno is a cowgirl.

One of our neighbors dressed up as Lucious Malfoy so I had to take a picture of him and Harry.

Ok, two of our neighbors had the scariest costumes I have ever seen in my life. They were both on stilts and about 10 feet tall and they were prowling around another neighbor's completely decked out house. Several of the kids trick-or-treating left that house in tears, but my kids actually hugged them and posed for a picture. Um, I think I have desensitized them. Whoops.
Happy Halloween!!
PS Now that I am all caught up on The Walking Dead, I have to wait a whole week in between my zombie fix! What the heck.

my kids at the pumpkin patch

Does time continually speed up for anyone else?

It is nearly the end of October. How did that happen? I feel like I was just battling the summer heat, and now Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I've been feeling bad because we haven't done anything festive this fall. I guess I'm still adjusting to having a kid in school and the extra time commitment that is.

To make up for our lack of festivity, we went to the pumpkin patch last weekend.

If you're looking for a great pumpkin patch in Davis County, Pack's Pumpkin Patch on Glover Lane in Farmington is the best! It's free admission, has great prices and selection, and has a free hay maze and photo backdrops.

Tempe ran into one of her friends from preschool last year in the hay maze. She was so excited!

Tempe originally picked this green pumpkin but then switched to a traditional orange one.

 Juno caught on fast!

Jason pulling, Tempe and Helena pushing, Juno hitching a ride.

I opted for a white pumpkin again this year. 

Jason chose a cinderella variety.

Juno and the pumpkins in the cart.

Tempe and Helena as witches.

Striking a pose!

LOLcats

Tempe holding (or trying to hold) Smoky, Spook, Autumn, and Frankenstein.

Tempe and Spook, Juno with Autumn in her stroller, Sophie with Smoky, and Helena with Frankenstein.

Me and Smoky! He's probably my second favorite after Moose/ Pumpkin.

Figure One. "Hold up, I need a drink."

 Figure Two. "Hey where do you think you're going!"

Figure Three. "Get back in there."

Now if that wouldn't win Operation Kitten Calendar, I don't know what would.

Boo! It's Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!

We had a lovely evening trick-or-treating. The weather was perfect here--65 degrees and sunny all day, and still 60 degrees when we were out. It was a vast improvement over last year, where it was pouring buckets of rain and freezing. We hit most of the houses in our neighborhood, including the cotton candy house AND the Kool-Aid house AND the glow sticks house, and then drove over to Jason's parent's house to trick-or-treat to them (they give out full size candy bars!)

This year, Tempe and Helena wanted to be unicorns--I used Family Fun's idea to make yarn manes and tails and a fabric horn and safety pinned everything onto hooded sweatshirts. Jason was a grunge fan from the '90s (basically himself 15 years ago), and Juno had a pick your own adventure costume--she could have been Little Bo Peep, Pollyanna, Scarlett O'Hara, or a porcelain doll, whichever you think is cutest. For her costume, I found the flounciest, ruffliest dress ever at DI and a straw hat with a bunch of flowers and long ribbons trailing from it. Then I got a real porcelain doll (also from DI) and cut the ringlets off, sewed them to a strip of felt, and glued the felt to the underside of her hat. She was way cute!!

So for my costume, I decided to be a character from a scary story I read to the girls earlier this week. Who remembers the folk tale about the girl that wore a ribbon around her neck all the time, her entire life, and when she was old and dying, her husband untied it and her head fell off?
Yeah, that's who I was. I just tied a ribbon around my neck. It sounds dumb, but Tempe is completely and utterly intrigued with that story, so she thought it was awesome!
I thought it was funny how we all decided to do different things with our pumpkins this year. Juno did nothing, Tempe wanted to carve hers, Jason etched the words 'And so it goes' into his, I used an antiquing glaze on mine (pretty much the most boring thing you could ever do to a white pumpkin) and Helena painted hers green. She just used acrylic craft paint, but on the pumpkin surface it turned into almost chalkboard paint. We spent all week writing on her pumpkin with chalk and drawing different faces on it--fun!
And now Halloween is over, and November is nearly here. Next up--Juno's first birthday party!

