Pumpkin Fun 2011

Here's a list of the pumpkin activities we did to celebrate Halloween. Big Sister and Munchkin invited some of their friends over and we all managed to have a pumpkiny time. 

I tweeked an idea I found called the Mix and Match Pumpkin Game to fit our indoor small group. I printed out the templates they give you for the pumpkins (1 for each kid present) and the facial features to go with it. I placed all the eyes, noses and mouths in a bag, they came up one at a time and picked one out, placed it on any pumpkin. They loved the crazy way they all looked at the end.

Here's a fun magnet craft I picked up at the Joann store. We made our own little pumpkin patch! I can't find it online, but it was in a dollar bin there.

Here's our homemade orange play doh. We used paprika (mixed in with hot water) to make the basic dough an orange color. Next time I think I'll use this recipe, from Food.com to make it though. It uses KoolAid and even suggests putting some glitter in there.

These Jar O'Lanterns were so much fun. I found them on the Family Fun site, under Jar O'Lanterns. Basically, I saved up a few empty glass jars and cleaned them really well, inside and out. We used masking tape to give it a face and painted the entire thing with orange paint. After it dried we pulled off the tape and put a candle inside. Next year, I think I will save enough jars so we'll make enough to line the driveway for Trick or Treaters.

Happy Halloween!

The Spider

In our family we don't really do anything too scary for Halloween, but we do like our spiders, pumpkins and scarecrows. Here is our latest Halloween decoration, the Spider!

Thanks to these great directions on Family Fun, the girls and Daddy were able to construct this thing in about an hour.

Daddy thought it was hilarious that I wanted to use only one yellow easter egg, which creates two different sized eyes. We also omitted the green duct tape that the directions called for. When am I ever going to use green duct tape again?

Now when we drive around the neighborhood the girls can say that we have a spider unlike anyone else's.

Our Favorite Kid Magazine

I wanted to share our favorite kid magazine. The High Five Magazine from Highlights is awesome for the younger crowd.

We received it as a gift for Christmas this past year and I'm going to be sure to renew our subscription.  The girls feel so grownup getting their own magazine.

I like the simple hidden pictures pages. They aren't so difficult to bamboozle my 3 year old but still enough fun for my 5 year old. Another great feature is their build it and make it articles.

The build it gives the kids ideas on what to use their blocks to build (like a post office, race track, or grocery store). The make it section gives a cute craft and a food item to make. Lots of fun and easy to do!

It's been a long time...

Blogging got put on hold for a long time. Seems like life takes you by the hair, swings you around a few times and puts you down so you can catch your breath.


Life with baby number three has been marvelous! They say three is a charm and boy oh boy we have our charm. Little Guy is awesome and his big sisters have been amazing. Once Little Guy was born we started in strong with preschool for Big Sister.

Here we are a year later and Big Sister is in Kindergarten, Munchkin is getting ready for preschool next year and Little Guy is happily following us along!