Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Dorothy, Toto, and Wolverine!

Top Five Friday #5 - Trick or Treat Candy

Do your children "share" their Halloween candy with you? I rarely buy myself any candy, but I do look forward to enjoying a few (ahem, sure, just a few) pieces of candy from the Trick or Treat stash. No one is giving out Godiva (too bad, that would be fantastic) so this week I am listing my top five common trick or treat candies to "steal" (I wanted to write borrow or share, but we all know that is just silly) from my children! Before anyone gets angry, my children get way too much candy on Halloween and if they ate all of it, their teeth would rot and then I would have outrageous dental bills and I would have to go back to work and then I wouldn't be able to blog anymore and you would miss me! (You would miss me, wouldn't you?)

Enough of that, here is my list:

1. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - "two great tastes that taste great together", what more can I say?
2. Twix - the cookie, the caramel, the chocolate - all good!
   
3. Almond Joy - they have coconut and almonds, two of my favorite foods! I just wish that I could have an Almond Joy with dark chocolate, combine the greatness of Mounds with the greatness of Almond Joy - perfect!
4. Peppermint Patty - cool, refreshing, dark chocolate, yum!
5. Kit Kat - crispy and chocolatey at the same time, so good.

I'm a chocolate person. I have no interest in the fruity candies. Just share the chocolate! So, what are you hoping to find in your child's trick or treat stash? If you want to link up here, but have a different top five in mind, that is great too! Please share!

Ghosts in the House

R LOVES the book, Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara so I knew we had to do a book project before returning it to the library. If you are not familiar with this book, we definitely recommend it. The plot is simple: a girl goes to live in a house but it is haunted. Luckily, she is a witch and she knows just what to do with those ghosts. R's favorite part of the book is when the witch puts all of the ghosts in the washing machine; R laughs every time we read this. I love the simplicity of this book, and I also love that the witch and ghosts are cute, adorable actually!


Our project was simple. We followed the color scheme (orange, black, and white) of the book and placed a black construction paper house on top of orange paper. Then we used white tissue paper to make a bunch of ghosts and glued them on and around the house. R drew faces on her ghost friends. She was very happy with her picture!

A Tea Party

R was so excited when she received an invitation to have tea with Great Grandma and Auntie Cyn. It was just the three of them, and they went all out!

They baked cookies.

Dressed up in fancy clothes.

And had a lot of fun together!

This is what memories are made of. I know R will never forget moments like this.

A Witch and a Wizard

C and R had fun turning party hats and paper plates into witch and wizard hats.

This idea came from 4 Crazy Kings. Click on that link to learn how to make a witch or wizard hat of your own.

Pumpkin Faces - Not quite open-ended art

The theme for open ended art this week is pumpkins. C and R made paper plate pumpkin faces, and I have to admit that the only open-ended part of this was that I let them decorate the pumpkin faces however they wanted.

To see some real open-ended art, visit my friend Shannon's blog.

A letter to the bus driver

C decided to write (dictate) a letter to his bus driver. I had to share this with you:

Dear Mr. D,

I like riding on the bus. Thank you for bringing me to school. Thank you for bringing me home.

Skeleton bones,
Spiders eat you up,
Ghosts and monsters on the bus,
Mummies growl,
Lollipops sing,
Pumpkins' scary faces,
Witch hats brew.

Love, C

I think it is the best letter ever written! Okay, maybe I'm a bit biased, but I do love the poem!

(The photo is from C's first day of Kindergarten)

G is for Goldilocks

We have reached the end of our alphabet project. We started this project long before I had a blog, so most of our letter projects have not been posted. The letter "G" has been out there, waiting for the right idea to come along, and finally we decided on Goldilocks.

I cut the letter "G" out of a paper plate and R painted it.If you haven't noticed before, R loves to wear her bathing suit (or "bathing soup" as she calls it). You would think we live in Hawaii (that would be nice). We live in Massachusetts, and it is not warm.

While we waited for the paint to dry, we read two different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.


The Three Bears by Paul Galdone: This is the classic tale, or at least I thought it was until I read the reviews on Amazon. There are a lot of complaints about the bears not being referred to as Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear in this book. They are Great Big Bear, Middle-Sized Bear, and Little Wee Bear. I thought it was strange when I read the book, but it never crossed my mind that it was an attempt at political correctness. The reviewers seem to think it is just that. I don't know if it is, but my children saw the bears and immediately thought of them as a family with a father, mother, and baby. Maybe they would see the bears differently if they had a different type of family. Anyway, I think people get worked up over the silliest things. Does it really matter what we call the bears?

R told me this book had to be read while wearing sunglasses.