Halloween countdown!

I can't believe that tomorrow is Halloween!! I made this fun magnetic Halloween countdown a few years ago and every October it's so fun to watch it fill up with magnets. Tempe and Helena have especially loved it this year! Every day as we put a new magnet on, they would count the remaining spaces to see how many more days until Halloween. The black cat 31 is permanently glued on, so when we put the monster eye 30 on today, our calendar was complete!

I have the calendar hanging in our blackboard frame right inside our front door, with some spooky spiderwebs and a chalk "Boo!"

This was such a fun calendar to make. I used an old cookie sheet (make sure it's magnetic!) and painted it metallic purple. Then I decoupaged fun Halloween scrapbook paper over the paint and used a sharpie to draw a grid. The magnets are all things from my junk drawer/crafting stash--clothespin, clear marbles, leaves, funny chipboard shapes, etc. Most of the numbers are sparkly green stickers but some are written on in sharpie. I have a Christmas calendar, too, but the Halloween one is definitely more fun!

Fall FUN + a yummy snack!

Ahhh, I love October. It is by far my favorite month of the year! I love the cool weather, playing in leaves with my kids, apple cider, pumpkins everywhere, spooky decorations, and watching the leaves change colors. Most years in Utah, almost all the leaves turn yellow, which is pretty but just not the same as fall back East where everything is red and orange and yellow. But for some reason, this year there is a lot more color on the trees! It makes me want to pick up and move to New England. Jason says maybe we can visit.

We've been having fun watching "Hocus Pocus" and "Nightmare Before Christmas" and enjoying the nice weather. I took the girls to a local garden center to see the giant pumpkins last week. They were excited to get to sit on such a big pumpkin!

Today we went to the zoo. It was the perfect day for a trip to the zoo! They all wore their spooky Hallowen outfits, so we were excited to take a spooky picture on this giant spider :)

Target has been teasing me with big containers of Pumpkin Spice almonds for the past few weeks. I finally caved and bought some and it was a good choice. They are SO GOOD. It's a pretty subtle pumpkin flavor. They're good by themselves or....

...you could make a delicious trail mix like I did. Pumpkin spice almonds, dry roasted peanuts, mini marshmallows, dark chocolate chips, and craisins. It is sooo good and fun to snack on! The pumpkin flavor from the almonds gets distributed to all the other ingredients and it tastes like Autumn. Yum, yum!

What are you doing to enjoy October?

Halloween sensory bin

We haven't had a sensory bin for a while, but I found a bunch of plastic bugs in day-glo colors in our Halloween decorations, so I decided to put this bin together.

In it is black and white beans, skeletons, spiders, snakes, and bugs in bright orange, green, purple, and black, glitter pom poms in the same colors, googly eyes, a pair of tongs, and three Halloween silicone molds. I got all three molds at the dollar store--there's an orange pumpkin one, a purple skull one, and a black bones one.

Tempe and Helena love using the tongs to sort the pom poms into the molds and then "feed" them black and white beans. Juno loves trying to stuff handfuls of beans in her mouth. She's not quite old enough to play with this, but we try!

this is halloween

Well, our Halloween week is coming to a close, and all four of us are sick today. Boo.

We didn't make it to a pumpkin patch this year due to rain, but we did go to a little garden center to pick out pumpkins--I just can't stand the thought of buying pumpkins at Wal-Mart or the grocery store. What's the point? We also didn't even attempt to decorate our pumpkins, much less carve them... hopefully my kids aren't scarred for life.

The girls changed their minds about costumes so many times in the last month, but they finally settled on Santa Claus (Helena) and a pink princess (Tempe). Here they are at Grandma Jan's house before our third annual family Halloween party!

