Monster Bash!

Aaron does preschool at home so we decided to do a preschool Halloween party for him over here with all of his little friends from his church class. He was so excited for it and sat at the kitchen table 30 minutes prior and waited....and waited! Every 2 minutes he'd ask me how much longer and ask why I planned the party SO LATE! :)
Arts and crafts as well as some pumpkin peeps centerpieces.

Wooden monster magnets to color. I got these on sale at Joanns for .12 each and added a little magnet to the back of each one. Aaron colored 3 of these and was sad that I didn't have any more extras after the party!

Green monster juice. Strawberry/kiwi Hawaiian punch with spiders and a gummy worm. The kids liked finding the spiders. At one point, almost every child at the table had their hand in their cup, picking out their spider.

The spread. I provided hot dogs and chicken wings. Everyone else brought the cutest Halloween snacks! We had Ritz spiders, donut holes & apple slices, monster apples, witches fingers (2 varieties), Halloween snack mix (pretzels, Chex, raisins, Reese's Pieces, chocolate peanuts, and candy corn) and lots of Halloween candy corn/marshmallows.

Aaron and I made a cardboard monster bean bag game. The kids liked throwing "bombs" into the monster's mouths.

A parting gift for each little friend as they went home.

MONSTERS!

It was an awesome afternoon!

Haunted Gingerbread Houses!

So this was ALLLL Derrick. What a guy. He came home late one night after helping out a family in the ward and had all the supplies needed for the kids to make these the next day. They had fun decorating the little chocolate graham cracker houses. I made a batch of grey royal icing and helped hold the pieces together while Derrick assembled the basic shape. Seriously, this guy is out of this world. Dallin and Aaron had fun making "Casper Houses".

I Spy Box

I've been wanting to make a "I Spy" bag for the kids for a while now. The ones with the clear window to look through and they have to search for a list of things by shaking the bag. Well, I haven't ever gotten around to it, and when I saw some of the fun sensory tubs on Chasing Cheerios it gave me an idea!
I filled a tub with black beans (just like on Chasing Cheerios) then hid a bunch of toys and small craft objects among the beans.
I gave the kids a chart with a sample object, a box to check it off after they have found it, and the number of objects they need to find.

They LOVE LOVE LOVED it! It entertained them forever! Kaylee really liked it too. She enjoyed holding the beans in her hands and also discovered that they make an amazing sound when being flung off the table and onto the floor.

Poor little thing was banned after I couldn't keep her from stuffing beans into her mouth.

Maybe in a few months she'll be ready to join us for longer than 5 minutes! We will definitely be doing this regularly!

Oh, and YES there were beans everywhere!!!

Cookies & a Pumpkin Patch!

I love holidays. Any holiday. Because it is a good excuse to decorate sugar cookies!
We did this over 2 days. Yesterday the boys and I made the cookies and today we decorated them. We made a lot and decided to bring these with us to our friend's house tonight when we go over for dinner.

The creations. So cute. I always use the Wilton Roll-Out Cookie recipe because it doesn't need to chill. Super easy and it makes perfect dough. We decided this afternoon that we need to do a cookie party over here before Halloween. Aaron has been making new friends in his Sunbeam class and since he does preschool at home he doesn't get to socialize with kids his age every day. So this will be fun! Now to start planning... I think that making these at the party will be a must!

Aaron and I made this little diorama pumpkin patch this morning. He had a lot of fun and liked describing it to Derrick on the phone. I love that I have a crafty little kid :) We used candy pumpkins, a tiny shoe box (courtesy of Kaylee), raffia, a clothespin, felt scraps, paper, and hot glue. Aaron designed the color scheme for his scarecrow.

Seasonal Blocks

I love when I already have all of the supplies needed to make a cute craft like this! I had a bunch of blocks left over from a class I taught a couple of years ago. My mom sent my kids a super cute block nativity scene, so I taught the ladies at my church how to make them as well at an Enrichment night.

Derrick cut, sanded and used the router on each block...a couple of hundred of them. I kept the extra ones when the class was over and have had fun putting them to use! I found the idea for these blocks HERE.

I cut 2" squares of paper and attached them with Mod Podge on the blocks after painting them black. Then, using my Cricut (of course), I cut out letters and attached those with Mod Podge. I also attached some seasonal cut outs and used puff paint to add the dots and other embellishments since I don't have a lot of ribbon or other embellishments like that.
The HARVEST blocks were even easier since I left them natural!

 

Photo Family Tree

We had a fun Family Home Evening the other night learning about our Family Tree. Derrick and I took turns telling the kids about each picture as they attached it to the tree. They really enjoyed it and Dallin reminded me to day that we NEED to find a picture for the missing Grandpa! I printed out all of the photos I had, but didn't have one of Derrick's grandfather who he only met once. We'll need to get one of him. The boys liked that Great-Grandpa Kempton jumped out of planes in the military. I found the tree in the FRIEND magazine. There is an online version available to print out as well. I put our tree in the hallway at eye-level for the kids so that they can check it out whenever they want.

Mini Meatloaves

Here's a new recipe to try! This picture looks nasty, but doesn't meatloaf always look nasty? These mini meatloaves were FANTASTIC! I found the origional recipe here and modified it, just a little. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef, added 1T Worchesterchire sauce, and 1 T. dry onion soup mix. Instead of using the brown sugar/ketchup sauce, I just used ketchup. After baking them for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, I broiled them for another 5 minutes....watching carefully so that they did not burn. I think by using turkey that it makes them more mushy, and by broiling them a little, it gave them more shape.

We eat these with mashed potatoes, corn, and cheese toast. Good comfort meal for a cool fall evening.

Oh, and if anyone is interested, I figured the Weight Watcher Points for these are 3.5 each (8 servings).