Halloween Day activities

I love making holidays fun for my kids and finding simple little special ways to create 'good' mommy memories! (i wouldn't want to be remembered as the mom that NEVER did anything!)

For breakfast we had Pumpkin heads (pumpkin muffins), witch fingers (sausages), and dead mans punch (orange juice with frozen sprite head).

 



I thought my camera was broken. EVERY picture was coming out dark and I couldn't figure out why. I was so mad at myself when I figured it out. My Aperture had been changed and was at like a 20! I never change it so I hadn't even thought to look at that. The whole days pictures turned out awful just because of the silly aperture!



 

For school I had purchased pumpkins for the kids to paint. I was thinking silly faces but thanks to my brother and sister who painted angry bird pumpkins...that's what my kids wanted to paint! I convinced them to be a little bit more original and they came up with minions. I was still sad we didn't get just some cute pumpkin faces!



Two years ago I had purchased these little face pieces to put into your pumpkin. So we split and did two carved and two with the little face pieces. I was thinking just for the little kids to do, but Ky and Maliyah wanted to do it just as much as the babies.

 

 

Yum, making caramel apples!



taking Savannah outside to see if I could figure out what the heck was wrong with my camera. I didn't figure it out at that time. Bummer because she was being really cute! I had to have my shutter speed so slow lots of the pictures were out of focus. I know I should have just switched to Auto at this point, but I'm trying to just learn my camera and practice...guess I learned didn't I?









 

The Haunted house the kids decorated (with a little help of course). Thanks Grandma Duck for the kit!



The final result from our pumpkin painting. Mine is the brown one. I wanted to test crackle on a pumpkin. It was hard. I wouldn't recommend it.

International Fair

Last Friday the kids had an International Fair here at the house. We had been working on 4 countries that they learned about and then prepared to teach their friends about. They each got to invite four friends. We made up Passport invitations that went to each friend that was personalized with their picture and information. i have to say they really turned out cute. I'm sad I didn't get a picture of any of them. Maybe I'll have to make one for each of our kids so as we continue to learn about other countries we can stamp our passports.

The four countries we talked about were
*Greenland
*Italy
*Japan
and
*Brazil...but specifically Rio de Janeiro (of course because my kids are obsessed with the movie Rio)

In each country we talked about and showed pictures of their homes, food, clothing, music, money, language and just about anything else you can think about. We made a craft from each country and had food from each country. We totally ran out of time. The kids had a blast and were so mad when we didn't have time to talk about and do everything that we had prepared.

This pictured below was a soup recipe from Greenland with Meat, carrots and onions and barley.



Japan we made Gioza's and wanted to show sushi...but knew they might not like sushi. Ky had the GREAT idea of these sushi rolls:



Rice Crispy instead of rice, fruit rollups instead of seaweed, and Swedish fish instead of raw fish. They were yummy!

Below is pictured the Gioza and then our Italian Pizza and breadsticks which were the hit of the party. WE also had Fruit Smoothies for Rio as Fruit Juice bars apparently are popular there.



I think we will make this a tradition to do every year although I think we'll spend more time studying the countries and have the fair in the early spring when things aren't so hectic and we can take more time.

Once our time was done being spent on the International Fair...Halloween was all the craze! We had our Music Halloween party to prepare for, decorations to get up, and clothing to pull out and put on! This was the kids with what halloween t-shirts they owned.



Then Grandma Duck always pulls through with the best packages of stuff including socks! Little did she know the kids had totally been fighting over the 2 pairs that we had already owned. Perfect timing Grandma Duck!



If anybody looked at the blog from the Community Craft event I recently helped put on...we had some painted 2x4 pumpkins. I was making some thank you gifts and used the same idea but modpodged paper on the fronts instead. Didn't like that i had to use my scrap paper and fabric, but otherwise? Loved. Them.