Jason dressed up as his dad for work this year. His dad is the big boss at the office, and people often tell Jason that they look alike, but on Friday Jason actually dressed like and wore his hair like his dad. It was a hit! I wish I had a picture of his dad to put on here!

Here in Utah, when Halloween falls on a Sunday, Saturday is declared the offical trick-or-treat day. Unfortunately, it was rainy, windy, and cold last night. We made it to about 5 houses in our neighborhood before giving up, very, very wet and bedraggled! After that, we got in the car and drove to Jason's aunt's house and his parent's house and trick-or-treated from the car. I had some crockpot hot cocoa waiting for us at home, and after a mug of that and one treat from their bags, the girls were ready for bed. Not our best Halloween, but we still got some good candy--I mean, the kids got some good candy :)

Play School: My Skeleton

To finish off our unit on the human body and to celebrate Halloween, this week we learned about skeletons!!

Concepts: What is my skeleton? How does it help me move? How can I take care of my skeleton?

Books: Bend and Stretch: Learning About Your Bones and Muscles by Pamela Hill Nettleton; You Can't See Your Bones with Binoculars: A Guide to Your 206 Bones by Harriet Ziefert; I Spy A Skeleton by Jean Marzollo and Walter Wick; The Skeleton in the Closet by Alice Schertle; I Can Move by Mandy Suhr

Activities: I found this glow-in-the-dark skeleton at the grocery store a few months ago for only $1 and I knew it would be perfect for Halloween and this lesson. It's about 3 feet tall--a little taller than Helena and a little smaller than Tempe. We used it to see what our skeletons look like and also to demonstrate how our "hinges" (joints) help our skeletons to move.

My brother Tyler broke his wrist over the summer and was in a cast for about 3 months, so the girls are pretty familiar with casts. I made a few soft casts out of felt and put them with their doctor kit so they could pretend to break their bones. We talked about X-ray machines and how they can take pictures of the inside of our bodies and help us see our skeletons.
Songs: I'm all made of hinges, so everything bends.
From the top of my head right down to my ends.
I'm hinges in front and I'm hinges in back.
And I'm glad I have hinges, or else I would crack!

You put your arm bones in, you put your arm bones out,
You put your arm bones in, and you shake them all about.
You do the Hooky Spooky and you give a little shout.
It's Halloween, you better watch out! Boo!

Sensory Bin: We still have black and white beans and assorted Halloween shapes in neon colors in the bin this week.
Snack: Skeleton cookies. Don't ask about the green.
Letter of the Day: G is for Garden

Play School: My Guts

First, an update on the rock candy we made during our lesson on rocks. It took an entire month to grow enough crystals for this to be candy, but it was worth the wait--at least the girls think so! Unfortunately, I only made one, so they had to share. They didn't mind.

This was a fun, although long, experiment. The girls loved checking on their rock candy every day after lunch and seeing the crystals grow bigger and bigger.

This week's lesson continued our unit on the human body: My Guts (or, in other words, "Inside My Body")

Concepts: What are my guts? What do they do? How do they help me play, talk, laugh, and help others?

Books: The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen; Thump-Thump: Learning About Your Heart by Pamela Hill Nettleton; Breathe In, Breathe Out: Learning About Your Lungs by Pamela Hill Nettleton; and What's Inside? My Body by Angela Royston

Activities: We focused mostly on our brain, heart, lungs, and stomach, although we also talked about our blood a little bit. We talked about how our brain is like our body's computer and it sends messages to the rest of our body. I told the girls to use their brain to send a message to their feet and kick, or send a message to their hands and wave. We listened to each other's heartbeats with our play stethescope and squeezed and relaxed our fists to mimic the pumping of our heart. We felt our chests to see how it rose and fell when our lungs filled with air and then emptied out. I couldn't find a balloon but I was going to blow one up to show how our lungs work. We listened to each other's stomachs gurgling and talked about how our food goes into our stomach. We looked at the veins in our wrists and elbows and talked about how our blood flows all through our body. The girls really thought that was neat! Helena kept pointing at her teeny tiny little veins and saying "My blood is in here!"