Goldilocks and The Three Martians by Stu Smith: Goldilocks is fed up with chores and homework so she decides to build a spaceship and blasts off to Mars for an adventure. This is a fun twist on the classic story, and there are even bears and porridge in the story. Also, the martians are a family and are referred to as Papa, Mama, and Baby. We spent a little time comparing this book to the original story. R and C both enjoyed this activity.

R made this Goldilocks "G" almost entirely by herself. She grabbed a piece of pink paper and decided to cut out a dress. Then she cut some yellow yarn and made hair. I tied the ribbon for her, but that is all I did. She drew the face and the hand. I loved how proud she was when she finished.


Now that we have finished the uppercase letters, we are going to focus on lowercase letters for a while. R already knows all of the uppercase and lowercase letters, but she really enjoys the alphabet project and she is only three so I think it is a great review of the alphabet.

Halloween Cookie Cutters

We have not made Halloween sugar cookies with our pumpkin, bat, and ghost cookie cutters this year, but we have put the cookie cutters to good use.


C places the cookie cutters on paper and traces around them. Then he fills in the details to create his Halloween masterpiece. He loves to draw, and the cookie cutters help him add cool details to his art.


This work is great for developing hand strength, concentration, fine motor skills, and control of a pencil/writing utensil.

Most importantly, C thinks this is a lot of fun!

*I recently saw this activity posted at My Montessori Journey.

Wall Art, Nursery Decor, and More!

I recently discovered CSN Baby.com. Are you familiar with this site? They have everything from lamps to wall art to rugs and more. They have a great selection of nursery decor, so if you are in the market, check out their site.

CSN Baby.com is sending me these beautiful removable wall art tulips to review so stay tuned to hear what I think of this product!

Green Eggs and Ham

I couldn't resist taking this photo. Kelly really enjoyed listening to R read Green Eggs and Ham.

Top Five Friday #4 - Mom's wish list

This week I am going to tell you what is on my top five wish list. A wish list for Mom? Who ever heard of such a thing? Anyway, we are in the process of buying a new house (which also means new furniture) so my husband and I are not spending money on each other for Christmas. We really don't NEED anything so why spend more money on material items, right? So, this is just a list of things that I would LOVE to have someday. A mom can dream, right? You are probably going to laugh at my list because I really don't care about fancy cars (love my minivan) or jewelry. I just LOVE to be pampered.

1. A day at the spa: I love facials and pedicures. They are so rejuvenating. I would also love to try one of those hot stone massages someday.

2. Really nice bedding to go on my new organic mattress. I want my bed to look pretty, and MOST IMPORTANTLY feel really good. I can't ever bring myself to spend money on expensive bedding but I really want it! Bring on the luxurious sheets, comforter, and pillows please!

3. iRobot Scooba: this little robot will wash my floors for me! I can set it to wash my floors while I am at the spa! Is there anything better than that?

4. A night out with my husband. I love going out to my favorite restaurant for dinner with my husband.

5. Theater tickets: I don't care what the show is (although Wicked and Rent are both shows I have wanted to see for a while), and I don't care who I go with (my husband is not a fan of theater so I don't see the need to make him suffer), but I LOVE to sit in a theater and watch a musical or play. This is one of my favorite things to do. AND, while I am at the theater, the Scooba can wash my floors!

What do you think of my list? Would any of these things be on your wish list?

If you would like to share a top five list, please link up here. Your list does not have to be a wish list like mine, it can include any five things that you happen to love right now!

Open-ended art and a few stinky ghosts!

This is R's open-ended art for the week:The theme was black and white. C was not interested in the open-ended portion of our art time.

R and C both decided that black paper with white paint calls for a few ghosts. C, surprisingly, decided to make ghosts. I was surprised only because I did not think he would want his feet painted. I think it was the overwhelming desire to create some cool ghosts!

I love painting their feet for craft projects!
Here is R in her bathing suit; she loves wearing it. It's funny.


She stuck on some googly eyes and drew mouths. I love her ghosts.

C used a lot of googly eyes to make his picture extra spooky. He also drew a vampire bat (if you don't know how much he loves vampire bats, then you have not been reading my blog) in the upper right corner and stuck on a few stickers. His picture is cute and spooky all in one!



To see more open-ended art, visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

Pumpkin Art

C, R, and I had a lot of fun painting pumpkins. I invited T to join us, but his response was, "Do I have to?" He is twelve. Enough said.

Here are some photos of us creating pumpkin art:




This is the pumpkin I painted:
A cloud on one side, the sun on the other, with a rainbow in the middle. My husband asked me if I was in third grade. Third graders have much more artistic ability than I do. I was just trying to paint something the kids would like.

This is one of C's favorite creations:
Here is one of R's favorite creations:
Do you paint or carve your Halloween pumpkins?