Last Saturday was our Stake Leadership Meetings and I had been asked to come and teach the Primary Music. I had such a wonderful experience with it last year that I was excited to do it again. It was truly a wonderful and very spiritual opportunity and I learn something new each time. I wanted something for these music leaders to take home with them so I made these little cubes to use in Primary. They can write what they want on the sides (softly, loudly, boys, girls) and then let the kids roll the cube before singing a song. Luckily (cause otherwise I wouldn't have made them) I already had the cubes from a previous project. Thanks to my hoarding habits.

I attached this quote:

"We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer."

Pumpkin Carving

Thursday morning the kids had the preschool Halloween Party. Jayden pretty much took his costume off right away and didn't play a single game. Maliyah and Kyson had fun though! Emma was a cute little lady bug and didn't want me out of her sight. The night before Maliyah had helped me make some hair accessories for a friend and I had to get some pictures of them! I had to get feathers for the International Fair and saw a friend use them in a baby hair clip so we did the same. LOVED it.

Maliyah was spiderwoman and got to be the person mummified in a game. Kyson got to as well.





Nanna LOVES her baby Emma and she also lately LOVES having her picture taken (when it's not formal). As soon as she sees me taking pictures of Emma she always jumps in the shot!









Kyson found this pirate costume in our dressups and chose it for the preschool party. He wore it all day!



Friday night was our Ward Halloween Party and Chili Cookoff. I heard it was a huge success! But we were an hour late so I couldn't tell ya. No, actually we got there during the greatest thriller performance ever by our babysitter Jade and two others, and there was the biggest halloween costume crowd ever! It was fun to see all the kid AND adult costumes. The kids had a costume parade, they had the chili contest and dessert and costume contest and then trunk-or-treat. The kids loved it all

This picture is a Lady in the ward named Juanita. She is a hoot. I love chatting with her and she is just so sweet. She loves holding Emma and Emma hates being held by anybody out of her family. But Juanita won't give up and is determined that one day Emma will love being held by her!



We carved our pumpkins kinda late this year. We also did things a little differently. We carved just two pumpkins then let each of the kids pick potato head type toy things to make faces. They have pointy backs on each piece to push into the pumpkin. Lol, okay that sounded dumb and I don't even have a picture to show you...but we will! Tomorrow. Anyway, each kid got to pick a face that we put on two sides of two more pumpkins.

Sunday Best

Some good friends of ours throw a Halloween party every year and every year it gets better and better! This year was no exception. The kids had a blast and it was fun being with friends. It's also when I take the opportunity to take our family Halloween picture. Usually by the time we get to it ON halloween....it's too dark for a good picture. Little ones were cranky, and scared of mom...and the 3 year old was afraid of the fly buggin' us, but we got the picture nonetheless!



As you can see (hopefully) we were dressed as the characters from Despicable me. I was Dr. Nefario, Duck was supposed to be Gru although he decided to not be festive and dress all the way up, Maliyah, Savannah, and Emma were dressed as the three orphan girls Margo, Edith and Agnes, Kyson was a minion and Jayden was of course Vector!

Somehow with Emma as Agnes I had to create some hair with a big ol' sticky out pony tail. It wasn't easy, but I feel I succeeded!



Jayden makes the best Vector. He already loved him from the movie and did a great 'oh yeah' not to mention his favorite scene about him wearing pajamas!

   

Maliyah totally looked the part of Margo and LOVED that I didn't have to do much to her hair. She always wants to have her hair in JUSt a ponytail and for one weekend actually got to!



Kyson was at first super excited about being a minion, but then later got a little self conscious about it. Winning the best costume at the ward activity though helped boost his confidence!



The party was a blast and I took a bazillion pictures but the last one I had to share was of our friends little girl. I went out back to take some of their two kids, and this little gal was just too cute!!








Every SUnday when my kids are in their Sunday best I want to take their picture. But inevitably we are always in a hurry and running late and it doesn't happen. BUT Halloween Sunday Best only happens once a year...if that so late or not. We were taking a picture.