Sensory Bin: I was going to fill the bin with cold, cooked spaghetti (you know, like the "brains" in children's haunted houses) but I chickened out--too gross! So our bin has black and white dry beans and an assortment of neon colored Halloween shapes--snakes, bats, spiders, skeletons, etc.

Letter of the Day: F is for Family. I never remember to take pictures of our letter projects, but we are hanging them all on a clothesline in the girls room. It's fun to see what we come up with every week!

boo to you

Halloween this year was absolutely beautiful! After a week of cold, snowy weather, Saturday was bright and sunny and around 50 degrees. Perfect weather for trick-or-treating! The girls were so excited to go, especially Helena. She is our little miss independent, and she insisted on walking by herself, carrying her basket by herself, going up the stairs by herself... she was dragging her basket along behind her with candy spilling out, but she still screamed "NO! NO! NOOO!" every time we tried to help her carry it. As for Tempe, she got tuckered out after about 10 houses and said "Mom, I have enough candy. We can go home."

These pictures are actually from trick-or-treating at a rest home the day before Halloween, and they are so interested in eating their cookies that they wouldn't give me a smile. But you can see their costumes!

Tempe loved her ballerina costume so much! When I first put it on her, she ran to look in our full-length mirror and kept saying "Oh, I am so pretty!"

Helena loved her cowgirl costume just as much. Especially the poncho. It is very, very grubby after being worn several days in a row. And don't you just love her cow trick-or-treat basket? Thanks, D.I.!

She really is a cowgirl! Look at her go!

Play School: Halloween

Pla ySchool this week focused on--what else?--Halloween!

Concepts: Trick-or-treat etiquette and safety--I am really big on my kids realizing that basic rules about safety and being polite still apply on Halloween!

Art/game/activity: Trick-or-treat role play (to practice using flashlights, and saying "Trick-or-treat, please!" and "Thank you!"); "Green witch, green witch, what do you see?" book: I'm sure you have all read Eric Carle's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?". We created our own Halloween version. I found free coloring page images to go along with the text (Green witch, green witch what do you see? I see a white ghost/orange pumpkin/black cat/purple bat/trick-or-treaters looking at me!). The kids colored in the pictures and I added cardstock covers and stapled them together.

Songs/nursery rhymes: Ring around the pumpkin, pocket full of nuts. Leaves, leaves, we all fall down! Stomp around the pumpkin... tiptoe 'round the pumpkin... march around the pumpkin...

"I am a trick or treater set to go, here is my flashlight I'll walk slow I always say thank you for my treats, and I never run across the street."

Books: Our library has a 2-book cap on current holiday books, so I chose Two Little Witches by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback and By the Light of the Halloween Moon by Caroline Stutson and Kevin Hawkes--it came with cassette tape reading, which was a nice change for the kids. I also have my own copy of The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat by Stan and Jan Berenstain, which has an emphasis on trick-or-treat safety, so we read that before our trick-or-treat roleplay.

Snack: Frozen banana ghosts. I don't remember where I first saw this idea (maybe FamilyFun?) but it was really simple and actually healthy. Cut a banana in half, widthwise, and poke three chocolate chips, point down, into the banana in the shape of two eyes and a wailing ghost mouth. Put a popsicle stick in the bottom of the banana and freeze for a few hours or until firm.

In addition to our regular Joy School class this week, we did a few Halloween projects to get into the spirit. I am not a fan of carving pumpkins, so we painted them and then added spiderweb to decorate them. I wrapped mine in bandages like a mummy.

Here are the kids posing with the newly decorated pumpkins. Doesn't Big B look proud? He really had fun!

We also had a design your own monster activity that I snagged in the Target dollar bins a few weeks ago. Fun, easy, and not messy at all.

We have been bombarded with Halloween activities today and I'm sure tomorrow will be the same! Now that I am a mom, I really wish more parents would give out pennies or pencils....